Phi phi, Lanta and Krabi

Asia
September 7th 2009

Published: September 7th 2009

Had I writted this message a few days ago my comments towards my time in Phi phi would have been somewhat negative but tonight the flag of hindsight is held high!

We arrived at the harbour and were greeted by some superhuman man who proceeded to throw all of our bags into a card and push them up a hill (through the smell of sewage and raw chicken which would unfortunely soon become familliar). He then proceeded to transfer us to a pickup which he reversed up a windy dirt track to our resort. I wont lie, I admired this man!

After we had walked up roughly one million steps, we were in our room, it turns out that the room was only as cheap as it was (not cheap when compared with other islands) because we had forefitted the options of a TV and hot water. On the way back down the steps I began to explain to Rachel that the place is not horrible, it just has character, very soon I would retract this comment.

Phi phi was clearly the most tourist filled area we had been so far and for that reason I thought that it would be a good idea to pull a late one with the rest of the kids.

The short version of the story is as follows:

1 x Long Island Ice Tea (apparently a propper one! 10CL of booze)
1 x Bottle of Tiger
1 x Tower of Singha (3 litres of beer shared with Rachel)
1 x Kamikazee bucket (a concotion of various ingreedients shared with Rachel and the two Flo's (we'll get to them later)) There is a picture of me holding this bucket which to me sums up everything which is wrong with the world but unfortunately technology has let me down again and I can't share it.

There was more but my memory is a bit shaky, either way on the way back we stop for our first feed from the people selling food on the side of the road, walked back up the steps and began snacking. Some time shortly after, I began vomiting...... I continued to do so until I was quite literally empty! (By the way there are also some videos of a fire show which i was hoping to share but these will also have to wait).

This would have been Ok, the obvious plan for the following day is to stay in bed and feel better. Unfortuately this was not really an option as we had alread booked a 7 hour island tour on a longtail boat! I felt bad! bad enough that the smell of toast was upsetting me. Bad enough that I was taken to a beach completely inhabbited by wild monkeys and I was only interested in putting my back to then and looking at my feet in the water. This upsets me, many a day have I been sat at my desk wishing that someone would take me away to a beach full of monkeys. What was worse is that this was probably one of Rachels best days and I was not able to share it.

None of this is as positive as I was hoping it would be?

The following day would be better. We would go to the harbour in the morning with our open ticket purchased in Phuket and we would take the boat to Ko Lanta.....

...What do you mean there's no boat to Ko Lanta?

It turns out that despite our being re-assured that we could use our ticket ANY day, the boats only ran every other day. We already had accomodation booked in Lanta and did not want to stay on Phi Phi so we begged our way onto the Krabi boat where we then had to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get to Ko Lanta. however, we did get to Ko Lanata after another breif encounter with the Flo's!

I understand that Rachel has already told this story but for those of you not paying attention.

1. Our nightmare trip from Ko Samui to Phuket was shared with two German boys.
2. Whilst out getting unacceptably drunk in Phi Phi we run into two German boys and discover that they are both called Flo.
3. When getting off the boat in Krabi (where we weren't even supposed to be) we find the two Flo's. I have taken an e-mail address and will update you with any interesting stories they may have.

The good luck met us at Ko Lanta. The place was dead but our resort was amazing. We already new it was low season but in Ko Lanta this has antother meaning, this means that it looks like you are on a desrted island and if you want a drink you may have to break into a bar and help yourself. It was really really quiet and I loved it! We spent four days riding our scooter all over the island (her name was Jolly, I am not responsible), chilling on beaches and getting to know the resort staff. It was a much needed detox after our the whirlwind that was our first two weeks.

Last night was spent sitting at the resort bar with my phone plugged into their sound system, listening to
Jimi Hendrix with the waves in the background and a beer in front of me. A most fond memory.

Today we arrived in Krabi not expecting much at all. We were surprised!

Krabi is acually really cool. Our resort is about a 10 minute drive to the beach but luckily the resort offer a shuttle service which is actually a Honda moped with some seats strapped to the side of it ridden by a man who I have named Jose (I can't find an 'e' with an accent on it) who drives you to the beach and picks you up when you're ready.

Today has been a good day, the nice thing about travelling seems to be that when you pack up at one place and arrive at antother, everything changes and there's always a nice surprise around the corner.

Phi phi, Lanta and Krabi

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