The Beach

Trip Start Sep 12, 2005
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Trip End Aug 15, 2006


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Thursday, December 8, 2005

Just spent the last few days in paradise! This place has it all;white sand, turquoise sea, beautiful limestone rock formations, lovely people, good nightlife, lovely restaurants and last but not least the sun, It's perfect! When we got off the boat a few days ago we raced for a room, got our swimming gear on, grabbed a few towels and a book and spent the rest of the day doing sweet nothing, which may or may not sound a bit lazy but it's needed in order to take in the beauty of it all. After a stressful day we washed the sand from between our toes, covered ourselves in aftersun and headed out for some dinner. Over dinner we decided we'd had enough beers over the last few days so we were forced to drink buckets of cocktails, which we reluctantly did! A bucket the size of your average bucket and spade set on Portrush beach filled with every drink form behind the bar for roughly 3 quid and it just happened to be 2 for 1 night! Carlsberg don't do beach holidays but if they did......
Anyone usin' this beach??
Anyone usin' this beach??
we ended up at a beach party around the other side of the island which just happened to go on all night...Doh!

Trailed ourselves out of bed the next day and it was more of the same minus the alcohol because we had the fear! The Next day after a great non-drink fueled sleep we were right as rain (speaking of which there still hadn't been any) We went on a boat trip to Ko Phi Phi Lei (where the film the beach was set.) The island itself is part of the national park so it has no residents or places to stay, which is a great thing because it would spoil its natural beauty. After an hour of snorkeling amongst some amazing coral and marine life we jumped on the boat and headed for shark point. Mairead stayed well on the boat while Conor dove in search of the local black shark of which there were several! We were told they were harmless but it was still a bit scary all the same. After lunch we headed to Bamboo Island which is also uninhabitated and has some wonderful beaches. Just off Bamboo Island we snorkeled for another hour or so in the coral. It was like a scene from the Disney film "Finding Nemo"! Amazing! so much colour and so many amazing fish. All shapes, sizes and colours. We managed to find all the characters from the film minus the sea turtles and Bruce the shark of course, but there were some equally impressive fish that didn't make the film Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
 . It was so much fun and the fish were not afraid at all. They were so inquisitive and had no problems coming up to you for a closer inspection. Conor regretted wearing loose shorts that day! Our last stop was Monkey beach where we had some fun feeding the local monkeys our left over lunch. After some more snorkeling we headed back to Ko Phi Phi and both agreed it was the best fiver we had spent in a long time.... That was until 8pm that night when we hit the all you can eat buffet, "homer style!" After a 3 hour session of everything form sushi to shark we waddled back home happy!

We don't feel that it would be appropriate to write about Ko Phi Phi without mentioning the Tsunami which destroyed 70% of the buildings here and killed 1,200 residents and tourists less than 1 year ago. The devastation was still prevalent despite the tremendous efforts of the locals and volunteers from all over the world and although we had an amazing time, the events of last year were constantly in our thoughts.
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