LEFT:    Waiting in the departure "lounge" at Don Muang Airport for our Air Asia flight.
RIGHT:    On the tarmac and in the queue for boarding.

The flight to Phuket last around 1hr 20mins and everything was on time. These Air Asia flights are almost hourly throughout daylight hours. We were no sooner in our seats when the plane was taxiing for take off; they don't mess about.
Arrived at Phuket into hot sunshine, reclaimed our bags and headed off to await our ride 60km to Khao Lak. Alas, there was a bit of a problem....
When we reached the pick-up area outside arrivals there was no sign of our booked limousine. After 20 minutes I began to get concerned and eventually phoned the Mukdara Resort to ask why or ride wasn't here; the reply being "the car's on its way". Finally, it arrived and I was about to ask the driver why he was late when I noticed the placard he was holding for us to identify him stated a flight arrival time of 13:40, not 12:40 as I had assumed. I later realised that I had brought our original flight plan forward to the earlier flight in order to make the most of daylight hours once at Khao Lak. Soft-lad here had forgotten to pass on this bit of information on to the resort.
The limousine was a sleek black big Toyota and the driver didn't hang about, overtaking at every opportunity. This got a little "interesting" when we got to the mountainous part of the coast road with its sharp bends and sheer rock faces. One side was thick tropical rainforest jungle right down to road level the other side a drop onto beaches and the Indian Ocean, quite spectacular actually.
Arrived at Khao Lak at about 14:00 and we were impressed by the greeting the resort reception gave us. All very plush. A nice glass of 'something fruity' whilst we were checked-in. This was followed by an electric buggy ride along twisted pathways to our villa. The resort was pretty much as I remember it from 20007 when I stayed here for a couple of days whilst on a dive-trip from Ranong in the north.
It was very very hot and unbelievably humid. I suppose being at the edge of Thailand's largest area of tropical rainforest had something to do with that plus the fact it was the rainy monsoon season. It was case of get the air-con on full blast and doing some rudimentary unpacking.
Rather than fully unpack, we opted for a stroll around the resort and stopped off for the obligatory ice-cold beer. Then decide to take a walk up to Khao Lak which was about 1-5km from the resort. I had Jack in his backpack carrier but by the time we got only half-way I began to suffer badly from the humidity. Found a shady bit to sit down and take-5 but when we did get to the main road I really did feel unwell. I'm well used to tropical conditions, but this degree of humidity really did take its toll on me. However, after popping into an air-conditioned 7-11 for a spell I did recover somewhat. Armed with some bits and pieces such as 6-litre pack of water and some snacky stuff for Jack we slowly ambled our way back to Mukdara.
Baby Jack hadn't much in the way of sleep throughout the day and when it was time for us to go to dinner he decided on going to sleep. I solved this problem by ordering our dinner vis room service, so it was a case of dining in our villa which was delivered at 21:00.
The villa itself is fairly spacious with an enormous bathroom with a jacuzzi bath. A separate outdoor shower area lay beyond. A good nights sleep put us in good stead for the morrow.