Phuket and Koh Phi Phi

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Well hello!! Sorry for the lack of blog entries, the wifi in Australia is very rarely free! So let's journey back 2 and a half months when it was still 2012 and before Christmas!

12/12

We woke up (in Bangkok) and checked out of our hotel at 12 o clock. We headed to the hotel pool as our flight was not until later on. We spent a few hours relaxing there and sunbathing. It was very hot. When it was time to leave we attempted to get a taxi from the hotel but there was a massive traffic jam so there were no taxis coming past. The security guard tried to get us a tuk tuk, but there wasn't even any of these around! We realised we would have to walk to the skytrain with all of our luggage in a very humid 33 degrees. A very depressing thought!! When we left, we saw that the two way street had turned into a one way street with 2 lanes of traffic going the same way- hence no taxis!! Bad traffic jam. We somehow made it to the skytrain stop, extremely hot and sweaty. We got on the skytrain to Paya Thai to catch the airport express. We got the fast train which cost 90 baht and took 25 mins. We checked in for our flight and had some dinner at the airport. We arrived at Phuket airport to find lots of different taxi companies offering 900 baht drive to Karon, where we were staying. We found the official taxi office and paid 600 baht. We arrived at our hotel- Karon hillside hotel and checked in. Room was spacious but a little damp smelling! But nice enough for the cheap price. Managed to have a good nights' sleep!

13/12

We got up and got ready to head to the beach today. We didn't leave the room until midday and stopped at a 7/11 to get some drinks and snacks for the day. We walked to Karon beach and got some loungers which were 200 baht for the pair. Chantelle went off to buy us some towels for the beach as we didn't have any. We had a lovely afternoon relaxing, it was very nice to finally be at a beach after so many cities! A very humid heat though, very sweaty! Had a couple of dips in the very clear sea, where we could see fish swimming around. We could see the giant Buddah on top of the hillside from the sea. Managed to finish a book on my kindle, the. We headed back to the hotel around 4.30/5. It was so hot we decided to get a taxi as it was uphill on the way back!!! We got back to the hotel and jumped in the pool to cool down, them showered and headed out for dinner to a local restaurant. I had a delicious but rather spicy curry, and a rather strong cocktail. We headed back to the hotel full and sleepy!

14/12

We woke up to some pretty awful weather today- pouring rain! monsoon! We relaxed about in the morning, the. Had some late lunch in the hotel which was nice. It had brightened up a bit but not enough for the beach, so we headed into Karon towards a mini golf that Chantelle had seen advertised! We walked all the way along Karon beach and found the cool dinosaur themed mini golf! It was good fun and cost 240 baht each. It was still boiling hot and rather sweaty! Chantelle won by a whole 1 point!! We headed back towards the beach, stopping at a little stall to get some bargain shorts. We walked along the beach with the sun starting to go down, if it wasn't so cloudy, it would have been a lovely sunset! We found a pancake stall and had a pancake with Nutella- yum! We walked back to the hotel and spent the evening in, packing up our stuff once again!!

15/12

We got up and paid for breakfast in the hotel, which was really nice. We arranged a taxi from the hotel and then got ready and checked out. The taxi turned out to be a hotel staff member taking us in his pick up truck! He gave us a bit of local info on the way to the ferry port. We got to Rassada pier and got our ferry tickets. We bought a return ticket to save us buying 2 singles. We were given a sticker with our hotel on and told to wear it. We had a little while to wait for our ferry, we had a drink, and them finally got on the ferry at 1pm. Our bags were dumped in a corner and them as everyone else got on about a thousand bags were put on top of them! We went on to the outside deck as it was nice and sunny. It got busy pretty quickly. I somehow managed to lose our return ferry ticket out of my pocket- epic fail! So much for saving some money with a return! It was very noisy on the top deck, it was packed and there were a lot of party people, who clearly thought everyone else on board wanted to listen to their awful music! After a while we decided to go inside as it looked like it might rain. We went in just in time and managed to find the last 2 seats on the boat, before it chucked it down! We got in to Tonsai pier at almost 4pm- we weren't getting off at this stop, but had to wait forever whilst everyone located their luggage from the ridiculous pile with no order whatsoever!! The ferry finally left for our stop and stopped in the middle of the sea...! Lots of little long tail boats arrived out of nowhere to pick everybody up and take them to their respective hotels. The bags were to follow on another boat! When we got near our hotel a tractor and trailer pulled into the sea to collect us from the boat! It was hilarious!! Seemed a lot of effort to get us into our hotel! We finally got to check in, whilst sitting at the restaurant. We had a lovely welcome drink and cold flannel (posh hotel!) and then headed to our own little bungalow. It was very nice. A lovely setting. There are no roads on the island, it's all very secluded and peaceful. We got our luggage and most of my clothes were soaked, so I managed to get them washed for free!! We headed out for dinner at one of the hotel restaurants and I had a nice Massaman curry with rice, and we had a couple of cocktails. A nice way to spend an evening, sipping cocktails whilst sitting on the beach! We hired Charlie's angels DVD from reception and watched it in our room. A lovely evening!

16/12

We got up and had our free hotel breakfast which was yummy, best breakfast so far- delicious pancakes! We got some towels from the hotel and headed to the beach and sunbathed for a bit and had a little swim in the extremely clear sea- amazing. The clouds started to roll in and then the heavens opened so we danced around in the rain in our bikinis as it was still so warm! The rain stopped so we headed to the sports hire to hire a kayak for the hotel for an hour (free,yay!) We paddled around, the water was so clear, we could see some fish from the kayak. After we had finished with the kayak, we got some snorkels from the hotel (also free!) and headed into the sea to see some fishes! We headed to the area where we had seen the most fish from the kayak. We saw lots of fish- mainly stripey ones (not sure the name!). At one point I looked up and was face to face with so many small fish swimming right in front of me. The water was so clear, it was brilliant. Saw a cool colourful fish that flaps it's fins like they are wings- cool! We headed back to the room after this and got ready to head out for dinner, stopping to go and watch the beautiful sunset, it was so pretty! We had dinner and cocktails on the beach again, and then watched Charlie's angels 2 in the room!!

17/12

We had booked a private long tail boat trip for today. We got up and had breakfast and headed out on the boat at 10am. The first stop was Maya bay on Phi Phi Leh Island. The sea was a little rough and the boat kept smacking down on the waves and we got absolutely soaked! It took almost an hour to get to Maya Bay. This is where they filmed the Beach, with Leonardo DiCaprio. We pulled into the bay, with about 100 other boats and 1000 people. It was still beautiful, with all the boats there. The water was crystal clear, like someone had just turned on the tap and left it running! We could see so many fish from the boat. We got onto the beach, the sand was as white as flour, and as soft. It's a national park so we had to pay to go there (200 baht each). We walked through the island to the far side and saw a little cove overlooking smaller uninhabited islands. We then went back onto the beach and took lots of photos, it really is beautiful- the nicest beach I've ever seen. We headed back on to the boat and we were taken around to the side with cover we had seen before. We stopped there and did some snorkelling- the boat driver threw in some bread to get all the fish to swim up. We saw so many fish, lots of different types and also some sea slugs on the Sea bed- ugly things!! Attempted to get back in the boat, was a bit of a mission and damaged my knees! We then headed to another cove and drove round it, but didn't stop. We then went past Viking cave where people actually live. The last stop was back in Phi Phi Don island (the island you stay on) and stopped at Monkey Bay, where lots of wild monkeys live. It was good to see them in the wild but didn't want to get too close, they can be very vicious! We headed back to the hotel, rather tired from all the sea air! We went on the beach for a couple of hours and then had dinner in the other hotel restaurant and hired another DVD from the hotel before crashing out, exhausted!!

18/12

We had our nice free breakfast and headed to the beach for the day today. It was very hot. We went for a few swims in the sea and did a little snorkelling but the sea was a little rough today, so the visibility wasn't great. Chantelle headed back to the room before me to shower and cool off, then when we were both ready, we headed out for dinner on the beach again. We had to pack up our stuff for our very early start tomorrow to get the ferry for our long day of travelling. We watched my elf DVD and phantom of the opera whilst packing. Very sad to be leaving Koh phi phi, it is beautiful and we had a lovely few days relaxing here. We will definitely come back here one day!!

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