December in Asia: Warm Water
The Andaman Sea at the start of the dry season. Flat crossings to Phang Nga Bay and a villa set above the water in Phuket.
December is the first clean month of the Andaman dry season. The north-east monsoon has settled, the sea flattens, and the crossings to Phang Nga Bay that are unreliable in October are dependable by the second week. It is the month we send members who want warm water without the crowding that arrives after Christmas.
The fortnight opens with two nights in Singapore. It is a useful place to land long-haul, clear a working morning and reset the clock before anything is asked of you. From there it is a ninety-minute leg to Phuket, and the rest of the trip is spent between a villa above the water on the west coast and a boat.
Days are left unstructured on purpose. Most members swim before breakfast, take the boat out mid-morning to Koh Yao Noi, Koh Hong or the drowned limestone of Phang Nga, and are back on land by mid-afternoon. Sea temperature holds around twenty-nine degrees. Evenings are warm and dry, and nobody is expected at dinner.
Phuket International takes anything on the fleet list and sits forty minutes from the west coast hotels. Changi is among the best-run airports in the world for private movements. Neither is difficult in December; the only weather to watch is the tail of the north-east monsoon in the first days of the month.
Among our preferred hotel partners, Rosewood Phuket and Six Senses Yao Noi are the two we return to, with Anantara Layan as the alternative when a full villa is needed. Singapore is Mandarin Oriental, Four Seasons or the St. Regis depending on what you want from the city.
Ask your advisor about chartering a phinisi for the middle week, adding Hong Kong or Bhutan on the way out, and holding villas over New Year, which books earlier here than anywhere else we fly.