Krabi with Lele

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Well it’s been a long time since we’ve written anything so there’s a lot to write now! Sorry but the family has been keeping us busy for the past month as you will soon find out.
So we begin on Thursday the 5th June when at 3.30pm we held our amazing hand-made sign up at the airport to catch Le’s attention, unfortunately she was too busy talking to a couple of English boys to notice us and they had to point us out to her! Typical! After waiting for nearly an hour for the public bus we eventually gave up and went to get a taxi, only to see the bus go past as we went up the escalator! After dropping our bags we went out for a fair few welcome drinks before a fairly early night. The next day, after a rather hot night, we decided to catch the river boat over to the Forensic museum on the other side of the river. We arrived to find it was the most disgusting/graphic museum we had ever visited showing pictures of a variety of injuries. These included stabbings, car crash injuries, gunshot wounds and many more. There were also various limbs on display and even 3 decomposing corpses of rapists that were executed for their crimes! We spent the afternoon relaxing before catching the 6pm bus down south to Krabi. When we arrived in Krabi 18hrs later we caught a taxi and then a boat to Ton Sai beach in Railay Bay. The scenery in the area was beautiful with massive limestone cliffs covered in thick rainforest rising high above the turquoise waters. Our accommodation was cheap and basic but absolutely swarming with mosquitoes! We got eaten alive whilst waiting for a shower after lazing on the beach! That evening whilst we were eating tea loads of little black monkeys started to appear in the trees above us, they were the cutest looking things and didn’t disturb us at all. We spent the next couple of days lazing on the white sandy beaches of Railay west even though the weather wasn’t brilliant. On Tuesday 10th we caught the 9am boat over to the famous Koh Phi Phi, which was hit badly by the Tsunami (although that is no longer noticeable with all the bars, restaurants and accommodation). Le had been given the name of somewhere to stay so we set off in search of it; only to find it had closed down! Our backs were killing so we found somewhere close to stay which had massive comfy beds but the tiniest bathroom I have ever seen (it was no bigger than a coat cupboard). The next day we got up in time to book onto a snorkel trip for the day around the islands. The weather was relatively nice so we thought it would be a really good day for snorkeling…we were very wrong! As we set off we all started putting our sun cream on only for it to get washed off moments later by the massive waves coming over the side of our tiny long tail boat! We went past Viking Cave where we saw fisherman lying in their hammocks; apparently they actually live there. We then stopped at our first snorkel site which was a cove surrounded by limestone cliffs and filled with crystal clear blue water. There were a lot of fish which were being fed by our driver so that they swarmed us; Le got some thrown in her hair which was quite funny. Once we’d all had a swim around we got back into the boat and were taken to another cove around the corner. We were then told that we had to swim to a little cave then walk across to Maya Bay which is where ‘The Beach’ was filmed. We were a bit anxious as the waves were becoming increasingly bigger, but we all jumped off the boat and got swimming. Nick was the only one that brought his snorkel so he had to guide us round rocks in the shallow water. Once we got onto the land we ran across to the beach, the wind was getting stronger and stronger and when we finally arrived at Maya Bay we got whipped with the sand, so instantly ran into the sea. It was funny watching everyone else do the same. We were all in the sea trying to stay as low as possible so we wouldn’t get hit with the full force of the wind, rain and sand! Eventually we returned to the boats but the weather by now was the worst we’ve seen so far during the day; you couldn’t see anything but grey clouds and a curtain of rain! The trip back was horrific and I’m still surprised that we didn’t capsize as the waves were HUGE! That evening we treated ourselves to an all you can eat grill!

On Thursday we walked up to Koh Phi Phi viewpoint which was a lot further than we’d expected! However when we reached the top the view was well worth it. You could see all over the island and over to the smaller island on the left hand side. By the time we’d walked back down the sun had come out so it was off to the beach. That evening we went out for a few drinks before Le was intent on getting a tattoo! She’d already found one she liked, which was a pattern she wanted on the top of her foot down by her toes. She handled the pain very well, although I’m sure the alcohol helped. She had it done with bamboo though which apparently doesn’t hurt as much as a machine tattoo. Once she’d had the first one she really wanted a second, on the bottom of her foot!! The tattooist drew her birth symbol for her which she liked and we got her another drink as she was definitely going to need it. This time she was screaming so much people were coming in off the street to see what all the fuss was about! One man, John, ended up staying and helped us hold her down so the tattoo would be straight! Nick then got 85 tattooed under his birth symbol before we headed back to bed! The next day we said goodbye to island life and caught the bus back to Bangkok ready to meet the parents on Saturday.

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