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Published: April 1st 2007
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Jens sunset photo
this place only gets better! Brick: Both myself and Jen had visted Thailand beaches before however neither of us had been to the Phuket side (West) of Thailand - as we had heard many good things about it we deicded now was our time.
We flew into Phuket from Kuala Lumpur and travelled down to Karon beach to spend one night. The beach was a mini paradise - we had a fantastic sunset on the beach with our fried rice and can of Chang . The next morning we spent at the beach, swimming and lying around then caught the boat to Ko Phi Phi in the afternoon.
Ko Phi Phi defn: tropical island paradise located in the Andaman sea, home to a handful of smiling Thai's, site of the movie 'The Beach', all tourists end up spending twice the amount of time as expected there (and twice the amount of money!).
We had planned on spending 3 days in Ko Phi Phi.... and ended up spending 7 the place is amazing. We met up with alot of other travellers (Irish, English, Ozzies, Canadians) and had a great time hanging out with them.
Our first few nights accommodation was a hostel
Monkey Island
this photo was taken by the soon to be professional photographer, Charlotte where the music went on till 1am so it was a bit rough for getting to bed early (which we only tried to do once). Then we moved into a hut/bungalow right on the beach. For only NZD10 it was fantastic - just a mattress and fan - but thats all you need when your 10 meters from the beach!
Jens Diving Jen: While in Phi Phi I did my advanced diving course for 2 days which was awesome. Phi Phi has a reputation for one of the worlds best dive spots and it definitely didn't disappoint. On the first day I did three dives one of which was a night dive. We turned off our torches and waved our hands around in the dark and the plankton in the water flourest (can't spell). Kinda like natural disco lights under the sea. That day I saw two big turtles and lots of cool fish in the marine park off Phi Phi Leh. Next day was the best diving. First was a ship wreck called the King Cruiser which was massive. First time I'd dived into a ship!! Saw a moray eel that had made the toilet its
home..funny. Around the ship were literally thousands of schools of fish including baracuda and heaps of lionfish and angel fish. The next dive was shark point and I saw 4 leopard sharks bigger than me!! One was fast asleep and we swam about 1m away from it. Also saw heaps of moray eels there- spotted ones, striped ones and best of all a giant one, who's head was as big as mine....can't imagine how big the rest of his body was!! As you see diving was definitely a highlight for me
Bricks Fishing Brick: So i went off fishing for the day! It was great - I hired myself a long boat and went out with a local fisherman. The guy hardly spoke english but that doesn't matter when your fishing. We caught near on 100 fish for the day, threw back about a third and kept the rest. I had a feeling i was helping catch the islands dinner for that night. I took 4 of the bigger ones home with me and bbq-ed them up that night on the beach with some friends and locals (see photo).
Phi Phi island has quite a few marine
reserves and i'm not sure if we were inside or outside the reserve when doing our fishing (i was just a passanger on the boat!) I don't think the locals understand or like the concept of someone coming in and telling them they can't fish in their own backyard....
On one of our first days at the island we went out on a day boat tour of the island and surrounding islands. This included visiting Ko Phi Phi Leh, which is the small island they filmed the movie 'The Beach' at. It was packed with tourists but still great to see. They don't let people stay the night there (there's no buildings), just day visits, which is good. We also visted Monkey Island but as we had no banana's they didn't come out of the trees for us! One of our friends went the next day with a bunch of bananas and they got attacked by the monkeys. The girl tried to run away and she fell over, cutting her leg on the rock and needed 3 stitches! ouch!
Reef Sharks On two occassions both myself and Jen headed out to Shark Point at the end
of long beach with our snorkelling gear to get a bit closer to the local wildlife. Both times we saw 2 reef sharks, about 1-2 meters long, from a distance of about 5 meters away. A great experience. Slightly heart stopping, yet exilerating.
We spent some great nights out at the bars with new found friends, ate plenty of pancakes and banana shakes from the street stalls and have both come away with tans - all round a great time.
(If you have ever seen the moive The Beach - that was us for the entire week...)
MAKE SURE YOU CLICK ON PAGE TWO OF THE PHOTOS BELOW TO ENSURE U SEE THEM ALL!
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dan
non-member comment
Wow!
That sounds like a real good time. My uncle works in Phuket.... you coulda said hi to him, damn.