Overland and water to Ko Phi Phi

---

Grey skies threatening overhead was not quite what we expected as the ferry eased its way to Ko Phi Phi. In fact with a few days of average weather, over priced accomodation and poor quality food, it wasn't the most auspicious start to our island trip.

Phi Phi islands consist of Ko Phi Phi Don, Ko Phi Phi Ley, Ko Yung (Mosquito Island) and a few more smaller limestone rocks. Ko Phi Phi Don is the only inhabited island, emerging from a small Muslim fishing community into a prime travel destination with stunning beaches and impressive scuba diving and snorkelling spots. The final push to put Phi Phi Islands on the world travel map was the film "The Beach" with Leonardo Di Caprio.

The Tsunami did a good job a few years ago cleaning up almost all structures on Ko Phi Phi Don but most have been restored, bigger and better than before.

In former times, Ko Phi Phi Don was a serene paradise where true backpackers could come and explore an untouched jewel. These days it's very different; on the jetty we had to fend off the multitude of hagglers attempting to lure you to their accomodation. We chose the cheapest beach hut which just happened to be up in the hills, 20mins walk from the beach. It turned out to be a comfortable stay, well away from the noisy bars and clubs, besides, the walk each day certainly did us no harm.

We finally welcomed Ray who travelled through Singapore to Puket to get to the island, his belated arrival caused by the continuing political impasse in the capital.

Our days were spent loafing on the nearest beach drinking fruit shakes and eating the most delicious pancakes (Banana & Honey was my favorite) for breakfast. Lunch was normally a small snack at an overpriced shack near the beach, and with Ray on board, the evenings were spent drinking cocktail buckets on the beach. Made up of one quarter jack of local rum, one coke and one redbull mixed in a bucket with ice and a couple of straws, they are perfect for the beach. Rays arrival also brought his keen eye for a good restaurant, and releasing the purse strings, we indulged each night feasting on crabs, prawns and snapper; you name it we ate it.

The nights tended to be fairly tame affairs. The exception was an evening of cocktails, starting at the beach then leading to more cocktails at the Thai Kickboxing event. With audience participation encouraged, the bouts between the real Kickboxers was broken up with members from the crowd slapping each other in the ring! Most enjoyable.

The boat trip the next morning took us around Phi Phi. Although I felt a little queasy at times, but at least I managed to go on the trip, unlike Ray. First stop on the cruise was Phi Phi Leh, a large uninhabited lime stone island, famous as the backdrop for the 2000 movie The Beach. Phi Phi Leh also houses the 'Viking Cave', from which there is a thriving bird's nest soup industry. Other notable stop was at Monkey beach, where the very laid back monkeys lounge around on the beach eating fruit and ignoring us humans as we walked past. The snokelling was amazing at all the stops even more so at the last a mere 50 meters from Phi Phi Don. At this stop we snorkelled after our guide who lead us straight to a number of Black Tip Reef Sharks; its one thing seeing then from a boat and another being in the water with them.

After a few days, after Ray had rested, we planned the next stage of our trip from Ko Phi Phi down to Kuala Lumpur. The easy option was to simply fly from Puket to KL, but, with time on our hands and desire to see Thailand and Malaysia off the beaten track we decided to travel by land!

---

Photos

Ko Phi Phi
View from the beach

Ko Phi Phi
Drinking buckets watching Thai Kick boxing

Ko Phi Phi
Ray tucking into a bucket of local whiskey cocktail

Ko Phi Phi
On a day long boat trip

Ko Phi Phi
View from our "beach hut" balcony

Ko Phi Phi
The set of the film -The Beach -

Ko Phi Phi
Walking back to our hut.