We decided to use our trip home to visit Phuket, Thailand over the US Thanksgiving and my birthday. It was a fun and memorable trip... for a variety of reasons - ha!
We had an early flight from Baku to Doha and then a second flight from Doha to Phuket. The entire trip was around 10-11 hours total. The girls were really amazing travelers - they took a couple naps and enjoyed the entertainment systems on Qatar Airways.
We grabbed dinner at our hotel after we arrived and called it a night after the long day of travel. The next morning we all slept in and the girls had to be woken around 10 am so we could grab breakfast before the buffet closed.
But then they were ready to go have fun! We had a lazy day at the hotel before making our way to Patong beach in the afternoon to walk around and grab dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.
Our second full day we spent the morning taking some family pictures at the hotel (I'll share in a separate post when I get them!) and relaxing in the afternoon. The hotel had entertainment for kids most evenings and we watched the shows a few times throughout our week.
Thursday (Thanksgiving Day) we woke up early to drive to a different part of Phuket and catch our elephant safari with Siam Safari. We got a bit worried how things were going to go since during the elephant information portion at the beginning the baby elephant kind of roared and all three girls started crying. However, Madi calmed down and still wanted to feed the elephant and was still excited to go on the ride. Phew! This was probably my favorite part of the trip and I am so glad we did it!
Friday was my birthday and we had no plans until the evening. Madi had been wanted to go to the beach so we traded the pool for the sand and walked the short distance from our hotel to the water.
This was the day that the twins really started to act grumpy. They had been a bit under the weather Thursday with fevers that we hoped were just due to teething, but we started to notice a rash on both girls' legs that got worse and worse Friday and Saturday (more to come on that). We headed back mid-day to give the girls lunch and naps while Madi and I hopped into the pool and I got serenaded by this sweet girl. :-)
We got dressed and headed out to the popular FantaSea show. We had dinner there and walked around the shops until the doors were opened to head inside the theater. Olivia promptly fell asleep (the show didn't start until 9 pm) and slept through pretty much the entire show despite there being fireworks and loud pops. She woke up towards the end just in time for the big elephant parade which she loved. Evelyn and Madi sat mesmerized by the show the entire time and loved it. The show was amazing and I am really glad we went. There's no photography allowed inside so you'll just have to fly to Phuket and see the show for yourself. ;-)
Saturday we headed to the Upside Down House. The girls were a bit grumpy and it was hot outside so we kept the visit a bit short. Afterwards we headed to the Phuket Aquarium for an indoor activity.
Sunday was our last full day in Phuket and I hadn't had a chance to go souveniour shopping so Madi and I headed to the Patong beach area. It was fun to get some time with her and she was great at helping me decide on a few things to bring home. :-)
The previous night we had done some research and were concerned the girls might have chicken pox or hand, foot, and mouth disease. Jason spent the time I was gone calling International SOS to see about going to a doctor and what we should do about our flight the next day. We were also talking to our doctor in Baku. We ended up going to the hospital to see the pediatrician and got diagnosed with hand, foot, and mouth. The doctors recommended we stay an additional five days, but our doctor in Baku said he thought we would be okay to fly since the legions were scabbing over and new ones hadn't presented. Our residence permits were expiring Dec 1 so if we didn't get back to Baku before then we would have had to go to another country to apply for a visitor visa to get back in - meaning we would be gone anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks. In the end we decided to take precautions not to spread germs as much as possible and take our original flight home. The girls did pretty good on the flights and it's been good to be back home. Madi did end up catching a mild case as well so we've spent the rest of this week at home resting and trying to get healthy before we have family visiting.
Overall it was a good holiday in Phuket and definitely one we will remember - ha!
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