40th Birthday Weekend - Koh Phi Phi Island, Thailand

Wow!  It's been a long time since I blogged.  Maybe I turned 40 and I couldn't keep up anymore!  No!  Just a busy time of year as a teacher!

Tanya, Andrea, Kerry, Debra, Jill, Gina

Fortunately, my birthday fell on a Saturday of a long weekend in Singapore - how cool is that?  Although I love sightseeing and seeing new places, I really do love relaxation and so that is exactly what I wanted to do for my birthday.

So I asked around to get people's advice of a great tropical, beach place and though there were many options - Koh Phi Phi (pronounced PP) kept coming up.

6 of us (Debra, Andrea, Gina, Kerry, Tanya and myself) left on Friday night and flew to Phuket, Thailand.  Stayed at a hotel that was very inexpensive yet clean (www.chinotelphuket.com) near the ferry terminal.  Saturday morning our driver from the night before picked us up and drove us to the ferry.  It was about 1 hour 45 mins. ferry ride to Koh Phi Phi Island and then someone from the resort picked us up from there to take us to the resort, another 20 minute boat ride.  The resort was Phi Phi Island Village Beach Resort and Spa and here is the link to it....http://www.ppisland.com/



It had been raining all morning but when we got off the boat and were greeted with pina colodas and a refreshing facecloth and asked to sit down overlooking the ocean, the rain vanished and the sun came out!

Gina and Jill drinking Miss Phi Phi drinks!

After checking in, we all made spa appointments for the day, got into our bathing suits, had lunch and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon by the pool and in the spa!

I had a wonderful, relaxing 85 minute aromatherapy massage. Oh so relaxing.  And my therapist (for the weekend Ann) put this sideways French braid in my hair which acted like a head band - and then added a white Franchipanchi flower.

Andrea, Kerry, Tanya enjoying the bumps and breeze on the speedboat!

Before dinner I opened the cards from my family and then we had a great seafood dinner at one of the resort's restaurants and sang with the band!

Sunday morning we rented a speed boat for 4 hours to drive us to key areas to snorkel, play around in the water, see Maya Beach (from the movie The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio) and took us to the town of Phi Phi for some souvenir shopping!  It was a great day.

Tanya, Kerry, Gina, Andrea, Debra, Jill on Maya Beach

We all came back for our spa appointments.  This time I had a Thai Herbal Scrub and a head, neck, back massage!  Hair done again!  We met  for cocktails at 7 and dinner at 8.  We had a special dinner on the beach under the huge bright full moon.  Mom and Dad surprised me and bought 2 bottles of Prosecco which we enjoyed!  We were serenaded on the beach by the resort musical ensemble.  We had pre-chosen our set meals which was about 5 courses long.  And after dessert when we couldn't eat another bite, a beautiful birthday cake arrived!  It was also Tanya's 40th birthday on that Monday and that's why we had the beach dinner birthday on the Sunday!

Birthday Gals!

We burned a few more calories singing and dancing along with the band and then called it a night!

Full Moon!

Dinner on the beach

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Monday was the most beautiful day of them all and fortunately we had until 12:30 to enjoy it.  I went for more spa treatment - a facial!  And a hair-do!





It was certainly an extraordinary birthday!