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Bamboo Island
View from the boat of our first swimming beach. The night before, we spent an hour or more bargaining with various tour shops to get the best price for a seven island snorkeling trip. As the trip started at 1500 baht per person, we were able to get it down to 1000 baht per person. I was happy about this, however, I am sure others have done better. So, we were ready Thursday morning at 8:30 for our driver to pick us up. The next half hour was spent picking people up from several other hotels before we were dropped off at the pier. Once everyone was brought together, there was a group of 22 people for our particular tour. We were all given pink stickers to wear so that our guide would be able find us easily.
Finally arriving by foot to our boat, Macayla and I were first on the boat behind two girls from Denmark. All four of us went straight to the front of the boat to get the coveted seats four seats there and all of the other seats were in the back. We were thrilled and excited to get an open-air view from the front since the seats in the back were too
Bamboo Island
Macayla on the beach. low to be able to look out the windows there. Sammy, our guide, introduced himself and told us that our first destination would take 45 minutes to get there. Then we were off!
About 20 minutes into the ride, I started to get very uncomfortable. The driver was going so fast that the front of the boat was slamming over and over again into the water. All four of us girls were going airborn as the boat dropped and then our tailbones would impact the seat at high speed. We were continuously slammed repeatedly. I started feeling sick; I had to tell Sammy that I had to move to the back. There was no room in the back so I had to sit in the captain's chair with him. Macayla was so upset with me for leaving her. She began crying and the other girls were just as distraught. As soon as we arrived at our first destination, Sammy had to make new seating arrangements.
We first went to a beach on one of the islands for an hour. We enjoyed swimming in the clear turquoise waters and relaxing after that awful ride there. Next, we went snorkeling
Bamboo Island
Turquoise waters at another location and saw beautifully colored fish. I wish my camera was water-proof so I could have taken pictures of them. Snorkeling was so enjoyable that even though Sammy kept pulling us by the arm to show us things under the water we were thrilled. Our third stop was to another snorkeling location but Macayla and I ended up getting out within 10 minutes because there were small jellyfish everywhere and we kept getting stung. After another 10 minutes, Sammy got out and said that we were moving on due to all of the jellyfish around. We headed for Phi Phi Don for lunch.
After lunch, we went to Maya Bay on Phi Phi Leh, but Sammy said that we could not go in to the beach because of all the larger boats that were in the bay. I was unhappy because this was the highlight of the trip for me because Maya Beach was the location where
The Beach was filmed with Leonardo DiCaprio. I told Sammy that I paid for this trip and was promised a swim at Maya Beach. He kept telling me that with the larger boats in the bay smaller boats could not
get in. I stood my ground and he agreed to go in for 20 minutes. I was so happy about him agreeing to go in and I had several of the people in our group thank me for getting us in there, too. The beach is very small but really beautiful. We swam the entire time and we were probably there for an hour. Macayla even put some beach in a bottle to bring home. Very nice and well worth it.
We visited the island where Thais harvest the swallow nests that are found in caves that the Chinese use for soups. These nests are considered a delicacy and are very expensive. We saw them for sale in China and Singapore. After this stop, we headed back for Ao Nang and our hotel. An over-all good day even though we did not go to all of our destinations.
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darby
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so beautiful cous I love the pictures!