All packed up and ready to head back to Bangkok… We checked out of our condo and drove up the coast making our way slowly to the Phuket airport. Check out the Surin Beach viewpoint. Just gorgeous! We are going to miss this place!
We stopped again at Banana Beach, but because we didn’t want to get sandy before getting on a plane, we explored the rocks and tidepools just north of the beach. Also, in the few days since we were here before, the parking lot and entrance were paved! Great access now without fear of getting the car stuck in the loose sand.
Spud saw an octopus come out of a hole and had a blast trying to entice it to grab a stick. We watched a bunch of mudskippers hopping on the rocks, enjoyed a rope swing, and soaked up the views of turquoise water.
Next stop up the coast was Naithon Beach where we ate a picnic lunch. We just love the funny English translations and mis-spellings on Thai signs. Snokering…. ha!
We returned the rental car, made it through the airport, and got settled in for the short flight to Bangkok. Koalie is a seasoned traveler and had a great time in Phuket. The kids are amazing travelers too!
We took a Bolt car to the hotel we booked that is halfway between the two airports (Don Mueng Airport (DMK) is for domestic travel, Savarnabhumi Airport (BKK) is for international flights). Evening traffic meant it took over an hour to get to the hotel. Check out this amazing family suite — beds upstairs for the kids! It also had a second sink out on the balcony for who knows what reason. We walked to the restaurant next door and had the very best Thai chicken cashew. Wow, it was so yummy! We hit our pillows early because we had to get up at 3:30am to head to the airport. Luckily the Bolt driver showed up right on time and there wasn’t much early morning traffic so we had no problems getting to the airport.
We flew Air Canada on the way home. We boarded at about 8:30am Bangkok time, but as soon as we were up in the air they changed the time to Vancouver BC time and fed us dinner at 9:30am. At 1pm they brought a midnight snack of ratatouie sandwiches (seriously soggy baguette with salsa and swiss cheese. yuck) and biscoff. At 8:45pm we were fed breakfast. Backwards day. And all on the same day. About halfway through the flight we realized that our arrival date on our tickets were somehow printed in Thailand time, plus one day from home. When we got to Vancouver BC I texted my mother who was picking us up from the airport and said we’d be arriving later today, not tomorrow! So strange.
We all tried to sleep on the plane (about a 13 hour flight) because in Canada it was an overnight flight… but of course to us it felt like daytime so we only got a short nap. (The lady sitting next to Miss A spent the entire flight watching Miss A’s movie screen. No sound. Her screen worked fine. So strange.)
Then we went through customs in Vancouver and re-entered the USA and then we had a 6 hour layover… Spud and Littlest girl fell asleep the second we found benches they could lay on near our gate and slept the whole time. The rest of us tried and tried to get to sleep, but between the bright sunshine streaming through the windows, hundreds of people milling around, and announcements over the speaker system every minute, we weren’t successful.
By the time we boarded to fly to Denver we were painfully tired. Just look at this poor Littlest Girl who could barely make it from her bench to the plane before she was zonked out again.
Littlest Girl and Spud were pretty successful at sleeping on that 3 hour flight, but between the attendants bringing snacks and water and the bright light it was just about impossible for the rest of us. In Denver we had to rush to our next gate and were so glad to be on the final leg of the journey. We finally all fell asleep when we were in the air… but of course that flight is only about an hour and a half. Sooooo tired.
Thankfully my parents picked us up from the airport so we didn’t have to wait, and we had no trouble with our luggage after all those transfers. We picked up Dominoes pizza on the way home — SO YUMMY!! We got home about 8:45pm and ate and thought it was perfect timing since we’d been up for more than 35 hours traveling and it was a reasonable time to go to bed. We figured if we could sleep now, we’d be able to get back on the right time zone easily. Everyone was in bed by 9:30, exhausted, loving our comfortable beds and expecting to sleep all night. Surprise… At midnight every single one of us was wide awake.
Jet lag of a 14 hour time difference is a beast. It took us a solid two weeks to not feel like zombies. For days we tried and tried to stay up but would fall asleep absolutely exhausted by 3, 4, 5pm and be wide awake at 1, 2, 3am. I’ve never been so glad we homeschool and didn’t have to immediately return to full schedule except for the high school classes (but those are early morning and so felt like afternoon). It was so hard to get back on schedule!! But would I do it again?? Absolutely! Thailand was amazing!!
