We needa Phi Phi!!! Part 2...

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We woke up a little creaky necked.. after two nights in luxury this was far from what we were used to hehe. The Fan on the roof didnt work and the one on the floor was more use than a chocolate fire guard. We knew we couldnt moan, we were uncomfortable.. but we were uncomfortable in paradise. We went for breakfast I ordered scrambled eggs on toast and Paul ordered jam on toast, you cant get that wrong right? Wrong. They messed up our order and we were one of three tables actually sat in there. The shuttle boat wasnt due to leave for another couple of hours, the tide was in and we were going to take full advantage of the snorkel. The fish around the Corals here are so beautiful but after the warning on the sea urchins (spikey black things that can really injury you if you get too close) from Ria last night we were being super careful! She was also telling us that a Praying Mantis fell on Martin a couple days before, I was on pins! Its literally just jungle and beach here. After satisfying our fish fetish we went to get the day sack and hopped aboard the longtail back to the port.

When we arrived we elbowed our way through the miverers and to the internet caf to catch up on the blog, read emails, facebook etc. Paul went to grab us a drink and returned with a massive smile on his face ''were going on a trip'' he told me. He'd managed to book a full tour for only 250 baht, BUT it was leaving in 20 minutes and we'd literally only just plugged the camera in for a charge. Taking the risk we unplugged it, luckily wed picked up pretty much everything we needed as we had no intention of going back to the resort til late on. We had however, forgotten the waterproof case for the camera - but we were off on 4/5 exciting stops and it wasnt the time to be thinking negative!! The longtail was already occupied by a handful of young people from Denmark and a couple from Wales (cue quarms from the boy about Pauls Leeds Tattoo..) I spotted the fresh pineapples for later and the boat was already equipped with snorkels and drinking water.. this was going to be good!

First stop Monkey Beach. As we were floating up to the tiny stretch of sand we could spot the cheeky things already! One of the bigger ones jumped down and onto the tip of the longtail next to us, ran on board, nicked a bottle of pop (all the while a lady was shrieking and scattering around to the back of the boat) then legged it back up to his tree, pierced the bottom, then decided he didnt like it and threw it away! It was SO funny! I really wanted to get in and take a closer look but after seeing one go after a girl when she went to take photos (the girl tried running back in the water and fell over - again pure comedy gold) I was a little understandably sceptic.

''Go on Lauren'' Paul said
''Buggar off. You bloody go first!!'' I replied.

He didnt budge, not wanting to miss out on the photo opportunity, my idea was to slide out of the boat, glide slowly up the island.. Me of course being me and having as much daintiness as a baby elephant, slid off, kept hold of the boat and hit my head on the side.. smooth Lauren REAL smooth. Paul joined me after all, alot more expert on getting off the boat than me, one of the lads passed him the camera. It was very funny and I wished we'd had brought bananas.

Stop 2 Viking Cave

It was absolutely beautiful, the island simply juts abruptly into the sea. We werent allowed to stop here but inside there are aparently thousands of viking pictures on the walls and its 3 km long. I personally liked the drippy walls on the outside and asked Paul if we could see the Viking head.. He just gave me that 'your weird' look.

Stop 3 Snorkelling

we glided around the corner into a beautiful bay with the most magnificant turquoise water. Paul was actually the first in with his brand new snorkel (given to us kindly by the swede back in Phangan) falling in backwards like a scuba diver. The other lads all jumped off the tail and Paul swam back in to do the same and decided a somersalt was the way forward. I, once again with my floaty femininity bellyflopped off and swollowed way too much salt water. Paul was definitely over his fear taking deep breaths and swimming right down to try and catch the big fish. The fishes were beautiful it was an awesome swimming site.

Stop 4 Maya Bay

With All Saints Pure Shores playing over and over in our heads the excitement hit a peak when we rounded into the bay and it was just as stunning as it was in the Film, The Beach did not disappoint. I clutched Pauls hand and as we took it all in. It was perfect, white sand, turquoise water... we couldnt wait to jump in. After being so careful in our picture taking to make the camera last for this, guess what happened?? Yep. It died. We rubbed the battery for all it was worth and managed to get a select few in the Bay. But nothing will ever erase the beauty and the memories we made we are so grateful for.

Stop 5 Shark Point

After everybody had finished frolicking around on the beautiful bay we boarded the longtail and made our way over to Shark Point, the title pretty much gives it away. The driver had cut up some fresh pineapple, we were getting pretty ravenous after all the swimming. Everybody seemed a little reluctant to dive off at this one as you can imagine.. But once one was off.. we all were! Apparently a fin had been spotted close to the side of the cliffs, we were side tracked by a guy crumbling up bread in the water.. all the dady fish were coming up from the bottom to get in on the bread and it was amazing to watch them all fight over it and seeing Paul swimming through trying to grab one. There were small baby grey tip sharks and again an experience we will never forget.

We watched the sunset and headed back to the Pier. We had'nt brought any other clothes, because as you can imagine you dry off very quickly but now with the sun down we were pretty much still wet through and desperate to eat dinner. Paul hadnt brought a tshirt so we went with every intention on haggling a tshirt. We managed to bag him him a retro Jimmi Hendrix T-shirt and he needed to get his wet boxers off and decided to do so at the back of the shop. The lady took it all in good humour and after catching a glimpse of his peach just laughed it off.

We needed a banquet and picked out a busy beach front restaurant with every kind of fresh sea food you could think of. Ton Sai Sea Food had a chooca menu. We werent playing any games and ordered a Shrimp Cocktail and spring Rolls to start followed by Thai Green Chicken Curry, fried rice, stir fried veg and stir fried beef in garlic and pepper washed down with two jack daniels and coke. Which all came to less than 20 quid. It was late, we were satisfied and ready for bed after another round of drinks of course. Now came the hard bit. How the hell were we going to get back to the Resort??? When we asked one of the Longtail Boatsmen he quoted us 800 baht, we haggled as much as we could but they werent for having it. We even walked right down to the Beach Front where they all just laughed all joked with each other ''Windy windy!!'' They all kept saying and collapsed over each other in laughter. There was definitely something going on here. They knew we had no choice and this was the only way of us getting back. We found a lad who knew his stuff on football so Paul sweet talked him and told him we'd been shopping and only had 775, he agreed to take us but kept telling us how ''WINDY WINDY'' it was. We figured 'how bad could it be?' and jumped on the longtail watching him atatch his tiny red blinking light to the top (exactly the same one that youd attach to the back of your push bike at home) it started to dawn on us.. Its really dark, its not lit on the way past one of the many resorts and they keep saying its ''WINDY WINDY'' for a reason. We set off and as we left the Pier you couldnt see A THING. Paul sensed my worry and assured me that they must know the islands like the back of their hands. Uh huh that just wasnt waking me feel any better and I could tell he was worried too. ''WAVE WAVE!!!'' The driver kept shouting so with a nervous laugh we liftted our arms to wave.. we instantly understood what he meant when the boat flew up and crashed back down again with a massive thud. We werent sure if we were going to capsize or not it was so unbelievably choppy. Docking back in we were so careful we were stepping with thoughts of the Urchins in mind.

That was enough excitement for one day. We fell into bed and into a long deep sleep. We'd booked onto the taxi shuttle in the morning and were off to Koh Lanta.

Adios Amigos xx

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