Advertisement
Published: September 26th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Day 179 (20.09.07)
We arrived into Surat Thani town at 5am and were taken in a minibus to a little cafe to wait - we're not sure what for! At 6am we were taken in another truck with a couple of other people to a 'bus station' which was really just a wooden building and a large dirt area. No-one was about but our boat ticket was swapped for a ticket for the next stage of our journey, the truck driver left and we continued to wait. We had been told that the bus would leave at 6.30am but when someone did arrive he told us, in a fairly aggressive mamnner, that the bus did not leave until 8am and that we would arrive in Koh Phi Phi at 4pm (instead of the 12pm we'd been told when we booked). Things got worse when he looked at our ticket and told us he couldn't take it, it wasn't the right sort of ticket and we would have to buy another. Not wanting to shell out for the same joureny twice we tried to find out what was going on but with lack of sleep and the man's aggressive start things
soon escalated into a row. Chrissie managed to calm the situation down and he agreed to let us on the bus (when it finally arrived).
Finally sat on the bus we relaxed into the next part of our journey until we arrived at Krabi bus station around 10.30am. The next boat wasn't until 3pm and so went to explore the nearby town. It wasn't very exciting but we picked up a spot of lunch and headed back to get our bus for the port. We were dropped off at the port and handed our tickets over the desk to be told yet again that this ticket was not ok and we would have to pay for the boat trip. This time they were not to be persuaded so with only 2 minutes until the boat left and at the end of our tethers, we had to accpet that we'd been scammed and hand over the cash to get on board. We had the option of contacting the tourist police but this would mean missing the boat and we really didn't think they'd do much about a tour office so many miles away. Whatever, we wouldn't get our money back
so we swallowed it and once we'd calmed down a bit were quite grateful we'd managed to get so far on a dodgy ticket. As we sailed towards Koh Phi Phi, an island renowned for its beautiful scenery, we chilled out and watched the small limestone islands passing us by until we arrived.
Confronted by the island's white beahces, turquoise waters and steep limestone cliffs we were glad we'd made the effort to get there. We'd been told that it was monsoon season on this side of Thailand and the weather might not be great but had decided to risk it and pulled into port at about 5pm in the blazing sunshine.
We found a good room in the cheap part of town and went straight to the nearby beach for a refreshing dip in the sea. We watched the sunset over the island with a beer in a cool little reggae bar at the beach and then went back to shower and change for dinner. We wandered around the town bumping into Kathryn and Anna who'd also arrived that day and found a great little Thai restaurant called Garlic with delicious food and reasonable prices (difficult to
find on the islands where the prices are considerably higher than on the mainland)
Day 180 (21.09.07)
After very close on 6 months of travelling and some busy days learning to dive on Koh Tao we planned for our time on PhiPhi to be a little holiday where we had a few days to really relax. In that spirit we slept in late and then hit the beach for some swimming and reading. Lovely!
At about 5pm we began climbing the steps to the viewpoint which affords fantastic views over the central back to back beaches on PhiPhi. From the top viewpoint we watched a spectacular sunset and then made the walk back down before it got too dark.
We met up with Tran, a Canadian girl we'd met on the journey from Koh Tao and went to book a boat trip for the following day. Near to Phi Phi is the island of Phi Phi Ley where 'The Beach' was filmed and the boat trip would visit this island and a variety of other places around PhiPhi for some snorkelling, kayaking etc.
We ate again at Garlic and then met Anna and Kathryn for
a drink in the Irish bar.
Day 181 (22.09.07)
We were on the boat with Tran by 9am and setting off to explore the island and it's beautiful surrounds. Our first stop was on PhiPhi Ley at Maya beach where The Beach was filmed. It really is a stunning place but was pretty busy when we arrived. We kayaked onto the beach and had a walk along it before kayaking back to the boat for a spot of snorkelling. The rest of the day was spent stopping at a variety of extremely beautiful places for swimmimng and snorkelling. Our favourite place was Bamboo island - a small island surrounded by reef that looks just as you'd picture a desert island to be, vegetation surrounded by a ring of sand and clear blue sea. Our final stop was at shark point where there is a chance to see reef sharks. They weren't about when we arrived but through the day we'd seen some great fish and were pleased that our dives last week had taught us to recognise many of them. A fantastic day with stunning weather that left Chrissie with a spot of snorkellers sunburn!
Tonight would
Phi Phi Ley
the island of the film The Beach be Anna and Kathryn's last night in Thailand before they headed to Malaysia on a similar path to ours and tomorrow would be our last night in Thailand. We all went out for dinner at Garlic (fast becoming our local!) and then Mark set out to purchase some 'bucket' ingredients to start the night's festivities cheaply. A bottle of Sangsum down and we hit a few of the bars making the most of some two for one offers on buckets and dancing the night away. A great night was finished off with Anna entertaining the whole island on the walk back home with her repeated renditions of Kelly Clarkson's Because of You - what a voice! (hopefully some pics of this night will follow when we next meet up with the girls)
Day 182 (23.09.07)
Our last day in Thailand. We slept off the night before and went to get our last plate of Pad Thai for brucnh - we're gonna miss these superb fried noodles! We spent some time relaxing on the beach (well Mark slept as is his way after a night on the beers!) and then went back to pack our stuff up for tomorrows
journey. We had a last Thai curry (love the food here!) at our favourite dinner spot and then went and watched a film in a nearby cafe to finish a lovely lazy day.
Day 183 (24.09.07)
We took the 9am boat back to Krabi and picked up a bus that would take us to Had Yai. At Had yai we changed to another bus that would take us all the way to Penang, our first stop in Malaysia. We passed the hours chatting and reading and were lucky to see some monkeys playing in the trees at the Thai border.
We arrived in Penang at about 9pm where the driver dropped us almost exactly where we wanted to be and checked into the SD guesthouse (another place recommneded to us by Paul!) A lovely clean room and hot showers - can't remember the last time we had one of those! As we were going out to find a bank and get some Malaysian currency we bumped into Anna and Kathryn again staying in the same guesthouse. After a short trip to the bank we sat down together to book some accomodation in Borneo. Whilst in Koh Tao
we'd realised that we'd be in Borneo at the same time and decided to climb Mount Kinabalu together. You need to book accomodation for this in advance so we got this all sorted and chatted until bedtime.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.258s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 35; qc: 158; dbt: 0.1826s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Mouton Mum
non-member comment
Wow what sunsets !!
Have just thoroughly enjoyed reading about your diving experiences, congratulations to you both. Then I saw the pictures of the sunsets - how fantastic and what great photos. Good to see you both looking so safe and well !!! All my love Mum xxxxxxx PS less than 3 months to go now - am getting verrrry excited xx