Relaxing on Phucket and Koh Lanta in Thailand

The wonderful thing about the islands is that you can spend days doing nothing but swimming, relaxing in the shade (some sunbathe, but I hide), hunting for food or cocktails and maybe reading a bit. Doing these things in the company of my two lovely ladies was absolutely heavenly. We spent one day exploring the beach in Phucket before making our way down to Koh Lanta for the remainder of our stay. The bus ride from one to the other was fairly typical of my travels around SE Asia, but served as an educational experience for my two newbies. Time here is flexible, information is scarce, and the driver will often make random stops in the middle of nowhere just to say hello to his cousin. You learn to relax, pack snacks and water, and don't expect to get to your destination in anything even remotely close to a reasonable amount of time....unless you paid triple for a private car, you baller you. 

Once we settled in, the pace significantly slowed down. We relaxed by the beach, we relaxed by the pool, we relaxed in several restaurants, and we ate lots and lots of fresh seafood. Fishermen do the rounds past the restaurants in the afternoon selling their morning's catch and the restaurants set up little boats filled with ice and the fish for you right out front. Once you picked your victim and specified how you'd like it prepared they get to work as you sip on your cocktail and the gorgeous spread is set before you in no time.

Our dinner being weighed before a trip to the grill

Someone must have been hungry :D

Random candy found at the 7Eleven around the corner

Can't beat the lunchtime view!

Delicious pepper crab!

Aaaahhhhh!

I must have dragged 4 or 5 umbrellas over our lounge chairs on the first day

in my determination not to burn. Once we settled in, cocktails were a must.

I have probably consumed at least a dozen watermelons in one form or another

since arriving in SE Asia. Delicious and incredibly cooling.

Nothing to do but contemplate life before food arrives. 

Ooohh, barracuda!

We did get our butts off the beach one day for a scuba diving adventure around Koh Haa. The water was the clearest I've ever seen in my life and the gorgeous karsts jutting out of it set a lovely scene. I've been diving before, but it was a first for the girls and everyone absolutely loved every second of it!

Can you spot the fishies in the clear blue water? No photoshop here! 

Just nature at her very best.

And of course we made sure to enjoy the heck out of every single sunset, from every part of our long gorgeous beach. Out of all the places I'd visited so far, this is the first I wouldn't mind coming back to.