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Published: July 31st 2006
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From our night in Phuket Town, we got the boat to Phi Phi, the journey started off ok but then the waves got bigger and bigger and just over half way the engine sounded like it was dying so we limped into Phi Phi port. Every body was desperate to get off the horrible boat when we arrived. As always we were bombarded with photos of rooms at bargain prices but there were no bargains here! We ended up paying 750B a night for a basic fan room but it was close to the beach. Ko Phi Phi was lovely apart from the rain, it has a real holiday feel to it but again there are alot of groups and holidaymakers rather than travellers. The Island was not very big so we stayed only 3 nights, for the first day and a half we explored the shops, beaches and just relaxed. We saw a number of big trees with ribbons wrapped around which we assumed were some kind of memorial for the tsunami victims. Phi Phi was badly affected by the tsunami, in one of the bakeries we went to it had photos of it whilst the tsunami was hitting, the
Maya Beach
This is the beach that 'The Beach' was filmed on. height of the water would have been above our heads and there were photos which showed the devastation once the waves proceded. It was easy to imagine how teriffying it would have been that day. However the Island was certainly back on its feet. One night we went to a beach cocktail hut that was playing good music, we met a thai lady who worked on the Island and was really funny, she said she wanted to learn English so was keen to talk to us, she had mastered all the major swear words!! After chatting for a while we got onto the subject of the tsunami, she told us how she was in Phuket at the time picking up supplies and how the waves kept coming and coming. She tried to get in touch with her friends in Phi Phi but couldn't get through. She got upset telling us how she lost many friends that day, it was very sad and made us realise that 18 months wasn't that long ago and it is still very much in the minds of these people. We finally left the bar and went to bed and dreaded getting up early for our
Us on the boat.
Where Amy is getting browner, Ollie is some how getting whiter!!!! Snorkelling trip that we booked for the next day - Great!!!
After all the cocktails we felt fine just a little tired. We went to the tour office, got kitted out with snorkel, mask and flippers and boarded the big boat. Our first stop on the trip was Ko Phi Phi Ley where Maya Beach is, this is where 'The Beach' was filmed. Just our luck the heavens opened and it poured down. The man on the boat explained that the waves were too big to stop at the beach so we only got to see it from the boat, what we could see it looked alot smaller than it did in the film. The waves got really big and it was raining hard, but we eventually reached a stop where it was safe to snorkel. We all got kitted up and headed to the back of the boat. We both jumped in and were shocked at how deep the water was, the waves were still quite big and kept going down Ollie's snorkel making it difficult for him to breath. We placed our head under the water we immediately saw the beautiful fish, they came so close to
our masks. Our next stop was Shark Island, the guide kindly let us know that there would be black tip reef sharks swimming about which grow to about 2 metres. Amy, a little nervous at this knowledge was unsure whether to go in but the guide said that if she was eaten by a shark she would get a full refund on her ticket, before he could finish his sentence Amy was in - tight cow! Luckily for us, no sharks were seen.
We got friendly with 2 ausies called Jason and Cameron and an English couple, we all sat together on the boat to have lunch. Cheeky Jason started throwing food by the people still snorkelling, this caused the fish to go mental, eating both the food and the snorkeller. It was very amusing, especially because the snorkeller couldn't work out why he was the only one being attacked!!! After lunch we headed to Bamboo Island, where we kayacked to the shore and walked along the beach, both the sand and sea were lovely. We saw alot of Hermit Crabs. We had an hour there before heading to Monkey Beach, this is a beach with you guest it...Monkeys
inhabiting it. We snorkelled up to the beach which was amazing, the coral and fish were so close and beautiful, it felt like we were only an inch or so of water above the coral. Once on the beach the Monkeys appeared looking for food, one pair even treated us to a quickie (the monkeys that is not people off the boat) to everyones amusement. Before heading back to port we all sat on the boat and watched a recording of our day snorkelling, it was really funny although Amy was horrified by seeing herself in her bikini, Ollie didn't mind though!! We really enjoyed our time in Phi Phi and met some nice people, our next port of call is Krabi...
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