We needa Phi Phi!! Part 1..

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Wakey wakey rise and shine its Phi Phi Time!! Paulie was up and out before I could drag myself up out of the worlds most amazing bed. With his travel head on he'd booked our ferry and tranfer to the Pier for the ride accross to the Phi Phis. Thinking ahead of time on this one he'd actually booked our accomodation too, it seemed like every holidayer and their dog had wanted to stay on Phi Phi and theyre went very many rooms left. We paid way over budget for a bungalow but it looked stunning.

We wasted no time and hopped on the ferry trying to find us space at the front of the boat to sun ourselves. We hung our feet over the rails to see if we could catch any see life and we were far from disappointed! I have never seen anything like it my entire life! Thousands of jellyfish - gigantic, tiny, red, glowing all just bouncing so close to the surface we could look right at them, it was amazing! I was laughing at the expression on Pauls face and reading his mind at the exact same time.. He was clearly apprehensive about going swimming in there! ''Its just because its the open water'' I reassured him, but couldnt help adding.. ''scaredy pants''.

We werent far from the port at Phi Phi went a guy who had clearly hadf far too much to drink shouted to Paul ''Hey! Leeds!!'' and beated his chest in that 'we are men hear us roar' kinda way. Clearly overwhelmed by the man love I told Paul he should go have a beer with him or something, bit of male bonding you know? I grit my teeth so hard I thought they were going to shatter when I saw the idiot open a ring pull on a shaken can of Chang in Pauls face.. just male bonding I thought im sure paul will handle the situation. As Paul walked past to go get a beer he poured the remainder down his back.. its what they do.. Boys stuff, I reassured myself. A couple of the guys he was tagging along with started to apologise from him being such a w*nker. I heard him slurring behind them

''He can handle it.'' He said ''He's from Leeds''
''How do you think you could handle loosing your front teeth??'' I barked.

He pretty much piped down after that. Paul commented that its a shame, its probably not his fault hes a looser those sort of people are a waste of life. I had a little fantasty in my head of him falling off the boat and being attached by a mass of jelly fish. Woo! We were docking! Oh my god its beautiful. White sandy beach and clear blue seas spread as far as my peepers could see! We didnt waste anytime grabbing our bags and getting opff. We had to pay a Phi Phi entrance fee of 20 baht per person. An irish girl came barging through exclaiming ''Merry Chritmas!!! Merry f*king christmas everyone'' while her friend who was struggling to drag her bag behind her followed her about shouting at her to take her bag. I had to stop myself from following her, she was so infectious and made sure I entered the port with a huge smile.

In circled the vulchers ''TAXI BOAT YOU NEED TAXI BOAT! YOU SOMEWHERE TO STAY?? TAXI TAXI TAXI TUC TUC TUC!!!'' We exchanged rolling of eyes and again ducked into a quiet retreat. We agreed that we'd need to get a long tail boat to Relax Beach. Turns out the going rate is 600 baht (about 12 quid each way) we had no other choice than to pay up. We dived abroad the wooden long tail hounded by the usual questions.. where you from? Yes! Manchester United? Why not? They very good team! They MY team! I zoned out I couldnt avoid it, the island was breath taking. We cruised by secluded bays with crystal water and beautiful corals. We seemed to be going quite a way out when the boat started to turn into a private bay with a dozen young lads playing volleyball. It looked absolutely perfect, as the boat started to drift up onto the smooth sand I looked at Paul and told him so. As we jumped off the boat two of the staff were already running over to grab our backpacks ''kob kun kaa'' I smiled quite proud of myself for remember what the guy had thought us for thank you and they bowed back as if to say 'no problem lady'.

The main lady greeted us with a glass of water and asked us to sit. She brefly went over house rules and had someone escort us to our Bungalow. We looked up to a wooden fancy tree house. The steps were steep (note to self, stairs will be very difficult to get up after copious amounts opf alcohol) and the front soor had a small lock, the tree house was simple with a four poster bed complete with mosquito net, windows and ajacent bathroom. It was a pretty cool tree house and had everything we needed. I went to pay the bathroom another visit, picked up the lid on the loo and had to screamand run up the steps ''We have an infestation!!!'' I screamed to Paul. Of course he thought I was exaggerating and went to investigate. ''Ill go get the manager'' He said after a quick look. We had ants, not the tiny little ants that can become abit of a pest at homie in summer but HUGE gleaming red ants. I was not sitting on a toilet with ants ready and willing to bite my fat arse. Paul came back with two lady staff following him who by the unimpressed looks on their faces clearly thought that we were being high maintenance or something. After they took a look at the mass of ants being the toilet and all up the back curtain they started to attack with their can of.. erm can of.. ant killer or whatever it was they had. It worked though and they were even good enough to shower down afterwards. ''Im not going to let this spoil it'' I said to Paul and he suggested we go check out the beach.

The snorkel here is AMAZING! There were so many fish and in so many different sizes we saw a couple of Nemos friends and Paul was quite brave and even went quite a long way out all by himself (im very proud that he seems to be getting over his phobia of the sea) and took a few snaps with his dicapack (water [proof housing for the camera) he was content enough and I even managed an hour of undisturbed sun bathing! Tea time dawned very quickly and we had no other choice than to eat in the restaurant. We were literally secluded, early on if we really wanted they said that they would taxi us back to the main land on a long tail boat but it would be very expensive. They had us, and they knew it. The prices there were pretty extortionate compared to the rest of Thailand for the simple reason.. you are stuck. Not wanting to pay out for a private longtail and in the dark (all they had was a tiny blinking light on the top to let other boats know they werent there) we decided we'd just have to put up. They had a fresh BBQ on with caught today fish with a special offer on the King Mackerel, we opted for that and were quite disspointed with the aroggance of the staff and the way they messed our order up and didnt even apologise. We decided a stroll down to the beach would be theraputic and propped up two deck chairs. A couple of young girls were running around the dimly lit sea front with torches and plastic bags, facinated we went in to have a look at what they were doing. Crab hunting! And oh my gosh there were lots! All scattering around in the torch light it was amazing to watch.. not wanting to miss out on the fun Paul (aka Crab Man) asked for a torch at the bar and joined in running around like a mad man trying to keep up!

The cocktails were flowing and luckily they were playing half decent music which made the prices a little easier to digest. As I went to the bar to order in another round singing and dancing and shouting to the hardly english speaking bar man that we should ''have a party!' I curious looking couple were staring from my left ''alright love??'' I flashed them my widest smile and we were off. We were sat at the bar chatting to the newly wed couple from down south for hours. Ria and Martin were a lovely couple and had been at Relax for almost a full week and were too in agreement on the prices and claustophobic feel to the resort, but were luckily getting out of the joint the day after and migrating over to Koh Lanta (a thai island about an hour over sea). We invited them up to the tree house for a whisky and we sat out on the raised up pourch for an hour chatting between ourselves and admiring the indie selection on the ipod - quite quietly may I add AND it wasnt even 12 pm yet. A silly french lady from the house in front tried to rumble our party, we couldnt believe the cheek and even applauded ourselves for being so well behaved and quiet. Ria and Martin had to get off not much later as they had a boat to catch early in the morning. We decided that we needed to get out of here asap and Koh Lanta would be a good place to add to the Intinary. Email addresses swapped, we promised we'd be in touch as soon as we knew our plans and said good bye. Me and Paul were in agreement that we should book on the earliest of the one of two only taxi boat shuttles the day after to check out Koh Lanta accomodation, we had no choice than to stay in the resort as wed already paid for two days. Tomorrow would be a better day surely.

Adios Amigos! xx

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Photos

Paul, Lauren, Ria & Martin
Enjoying the Sang Som!