The Amazing race ends up in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

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Well we got a dose of what the amazing race is like when we travelled from Hanoi to Southern Thailand. 2 full days of travelling and not a heck of a lot of sleep!

We flew from Hanoi to Bangkok and arrived around 5ish. We kumped in a cab, went straight to the train station to find out every train was full. Thankfully, we found good bus to take us down south. Unfortunatley, it was a regular bus with just reclining seats so the it made the 10 hr journey overnight, very long! After arriving in Surat Thani on no sleep we had to wait a good 2 hrs to leave for Krabi. Once we arrived, we had to wait another 5 hrs until 4pm that afternoon to take the boat to Koh Phi Phi. Finally, we were sipping our first Chang Beer on the island at 7pm and watching the most incredible fire show at 10pm on our first night in Koh Phi Phi.

Was it worth it? This island is friggen incredible! It was definitley worth it. The island itself is extremely small. You can walk from one end to the other in less then an hr. Everywhere you look there is baby blue water, gorgeous beachs and massive cliff/mountains and each end of the island. There's a great backpacker scene and feel here as most of the crowd is much younger then we've seen to date.

Our first day, we just relaxed and slept in which was much needed. We explored the island which was much easier to do since Lisa was here last year. We checked out some dive shops which isnt' hard because there's tons of them lined up along the main drag. We chose one and Geneve started studying for her Open Water Diver course for the next day. That afternoon, we hit up the beach which is unreal. Super calm water and at the maximum its as deep as your neck but with the tide, it was around our waste. We just chilled in the water, soaked up the sun and enjoyed our first day in paradise.

The next day, Geneve went off to school and Lisa and I went out and explored the island some more. Life here is very easy as there are tons of great bars, great restaurants and tons of shopping. Makes life very easy for westerners which is a nice treat for us after over 2 months of travelling SouthEast Asia. Every night, there's a new bar or party to hit up so there's lots of options in what you can do. If you don't want to party, many restaurants show movies so one night, Lisa and I went to watch the movie, "The Beach" which was filmed on the island beside this one.

Yesterday, Geneve went off and did 2 open water dives and finished the day with a bit of schooling. Everything went super well and the dives were fantastic. Myself, I chose to have a guys day by myself so I found the manliest thing I could do....which was rock climbing! I've never done this before but it was the most unbeleivable thrill and adrenline rush. It was extremly exhausting but once you get to the top and look out at the view, theres' no words to describe it's beauty.

Needless to say, we were all pretty tired after that day and hit the sac early.

Finally, today we all hit the open water and went on 2 dives. These were Geneve's last 2 dives of her course and Lisa and I were able to join her and her instructor. We had 2 fantastic dives just off the island of Koh Phi Leh which is right beside our island. We saw tons of fish, a few turtles and even a shark!

Side note: A great aspect of travelling right now is that its the low season so there's not many travellers. Gen was lucky and had a private instructor and dive master to herself for her Open Water course.

We are setting up shop here for another 4 or 5 days and going to relax a bit more here. We've been travelling around for a while now so this is a much needed break in paradise.

We are home soon! Cheers all!

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