Ko Phi Phi...a little bit of paradise

On the boat from Phuket to Phi Phi
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We caught the early morning ferry to Ko Phi Phi Don, the island famous for 'The Beach'.  We had landed in paradise!  Glorious beaches, glorious sunshine and no ladyboys!  The beach had the most golden, soft sand i'd ever seen and the sea was like stepping into a warm bath.  You would never get cold!  After a day of lounging on the beach, we bumped into Pete, Juliet and Rufus and arranged to meet them for dinner that night.  We took a longtail boat to Long beach, the next beach around the bay and another glorious beach met our eyes.  This island is paradise!

The scenery
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We ate with the guys that night and arranged to go on a boat trip the next day to Ko Phi Phi Lay and surrounding area.  Ko Phi Phi Don is the island where everyone stays and Ko Phi Phi Lay is uninhabited and is home to Maya beach, the famous setting of the 1999 hit flm, 'The Beach'.

..there is a huge cardboard cut-out of Leonardo Di Caprio!

So the next day the 6 of us got our longtail taxi boat to see the sights.  We stopped off in a few diferent bays where we were able to snorkel.  After getting confirmation from our taxi driver that there were no sharks (we all asked about twice each), we feared nothing until a group of snorkellers near us shouted that they had seen a shark but it turned out to be either a baby (we hoped its mother wasn't nearby) or a small shark!  Oh my god!  The snorkelling was out of this world!  We were able to see all sorts of tropical fish, some with mad blue and purple colours, like Nemo!  We could see so much i didn't want to get out!  Amazing!

Ko Phi Phi Don, paradise!
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We continued on to see Maya beach, where apparently there is a huge cardboard cut-out of Leo Di Caprio for photo-taking purphoses but we never actually made it onto the beach, as it cost 200Baht (4euro) to go there and the whole day had cost us 250Baht (4.50euro) so we didn't want to spend the money but you could see that the beach was beautiful.  We snorkelled in the crystal-clear waters instead of getting a photo standing next to Leo!

Monkey beach was our next destination, which is home to hundreds of wild monkeys, who come down to the beach and get fed peanuts and bananas by the tourists (they are pretty fat monkeys)!  They seemed pretty tame but we were told they could become aggressive so everyone took a wide berth!

Chilling on the beach
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We continued on to another very quaint bay, whose beach had a total of about 7 people on it!  We were going to snorkel again but our taxi driver decided to throw one of our bananas into the water and the fish went mad for it (like the piranahas in the James Bond film, Dr No, i think it's that one.)  This didn't please Pete, who was in the water at the time!  I've never seen anyone exit the water so fast!

That night was Phi Phi's half-moon beach party at Hippies Bar so we headed down with the guys and met up with some friends of theirs.  After drinking a bucket of whiskey and coke each, we sampled the free BBQ (main reason for going) and danced the night away!  Entertainment was provided by some fire throwers who were amazing!  They were spining it here, there and everywhere, over their heads, through their legs!!  What a sight!  Although they are a bit crazy!!!  We ended up dancing on the beach with more buckets and Rob and I fell home at 4am (after getting lost on the way and eating sonething, which neither of us can remember what it was!!!)

The nicest beach ever!
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The following day was very uneventful as we were dying with a hangover and just managed to make it to the beach for a dip!  The guys left for Krabi and we were in bed by 9.30pm!!!!

This has been, to date, one of my favourite places and everyone we met that had been to the others, said the same!  It's a little bit of paradise!