Merry Christmas in Koh Phi Phi

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I spent my Christmas on the Phi Phi Islands. The owner of the hotel/guesthouse hooked it up and called a van to pick me up the next morning. The driver was cool I sat up front with him and he was bascially my hero fo awhile. He told me stories about the tsunami last year, like how the streets were flooded and how the water was coming out of the sewers and the canals overflowing. He said at that time he had japanese tourists with him and he took them to safety. This other passenger who was translating what he was saying told me he ran up to the mountains. I looked over to where he was pointing and was thinking "oh my gosh this guy is a national hero" the mountains were so far from the beach running to the base was a feat in itself I didn't think he needed to climb the mountain for safety they were far enough as it is, then I imagined this amazing man carrying japanese tourists on his back while climbing the mountain. I told the translator i hope to see him in the olympics at bejing in 2008. Then the driver broke it to me and told the translator he said it wrong and he meant he drove up to the mountains and had the passengers in the van. My heart was shattered. But he's still a good man. After awhile the van stopped and I thought we were here but the pier was nowhere to be found. Then the translator said the driver had to change his shoes to look professional when we get to the pier. He was wearing sandals at the time then put on some really old dirty shoes. That's my hero. When I got to the pier bought my ticket then checked out which boat I had to get into. All the boats were lined up parallel to each other. My boat was at the end and from the pier I had to bust some jackie chan stunts. I had to climb through windows and jump on moving boats to get to mine kinda scary. After a few backflips and roundhouse kicks I made it to my ferry. I was tired and it was really hot so I chilled in the bottom deck where the AC was on full blast, most people were on the top of the boat sunbathing and checking out the view. After awhle at sea I went once I saw land I got out to sightsee. It was cool the water was clear and blue. When we arrived shuttles are supposed to take us to our hotels but the shuttle for my hotel didn't come so we had to go back out to sea then some small canoe boats with motors. I was kinda pissed I had to do more jumping again. The small boat rocked alot more this time but everyone got on safely. When I arrived it was cool they gave us this fruit smoothie and flowers. It's like I was the final contestant of survivor or something. They took me to my pad and I decided to chill there for awhile. At night they had a Christmas party dinner. It was pretty cool there were alot of foreigners but it made me miss my friends and family back home. After I walked on the beach for a bit it was a nice warm night got chased around by some little locals. Tommorrow I·'ll go on my adventures. The next day I went on a tour to the local islands one which includes Maya Bay, the beach from the movie "The Beach" Hopped on some ferry's again then when we got close to Maya Bay had the option to snorkel or chill at the beach and swim. We were given the same options at another place later so I went to the beach. It was crazy the water is super clear like drinking water. When I arrived I couldn't believe I made it, I dreamed and always talked about going one day. It felt good to accomplish a goal. I tried to walk in the water and drink it as it got deeper but it was super salty. I had an underwater cam and took some pics. the thing that sucked about this beach is there was a bunch of huge rocks with weird animals inside. I saw a little eel come out of the rocks. It looked like an old man. And these soem really nice blue fish, and green ones, and orange ones. After awhile we went back to the ferry and off to the next stop I forgot what the beach was called cause I didn't pay attention but I chose snorkeling this time. Usually when I go snorkeling I start from the beach and work my way into the ocean. This was different the boat was far from shore and we basically had to jump in the middle of the ocean. I was pretty scared at first but it wasn't so bad afterwards. Right when I jumped in I was surrounded by a bunch of bright blue fish. They were so close to me I tried to kick them but my legs moved so slow in the water I was sad. I started swimming towards the coral reefs. They were kinda ugly, just looked like a bunch of brains and big things. The guy at the boat say's it's nice near this island of rock where the water is shallow. On my way there thigns were good it was cool the reef was so close to my body i was kinda scared but then I swam over some brains looked down like half a foot away from my body I was like on top of a million sea urchins ok mayb like 20 but i was still scared. I didnt wanna use my arms or feet to swim cause I didn't want them to touch my toes I was shy. I was so freaked out once I got out of there I stuck my head out of the water but was still kind of shallow I was stepping on something I looked in the water and saw I was on one of the brains and some other reefs I was grossed out and panicked and kicked it with one of my shins and broke a chunk off of some or the reefs. I felt bad for damaging thailand's reefs but I headed back to the boat and deep water where it's safer. after that we stopped on soem beach and had lunch. The boat trip back was pretty crazy I was on the top of the boat the whole time I got sunburned pretty bad. While we were going kinda slow at first we crashed into another large boat. Dood if I didn't use my quick as reflexes I would've got thrown out into the adaman sea. me and this guy were standing when it happened and we grabbed on to an antennae. Later on another large boat goin really fast perpendicular in front of us caused some big waves and caused our boat to do some roller coaster stunts I was really tired from the whole day don't remember much after that went back to my hotel and crashed.

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Photos

Land Ho!
Koh Phi Phi Ley reminds me of myself

The Time Has Come
About to switch boat's to the smaller one that takes us to the hotel.

Just Your Everyday Jar of Water
This is where I washed my feet with deep cleansing soap after the beach

Arriving at Maya Bay
Evidently the water in Thailand was bottled at the source.

Beautiful
Just some beach that some famous actor named Leonardo DiCaprio co-starred wif.

Topless on the Top Deck
This is how I got sunburned

Holding on with all my mighty might
This is where I held on for dear life when we got hit. You can see the fear and suspense of the event on my expression

Comments

[Alonzo]

!!!
Dude, when I read that I felt like I was over there! Perhaps we should travel together next summer. Remember to keep an innocent mind. See how you are over there and see everything as new and beautiful? Well, it is possible to always live that way if one keeps an innocent mind! Simply awesome, now I wanna go to Tailand! Oh, my classes are going pretty fine. Now emotions do not affect me as before. I feel yet I know that they are simply emotions, a creation of thought, an innevitable creation. Knowing that it is innevitable gives me a certain degree of freedom. Freedom that allows me to comprehend the process of thought with all of my attention so that when I feel fear, or anger, or envy, or desire I feel it and that's that! There is no problem! There is only liberty. Love.