Monday, March 27, 2006

The perfect babymoon

I'm in complete withdrawl today. Having returned last night from the most perfect babymoon, I am missing the heat, the pool, the fruity drinks, the friendly Thai greetings, the sun... I'm missing it all. Phuket was wonderful. The resort we stayed at was out of this world. About a year and a half ago, in November 2004, we went on an exquisite beach vacation to Langkawi, Malaysia, and I never thought we could find a place we loved as much as that place. But we did!

Here's a quick summary of our babymoon. Our days went something like this...

Wake up leisurely (with no alarms!) after a totally restful night's sleep in one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept in. (By the way, a restful night's sleep is hard to come by for a woman who's 6 months pregnant, so this was something to celebrate!) Walk out on the balcony to check the weather conditions... let's see, today it'll be hot and humid and mostly sunny, just like every day in Phuket! (except for one day when it rained all morning, but we won't complain) Here's the view from our balcony. This is one of the 3 resort pools.



Stroll over to the cafe for the scrumptious breakfast buffet, featuring lots of local fresh fruits, including watermelon, pineapple, mango, papaya, and bananas. Comment several times during the walk to the breakfast about how good everything smells. There was this amazing floral scent everywhere we walked. We later learned it was all the jasmine growing around the resort. The only thing that smelled better were the cool lemongrass towels that were served to us before every meal. We were pampered!

After breakfast, stake out a good place at one of the magnificent pools. "Where should we start today?" was a typical breakfast conversation. Let me say this. I LOVE nice pools. I love floating around in the refreshing water with the sun shining down on me. Nothing is better or more peaceful. Here's the view from one of our common pool seats.



One section of the pool had these cool elephant statues spraying water everywhere. In the kids section of the pool, there were also turtles and fish doing the same thing. How great are these elephants?



With the exception of one day when we rented a car and drove around the island (more about that later), we spent the bulk of every day camped out at the pool. Kirk would stay in the shade of an umbrella and I would alternate between sun and shade, mainly staying cool by flopping into the water every few minutes. Continuing on, our days went like this...

Relax by the pool. Read lots of books. Nap occasionally. Cool off with ice water and cool lemongrass towels delivered throughout the day by the pool boys. At some point, order lunch. At some other point, order fruity drinks (there are even good non-alcoholic fruity drinks for pregnant women like me such as virgin pina coladas and virgin mango daquiris!). Swim. A lot. Enjoy the fresh watermelon delivered a couple times a day by the pool boys.



At some point during the day, take a break from the pool and head down to the virtually deserted beach to take a swim in the Andaman Sea. Hold on tight to your husband as you float in the waves because the currents are strong!



After a relaxing day in the sun, cool off in your lovely air conditioned room and get ready for dinner. There were several restaurants at our resort, but we steered away from the Italian option (we live in Switzerland, after all...) and chose either Thai or Japanese every night. What a treat! We ate lots and lots of fish. And I ate lots and lots of shrimp. Considering we don't get much seafood or Asian food of any kind in Basel, we were thrilled with our meals. At the Thai restaurant, you could choose your own fresh fish from this fish cooler.



A few days ago, a letter from our travel company was delivered to our hotel room informing us of what time the airport shuttle would pick us up on Sunday morning (we booked the vacation through a Swiss travel agent). Assuming we were Swiss, it was all written in German. It started like this: "Alles schöne hat ein Ende...", meaning all good things must come to an end. That was certainly true for this trip! One week was hardly enough. At least we have lots of good memories and lots of beautiful pictures...