Beatiful Phi Phi is one of the islands that was destroyed by the Tsunami. There's no roads on the island that we could see making it all the more like paradise. Within 5 minutes walk from the pier was our accomodation and a further 2 minutes the other way was a beautiful beach with crystal clear blue water and soft sand. It's easy to see why people thinkg of it as the nicest of all of Thailands Islands and we were just as impressed. Adam and Liz stayed in in Phuket to await the arrival of Liz's cousin but with a promise we'd meet them again soon enough.
The next day we went on a sunset trip for some snorkelling, kayaking and to see the famous beach and bay from the film "The Beach". It was a cracking day but it began a little scary as our first stop was at Monkey beach where we were surrounded by what looked at first to be cute little monkeys. Within 5 minutes though they turned nasty and poor Lou was the first they got nasty with. One of them tried to scratch her and chased her all the way to the water. Everybody kind of laughed nervously at it but when another monkey actually sunk its teeth into some blokes back everybody just wanted to return to the boat and get on with the next part of the trip.
There are two Islands called Phi Phi. We were headed for the national park island of Ko Phi Phi Lei while we were actually staying on the larger Island of Ko Phi Phi Don. We did some more snorkelling in a lagoon here and the coral and fish were even more impressive than the array we saw at Kata Beach. At times there were that many fish they were just bumping into us before swimming away. Carol and Tony headed off further into the lagoon in a kayak and never heard the horn of the boat to signal our departure from the lagoon. Two of the ship mates had to man another kayak to go and find them and after about 10 minutes the two of them came sailing around the corner and back to the boat. After that we were brought to a small bay where we had to swim to the shore, walk through a small cave opening in the rock and after a five minute trek through some jungle we emerged on the iconic beach of Maya bay. It is absolutely stunning. Not even the small grouping of long boats could stop your jaw from dropping. The water was perfect, the sand was soft and white and the sun was just setting between the two limestone peaks that framed the bay. The four of us sat in the water admiring the view wondering what better you could possibly be doing on Paddys day anywhere else in the world. Back to the boat after that via a long boat and we had dinner before heading back to Phi Phi Don under the cover of dark.
After another day at the beach we decided to head for the opposite side of Thailand to vist the islands of the Gulf of Thailand. This meant taking a boat to Krabi, a bus to Surat Thani and an overnight ferry to Ko Phangang. We were about to baptise Carol and Tony into the life of a backpacker with one long day of travelling.
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