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Published: January 13th 2007
On Wednesday Sharon and Scott were off extra early as they’d booked a diving trip, Stan and I however decided to slow down and actually stayed in bed until 10am. Once up, after a leisurely breakfast we made our way to Long Beach again. As we’d had a late start we stayed on the beach until almost 6 pm. By the time we got back to the bungalows Sharon and Scott had returned and were fast asleep. I decided to leave them in peace for a while. When Sharon woke up it had gone dark and she thought it was the middle of the night! The long sleep had done them good and we decided to hit the town tonight, after a meal we started off in Carlito’s Bar and watched their fire show but as it wasn’t on the beach it wasn’t as impressive as others we’d seen although the artists were just as skilful. From here we went into Tiger Bar where they were offering free drinks. Can’t turn an offer like that down! We stayed a while then went next door to watch a spot of Thai Boxing. I’m not usually into boxing but maybe helped along by
the free shots in Tiger bar we all had a brilliant time cheering on the underdog. At one point I thought there was going to be a real injury as the two guys were tossed over the ropes and landed on the concrete floor 3 feet below. They picked themselves up however and carried on. Well, enough of that it was time to move on. Hippies Bar were advertising a half moon party. Now I don’t know the difference between a half moon and a full moon party but it was good fun anyway and we got to try out the infamous ‘buckets’ whilst watching yet more fire shows on the beach.
Friday dawned bright and clear (as usual) but as the last two days had turned a bit cloudy by afternoon we decided to scrap the planned snorkel trip and instead hire a Longtail boat and do our own thing. It paid off, we had sailed into Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley ahead of the tour boats and had the bay almost to ourselves for snorkelling as being famous for the film location ‘The Beach’ it gets very busy. After a half hour snorkelling around the beautiful
coral we jumped back on the boat and headed to the next bay. Again we had beaten the rush and our driver certainly knew the best places to drop us. From here we sailed past Viking Cave where there were a whole load of rickety looking structures which are used to get birds nests to make soup.
The weather was holding good so we asked our driver if he would drop us off at Shark Point seeing as how I actually hadn’t quite made it out there yet. On the way we passed a small yacht turned on it’s side in the water with the owner perched on top wearing a life jacket. He’d obviously sent out a distress signal as he didn’t seem to want any help from us so we sailed on by wondering how much that bit of damage was going to cost him!
We dropped in the water at Shark Point and looked at the amazing coral out there. There was no sign of any shark, probably too late in the day as they only tend to come out early morning when hunting for food.
From here we asked to be dropped off
at the end of Long Beach so we could spend the afternoon there. After lunch we went in search of a path we’d seen mentioned in Lonely Planet, it was supposed to lead over to a secluded beach. After some enquiries we located it and walked over the hill, at the top we passed some local's houses, they were made from bits of old corrugated iron and looked very flimsy, some short distance away from the homes was a small communal toilet in a hut (made me feel a bit ashamed for rejecting the room with no flush toilet, at least it was inside the bungalow and for our use only!). Despite this hardship, as we passed the residents seemed very friendly, little children jumped up and down waving with glee to see us go by. They shouted ‘hello’ it’s amazing how everyone seems to be able to speak some English, even at 3 yrs old.
As we came over the hill the sight was amazing, a beautiful pristine white sandy beach, azure blue water changing to dark blue where the coral reef began and all backed by tall palm trees just dripping with coconuts. At the edge of the
beach was a very rustic bar blending into the jungle like vegetation. A hammock was strung between 2 trees along side a huge pile of coconuts. There was hardly anyone on the beach and you could have been forgiven for thinking you’d somehow arrived on Robinson Crusoe’s island.
We immediately donned our snorkels and paddled through the shallow water towards the coral. As we got closer we discovered that soon after the point where the coral began, there was a sharp ‘drop off’. I always feel that floating over a ‘drop off point’ is the nearest thing I’ll ever do to flying, the feeling is amazing. On the way back to the shallow water we came across some evil looking urchins clumped together on the sandy bottom. They had orange spots in the middle with little blue ones in a circle around the orange one, I swear they were watching me, just waiting for me to put my foot down!
Tomorrow (Saturday) we go back to Ao Nang and hopefully visit Railay Beach from there before Sharon and Scott have to leave to get their flight home to the California. The time has gone so fast!
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Mal
non-member comment
Velo
Wot! No Velocettes? I can`t see the attraction.