When we originally planned to leave work, we had a trip around Asia in mind but Covid had other ideas. After a lot of paperwork, sorting house-sitters and pets we’ve finally set off to Thailand and beyond. First week, we’ll be in Khao Lak for some daughter time and then who knows…

We flew with Qatar Airways who were just as good as we remembered. Great staff, food and a very empty plane for the first 6 hours.

After a brief panic in Doha with 2 staff counting on their fingers the hours since our pcr test, our next flight to Phuket was full but, on landing, we were through the airport with the numerous tests and more invasive jabbing really quickly. We waved to Kate across the corridor and then holed up in our room for 5 hours awaiting test results in a thunderstorm. This was followed by a huge hug and cocktails.

We had a couple of lazy days recovering from the flight and enjoying the beautiful beach as well as some relaxing massages. The tests on day 1 and day 5 were luckily fine and so we are now free to move around Thailand. Kate and Ali scoped out a trip to the Similian Islands which we then took too. We had quite a bumpy speed boat ride (which Callum managed to sleep through) followed by some good snorkelling and beaches with talcum powder sand. There were some huge monitor lizards which tried to join us for lunch too.

Next, we are heading off to Khao Sok to hopefully walk off some of the many cocktails.