24th Jun 2011 - 26th Jun 2011 -
Today we are heading to Phi Phi Don, we took a boat which took 1 and half hours or so, and the views along the way were lovely, hundreds of islands dotted all along the horizon. On arriving we went straight to sort out tomorrow's trip to Phi Phi Ley, then we walked along the busy streets of stalls and diving places, we tried a few hotels/guest houses but they were full or stupidly expensive so found Jong's House for £14. A lot of places also want your custom sorry i mean your money so want you to stay two nights but we just said we weren't here so couldn't. The room was the most basic we have had and we had separate beds too boohoo, it wasn't the best looking room but it was cheap and right in the centre of everything,
2 minutes walk to the beach, and that's what we done, stopped off for a watermelon shake and banana shake and lay on the lovely soft sand. We went in for a swim and the water was hot and you could walk very far out without it getting deep. The beach is lovely as is the rest of Phi Phi Don.
After a quick shower as it was rubbish we headed to an all you can eat buffet with free drink which was great. We then heard about the only open top roof bar on the island (green banana) who shows films on big projector screens and tonights was 'The Beach' so we went and got a drink and squeezed in to watch the film. We then were daredevils and bought a Bucket to share of Sam song and their version of red bull. Sam song is Thai whiskey and I do not like any kind of whiskey, but we took it down to the beach where we chilled out, we could watch the flame throwers in the pubs and still get some quiet time. The sam song went down as well as it could for me, Shannon liked it so that's good.
Had breakfast this morning- dont normally have time. We decided to climb to the view point this morning actually Shannons getting the blame for this, his idea to go, but we must've taken wrong way as what had been described as an easy 20 minute walk turned into an hour of complete hard work sweating away up lots of huge hills, aren't good anytime of day but by now it was noon hottest part of the day. We walked and walked then we finally reached the view point and it seemed worth all the hard work it was a stunning view across both bays which are back to back, we had a drink and watched the view then walked back down the correct way which was steep steps but a third of the time.
We were so hot we decided to go for a quick swim before our trip but the sea water was boiling hot that it wasn't going to cool us. We sunbathed a little then went to our meeting point at The LemonGrass hotel, where 47 of us gathered for our overnight camping trip to Phi Phi Ley where the film 'The Beach' was filmed. There is only one tour company who is allowed to do the camping trip as they don't want to over populate the island. We walked to the pier and some of went on the big boat and we were lucky to go on a long tail boat we were excited as I keep telling Shannon I think they are pretty. Turned out to be lucky too as we left earlier than other group so had longer to see round Viking Cave where birds nests are used for birds nests soup- we could see the bamboo ladders they use to climb very high in the caves with no harness to reach the nests. The name comes from when Vikings or pirates landed on these shores many years ago and left carvings in the Walls.
We then went snorkelling and we got to touch coral. We carried on and went to a lagoon and jumped off the boat for a swim (the bigger boat is too big so others missed out on lagoon) we then arrived at Phi Phi Ley and had to swim to shore and walked round the island until we got to the world famous Maya Beach.
We had free time so unlike everyone else who lazed about the beach we decided to swim to another beach, but I'm not the strongest swimmer and found it hard going it took us about 20 minutes to get there, we chilled then had the task of swimming back, we then all had dinner and drinks and free buckets then free time again, most people stayed to play drinking games but the few romantics left and sat on the beach.
Shan drank a bit too many buckets and passed out on our mats. I took some photos of the bay in the pitch darkness. Went to sleep in our sleeping bags but in middle of night it started raining so a few of us took shelter in a hut, we moved again when it cleared up. Woke in the morning to see it getting lighter- we could have went to other side of island to see sunrise but Shannon was still comotosed and I didn't have a full sleep as I was getting bitten by mossies the whole night so we lay and watched the sky light up ands dozed.
We got up and had breakfast then headed back to Phi Phi Don. We both really enjoyed the trip and felt it special that we had lazed on the same beach that was made into a Hollywood blockbuster. We did have a glitch though in our fun, my small camera is missing I believe it's been stolen but it would have been easy to misplace- anyway I've lost or broken to many cameras now to cry over it.
We didn't waste anytime hanging about when we got back to Phi Phi Don a ferry was leaving at 1130 half an hour away so we booked that and headed back to Krabi. We had left our suitcases in hotel while we were away so it was easy for us and it was great having no bags to carry around. We got a different room looking at other side of hotel and have great views of the giant limestone cliffs.
We walked down to the beach and swam for ages in the huge waves, we went straight out for dinner and bought some fake DVDs and got a mcflurry on way back to hotel.
