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Published: September 5th 2010
As it was our third visit to Bangkok in three months, we decided not to delay our trip down south and headed out after only one night in the capital. Our first stop was Reily, a strange place that even though is part of the mainland can only be reached by boat as it is completely cut off by limestone mountains. It basically has two beaches, one is mainly a mud beach lined with mangroves and hotel resorts, the other is a white sandy beach enclosed by more limestone cliffs.
We only had 2 days there, the first we went to the beach in the day and watched Sunderland beat Man City in the evening, we did manage to see a pack of monkeys running wild, which we would see again later. It rained all day on the second day so I managed to finish off a bottle of Pastist whilst losing all my small change to Sam playing poker on our bungalows balcony. The monkeys came back to visit that rainy day and even snatched Sam’s biscuits from his seat, unfortunately for the monkeys when it comes to finishing off a pack of biscuits Sam is no slouch, and they
soon discarded the empty rapper before moving on in their search for food.
We then took a 90 minute ferry to the island of Koh Phi Phi, the same one that was devastated by the tsunami on Christmas Eve 2004. This place has the clearest waters I have seen so far, and the scenery is stunning, after a sweat inducing climb up about 1km of steep steps we reached the viewpoint where you can look down over the main part of the island, decided to go back up there for sunset as well, very impressive. We also took a taxi boat to a beach called long beach (which actually isn’t that long) and spent the day soaking up the sun and swimming in the warm turquoise waters with a great view of Phi Phi Lay Island, which is where the popular Hollywood hit “The Beach” was filmed.
The following day we signed on to this 8 hour boat trip where we would stop off at various points and snorkel, swim, sunbath and sometimes just look around. All the stops before lunch seemed to involve a lot of snorkeling, first time I jumped in my mask fell off my head and
I had to borrow Sam’s mask to swim down and find it. (My right ear is still a bit dodgy now from swimming that deep). We stopped for lunch on a small island called Mosquito Island which was just a white sandy beach all the way around with a camp site in the middle, although why people would choose to go camping on an island called “Mosquito” Island is beyond me.
After lunch we headed to Monkey beach which is unsurprisingly full of monkeys which at first seemed friendly enough but soon began to turn on us and anyone that got to close would become a target of an attack, a short retreat into the sea was all it took to put a halt to their savage advances. After the dangers of Monkey Beach we headed to Phi Phi Ley which is the small island that has The Beach” beach and to get there you had to jump out the boat and make a swim for it before climbing up the most hazard ridden and slippy steps I have ever come across. The effort was worth it as after a 2 minute walk through the jungle you come out on
this amazing beach surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs and the water looked like it was dyed blue, and the sand was the softest I’ve ever walked on. There are pictures this time so you can see for yourself but I don’t feel they do it justice.
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