Phi Phi, Thailand

We caught the boat from Krabi to Koh Phi Phi Don and arrived to a hectic pier of hotel touts.
Ignoring them and storming to the main guest house strip, we quickly found a bamboo bungalow footsteps from the beach. Koh phi Phi is a interesting Island, The main hotel and shopping area is on top of a giant
sand bank, which separates two mountains. If you make the sweaty effort to walk to the top of Koh Phi Phi, the view point is amazing. In the evening Phi Phi really comes to life. Fire dancers on the beach and Western style Thai boxing.....quite interesting. Matt came away with burns on his arm after trying his hand at fire skipping and fire limbo (only small ones mum).

Day 2 & 3 - MATT
Got up early to book my place on a camping trip to Maya Bay (Where they filmed "The Beach"), only thirty people are allowed at one time and there is only one company in the world which has the permit to do this. Me and Andy got our stuff together and set off at 2:30 on the reggae reggae boat, we passed Viking cave and had 45 minutes snorkling at a reef before arriving at the bay. When we got there all the riff
raff and boats were leaving, perfect! We took some time to take photographs and had a cold beer whilst the sun went down, doesn't get much better than that. After sunset we sat down as a group and had dinner followed by a beach bucket of whiskey and coke whilst listening to music and being entertained by the local king crabs which come out at night and live in the trees. After dinner we all made a campfire, watched a firedance show and listened to the Thais playing guitars and bongo drums. The sea
was glistening with electric plankton, when you disturbed the water it came alive with green, purple and blue neon dots. We spent most of the night lying on the beach taking in the beauty of the place and watching the billions of stars which filled the sky. This is one experience I will never forget, and would love to do again.The next morning we woke up at 5:30am to the sunrise over the bay (Thought I was still dreaming) Had some time for a few more photos and a swim before the boats and tourists returned, my cue to leave. The rest of the day I felt very relaxed and that's exactly what I did.

Day 2 & 3 - Sam and Kyle

We started our day by walking to the top of the island to find the tsunami village. We expected to find maybe a memorial or museum but actually came to the new living quarters where the Phi Phi residents live. The houses were really unusual, they were on stilts with the living space situated on the second floor. we then walked back down to town before trekking up another load of stairs to Phi Phi viewpoint. The walk was really ho and sweaty but well worth the views right at the top. You could see
the two mountains and the connecting sandbar in the middle as well as a poster which provided a snapshot of the area after the tsunami had hit. We couldn't believe the destruction until later when we found out that the tsunami hit Phi Phi on both sides of the bay. There was a really nice garden on top with some unusual and beautiful flowers in. Today was Suzannes birthday, Happy Birthday to Suzanne! Sam was very saddened by the fact that this was the first of her mothers birthdays that she has missed and did not get to drink a penis colada with her. On the other hand we had a fantastic day out on
a boat trip. We were on the boat from 9:00-7:00 and it cost us 9.50. We`had a VIP boat with free tea and coffee, water, a toilet and there were only 5 of us! Our first stop was shark tip point where we were glad that we did not see any sharks whilst snorkeling. However we did get to feed the fish bread and the various fish made it a good first stop. Our next stop was a choppy boat ride to a bamboo island. Needless to say Kyle experienced sea sickness, haha! Bamboo island was definitely by far the most
picturesque beach we have ever seen. We had to get in a mini speedboat to get to the beach which we are not exaggerating when we say was choppy. Waves were coming over the side of the boat nearly washing us out to sea and making us hold on very tight. After Bamboo island we had a bumpy lunch before we sailed past mosquito island on towards monkey beach. We snorkelled again here whilst avoiding getting hit by the many stopping boats. There was lots of coral so there were loads of different varieties
of fish and sea urchins to look at.Our final stop was Maia bay which we swam too and entered through a tiny cove at the back. To end the trip we watched the sunset in the bay then returned too dry land.