Ever since we laid our eyes on the fabulous property of the Amari Coral Beach Resort online and read the details on their website, we had decided to keep aside some time to explore the resort. The 3rd day was the perfect time to do it as the day was for relaxing between two excursions.

This is the Rim Talay restaurant - one of the most scenic setting ever seen. Buffet breakfast was served here and I really miss the experience of having a fabulous breakfast in this gorgeous setting.

 After breakfast, we set off to the ‘Jetty’. Amari has its own jetty and the road to the jetty is a little excursion in itself. From the Rim Talay, we stepped on to the resort’s private beach.

The private beach. The fenced path in the distance is the road to jetty and the resort spa.

That’s the jetty as seen from the beach or from our rooms.

The picturesque winding road to Amari’s Jetty with the national forest on the left.

That’s it - the lovely jetty! You can take the steps down the front and start snorkeling right away. Or relax and tan on the sun beds here. Or come here for a romantic dinner in the evening right above the waters of the Andamans!

The jetty gave us the full view of our wonderful resort with all sea-facing rooms. And think about this - we are still on the hotel property!

Once  we had explored theresort, we took off for Patong again for our Thai massage at Patong Synergy Massage in the Post Office lane on Patong beach road (opposite Siam Ceramics). The ladies kept our daughter busy with hair braiding and nail art and the little Disney Princessfan was on cloud nine.

The lovely road to Patong from Amari resort.

Patong Beach

After the massage, we strolled to the other side of the Patong Beach Road - the Rat-U-Thit road famous for shopping. We did not shop since we were to go to Bangkok which is much cheaper. We stepped into Jungceylon mall and bought some Phuket souvenirs (sand art candles) and had homemade ice-cream.

Jungceylon mall on Rat-U-Thit Road

We had lunch on Rat-U-Thit road, shopped at one of the ‘Family Mart’ stores for water and some other stuff and returned to the resort in a Tuk-Tuk. Dinner was room service Pizza from La Gritta that we had become addicted to. La Gritta and the Jetty (turned into a diner in the evenings) glowed with beautiful lights and we could see them from our room every day.

‘La Gritta’ Italian restaurant - and Jetty seen far behind

Our second day promised a lot of fun and some really good memories. Simba Sea Trips was highly recommended by TripAdvisor members and we booked two tours with them, the first being Phi-Phi Islands. The tour is run by Geoff and Jenny who are British and Australian respectively and safely chose a place halfway from their respective countries to live after they married. Everybody on the tour seemed to think they were wonderful hosts and we all ended up being very good friends. The tour included pickup and dropoff from hotel, breakfast, lunch, evening snacks, life jackets and snorkeling equipment and was to include a trip to the famous Maya Bay (of Leo Caprio’s ‘The Beach’ movie). We stopped at different islands throughout the day and Sanika had a BLAST playing in the water. She easily forgot and forgave her previous day’s fun at the Patong beach. The excursion took us away from the touristy Phuket and into the exotic picture-postcard type locales in the Andamans. Here are some photos from the trip:

Lunch was served at ‘The Beach’ (Maya Bay) where we all were glad to follow in the footsteps of Leonardo Di Caprio.

 View of ‘The Beach’

View from ‘The Beach’

The day was also very important in my life as I did something that I had never done before - and nothing so adventurous for the past few years. I don’t know how to swim but did not want to miss out on the fun ohters were having. I mentioned it to Jenny and she encouraged me to snorkel with her. She actually held my hand while we headed towards the middle of the ocean and gave me an experience to remember. What I saw beneath, I could not capture (did I mention I do not even know how to swim, leave along having an under-water camera?) and neither can I attempt to describe the marvels of nature that unfolded before me under the sea, but I can only tell you that what I saw will forever remain with me, that I was far off from this world and into a very different one when I was looking underneath and that I cannot wait to do it again. And since everyone wants to get a glimpse of the Nemo fish, it was only proper that I try my luck at it - and I did discover Nemo! Poor Rohit could not do it, although he wanted to do it as badly as I did. He has a moustache and the water kept getting into his mask because of his moustache.

Me (mask on) and Jenny of Simba Sea Trips

 Geoff and Jenny and their team of seamen were seasoned enough to know the best spots for Snorkeling and dropped the anchor of the boat right in the middle of nowhere to give us a chance to snorkel at the best spots. We also snorkeled at every island beach that we stopped at. Tired after swimming and snorkeling the entire day, we came back delighted with our choice for the excursion and on making new friends from all over the world. Sanika fell asleep on the way back.