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Published: February 10th 2011
Tuesday 25th January
It took 60 minutes of flying time to Phuket from KL and then another 40 minutes to reach the ferry port on the South coast where we boarded a rather rugged looking boat. The boat journey takes roughly 2 hours and its great to be sitting up on deck admiring the small islands popping up on the horizon. We approach Koh Phi Phi where we start to see the towering cliffs of Phi Phi Leh island and only a few miles from here we begin to see the characteristic Ton Sai bay.
There is a large modern deep water Government Pier on Tonsai Bay, Phi Phi Don Village completed late 2009.
Almost immediately we are asked for a 20 baht 'Clean up Phi Phi' fee which is only 50p and soon we're walking merrily down the pier with the usual touts trying to get us to use the boat taxi's which can take you anywhere around the island.
There are six islands in the group known as Phi Phi. They lie 50 km south-east of Phuket and are part of Hadnopparattara-Koh Phi Phi National Park which is home to an abundance of corals and marine life. There
are limestone mountains with cliffs, caves and long white sandy beaches.
Ko Phi Phi is the largest island of the group, and is the only island with permanent inhabitants.
Its not what we expected as we walk the paved streets along Ban Ton Sai (Phi Phi Don Village) which is the main town on Ko Phi Phi. Its quite overcrowded and we struggled to find our hotel at first until we grabbed a map and got some assistance.
Since the re-building of Ko Phi Phi after the 2004 Tsunami paved roads have started to appear, although still under construction and for pedestrian use only. Bicycling is the most popular form of transport in Ton Sai.
Its another 15 minute walk out of the main part of Ban Ton Sai and close by the hills we arrive at the Grand Chang Resort where we are greeted by our host.
Wow, we are lucky indeed as this place is really nice and we have our own villa with nice gardens. Our first impressions of the room are that its quiet and well looked after.
We have a large room with all the mod cons such as fridge, large lcd tv, dvd
player, en suite shower and hot water for tea and coffee. Cant ask for more really and we settle in for five days of chill out time.
Thursday 27th January
It been a couple of nice days relaxing in the sun down at the Loh Dalam Bay which is the other side of Ban Ton Sai. The beach is clean enough here although it can get very busy. The only downside has been the amount of mosquito's that constantly pester you.
We've booked ourselves onto an Island Tour today and we're off to meet the rest the group down at the booking office. What are the chances of us having three guys from Aberdeen and two from Glasgow doing the tour? So there's seven jocks heading off the island on a long tail boat and the weather's more windy than normal so much so you could close your eyes and be in the North Sea!
Our first stop is at Monkey Beach not far from Ton Sai Bay. After we had delivered a large wooden Log to a resident living nearby in a shack we anchored and swim 100 yards ashore to the small beach. The beach has
been made famous by the amount of Macaques Monkeys that are always present running and jumping around on it. The Macaque monkeys are quite friendly but you must keep your distance. The monkeys are climbing aboard boats and running up and down trees in all directions to the point you have to keep yhou camera and personal belongings close to your shest or else they would grab your stuff and run.
It soon got over crowded with more tourists so we made our way off the beach and swam back to our long tail boat to carry on sailing around the Islands.
We sailed past the cliffs of Phi Phi and out into the ocean towards the next island of Ko Phi Phi Leh. All along the cliffs here we observed many ropes hanging from the holes and caves. We wondered what they were for and we found out from our guide that the locals use the rope and ladders to climb into the hundreds of Swifts birds nest's that are found in the nooks and crannies.
Bird's nest soup is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine. A few species of swift, the cave swifts, are renowned for building the saliva
nests used to produce the unique texture of this soup. The nests are built during the breeding season by the male swiftlet over a period of 35 days. They take the shape of a shallow cup stuck to the cave wall. A kilogram of white nest can cost up to $2,000 USD, and a kilogram of "red blood" nest can cost up to $10,000 USD. Big money you can say but does it harm the birds and eggs we wonder, well apparently not as the leave the eggs behind to ensure future nests.
We pass by Viking Cave which cuts straight through the cliff and through to the other side. We are stopping and only a few of us get our fins on and swim into the cave and onto the rocks. Inside the cave is a mass of bamboo ladders and rope ladders leading up to little high up caves and holes. We are not allowed to climb them ourselves for obvious reasons but i wouldn't fancy it as it looks unsafe. We could walk through to the other end of the cave and look out to sea which was pretty cold as the wind was cutting through
and being wet didn't help. A dive from the rocks into the sea and a short swim to the boat got us warmed up for our next stop for a snorkel around the corals, hopefully we'll spot a turtle or two!
We anchored up in nice secluded bay and got the snorkels and fins on for a bit of diving. Theres nice fish down in the depths but visability isnt that great as the water is quite deep making it dark. We had a wee break and ate some fresh pineapple and water before heading off out past the beautiful cliffs of Phi Phi Leh and around to our next stop.
We carried on sailing around Ko Phi Phi Leh and floated between two towering cliffs through to a secluded bay with lots of boats moored in it. Welcome to Maya Bay!
Controversy arose during the making of the film The Beach due to 20th Century Fox bulldozing and rescaping of the natural beach setting of Koh Phi Phi Leh to make it more "paradise-like". The production altered some sand dunes and cleared some coconut trees and grass to widen the beach. Fox set aside a fund to
reconstruct and return the beach to its natural state, however lawsuits were filed as many believed the damage to the ecosystem is permanent and restoration attempts failed.
According to the Lonely Planet's Thailand guidebook, the 2004 tsunami dramatically improved the look of Maya Bay. This was due to the fact that the high waves had cleaned up the beach and removed all the landscaping the Fox production team had added.
We came ashore here and had lunch on the beach and it sure was busy with people. Its a shame as the beach and water is quite badly polluted with rubbish and you wonder if the six beach attendants sitting smoking in the corner really cared about the state of the place. We walked through the jungle to the campsite for the toilet and then headed back to our Tail boat where we were served lunch consisting of chicken fried rice. Its nice in Maya Bay don't get me wrong but its got too commercial and as usual high volumes of people has made an inevitable mess of the beach and water.
We are set to head home now and the weather has gone a bit rough to
say the least and we're getting totally soaked from head to toe as we crash into wave after wave before it calms down signalling that we've entered back into Ton Sai Bay.
We walked back home through the streets of Phi Phi Don Village before reaching home where we got freshend up and headed out for a Pad Thai dinner at our local.
Saturday 29th January
Another couple of days have passed and we're heading off tomorrow so we decide to have a night out on the town and watch some Muay Thai Boxing. We bumped into a couple from Glasgow in a bar and we all bummed along together until we merrily arrived at the Boxing Arena.
The Glasgow guy that was with us decided to enter himself in for a friendly fight and we sat and watched him and another guy from Newcastle kick the crap out of each other for three rounds which was hilarious. They had all the pads on and head protectors and the referee kept its clean. Some of the earlier customer fights were funny as there were a few drunkards making a right fool of themselves much to our amusement. After a
half hour break of customer fighting the real Muay Thai FIghters came on and gave us and exhibition match. The two Thai guys were kicking each other and fighting with some amount of skill that you cringed at some of the crunching noises and snapping noises that occured throughout the match up. We left after the 5th round or so as time was getting on and we have had enough to drink at this point. We said our farewells and stotted off up the paved path that would lead us the way home past the many cyclists and touts that were not even bothering us. 😊
Sunday 30th January
We checked out the hotel and were kindly helped with all our bags down to the pier. The young lad from our digs put all the bags into a metal trailer and pushed our stuff the whole mile down to the docks which was a blessing as the weathers really hot again today.
Once on the boat we watched Avatar on the big screen and before we knew it we had arrived back in Phuket. Its pandemonium at the docks in Phuket as the arrival of six or seven boats
all at once has caused a big of a jam and theres people blocking doors, stairs and paths. We actually hauled out the pier, through the arrival area and off down the road into Phuket where we managed to wave a taxi down for half the price of the harbour taxi's.
Our cheapo Taxi took his time getting to the Airport and even stopped for break to stretch our legs. We walked into the airport to even more pandemonium as yet again it seems everyone wants to be taking off at the same time! Its not even the peak of high season yet! Our flight to Koh Samui leaves in a couple of hours so we had time to eat before boarding.
Once we are called to the gate we are taken by bus over the tarmac runway to our small Bangkok Airways turbo prop plane. Bangkok Airways planes are great, very comfy and the staff bent over backwards to make sure we were looked after until we landed a hour later on Koh Samui.
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Fred
non-member comment
How do you remember the place names?
Sounds lovely, the hotel a dream, you do spoil yourself, very wise! Between you and the Inverness branch you are doing your bit to keep the tourist trade going, wow what a store of memories you will have harvested, keep the grand children amused on a wet Sunday. Sam making rapid progress, another few days and he could be home for his birthday on Feb 14th. Back on a normal diet, hope it is the last of gluten free cooking, such a drag. Love.F.