With the wind at our backs

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Another early start, but this one was going to be well worth it because we had booked a boat tour and snorkeling trip around five of Krabi's beautiful island beaches.  Wahoo!

I was feeling so much better as we boarded songthews headed for the pier bright and early in the morning.  When we arrived at the boat, we found that it was a fairly good-sized speedboat, which was a relief given that the only other boating tours we have seen have been on longboats (a fancy canoe, basically).  Besides the 10 of us or so from the tour, there were about 10 others, for a grand total of 20 passengers on the boat. 

A small crew of us has begun to form from the main tour group, namely: Wez (Australian and the only guy), Sara (from California), Rachel (from Toronto), Alex (from the UK), Liz and I.  Wez, Sara, Liz and I hurried to the bow (front) and grabbed what we thought were front-row seats.  When the boat got going, it was extremely choppy... and the driver was going way faster than I have ever gone on a speedboat like that.  It was so fun!!  The driver made us sit after a while, because he couldn't see all of the longboats in the water with us blocking his view, so we sat and found out the waves were MUCH bigger than we had thought.  With each wave, we burst out with an "Ow!" "Oh!" or "Eeek!", as the passengers in the rear of the boat just looked at us strangely.

When we finally stopped, we were at our first snorkeling place!  We hurried to reapply sunscreen and disrobe, which was all a little difficult considering the rocking of the boat.  In the process, Liz bumped her shin on the boat and her leg immediately started to swell at a pretty alarming rate, so I found our leader that day to look after her.  The crew helped her ice the bump down, but it was still pretty swollen.  (she is Aokay now)

Eventually, we got into the water for some snorkeling fun.  The water was pretty deep, but it was so clear so we could easily see the reef, which was a good 10 feet below us.  There weren't many people in the water (only our boat of 20), so we got to swim around quite a bit.  And the fish!  Beautiful, colourful fish swam in and out of the coral reefs in dizzying schools!  The mates threw some bread overboard, and all of the fish would hurry to grab it at once.  I personally preferred to swim away from the mass of fish scurrying to grab lunch and found some pretty amazing fish on my own.

About 45 minutes later, we re-boarded the boat.  The driver then took us to see some Thai Viking caves, where Vikings still live!  We actually some Vikings in the cave too... see the pictures.

The boat then continued on to Pi Pi Ley Lagoon, a beautiful gem of a lagoon hidden inside Ko Pi Pi Ley.  Ko Pi Pi Ley is the famous shooting place of the movie "The Beach", and now this lagoon is apparently the most famous place in all of southern Thailand because it is so beautiful.  I took so many pictures there... you can see how turquoise and gorgeously beautiful the water is!  The cliffs that encircle the lagoon were also amazing... they just seemed to fall into the water.  The pictures certainly don't do it justice.

Next stop was the actual beach that "The Beach" was filmed at: Maya Lagoon.  This lagoon was PACKED with other speedboats, full of tourists, but just as we arrived, many of the boats started to re-load, so we felt comfortable that we would soon have the beach all to ourselves.  Like Pi Pi Ley Lagoon, the water at Maya Lagoon was clear and turquoise.  When I stepped off the boat, my feet were met with the softest white sand.... exquisite.  I spent most of the time bobbing in the water, so I only have one picture and it's kind of blurry  :( but you can get the idea, I'm sure!

By now, it was well after one, so the captain drove us to Ko Pi Pi Don (one of the most popular islands from Krabi) to have a little lunch.  After lunch, we walked around Ko Pi Pi a bit and I was honestly extremely unimpressed.  The little village we were at was very touristy and there were NO other Thai people around, which I found very strange from anywhere else we have been.  Rachel and I commented that if we took a picture, people would think we were on some chintzy resort in Orlando, FL; not Thailand.  Anyway, I later found out that Ko Pi Pi is quite beautiful, we were just in a lousy part of it.  No biggie, because it was only meant to be a lunch stop.

For the afternoon, we first had a second go at the snorkeling and were taken to a place near Bamboo Island.  The snorkeling was great!  The reefs were amazingly beautiful and I saw at least 20 different kind of fish.  The fish were also extremely oblivious to our being there and several times, I swam straight through schools of fish that were migrating across the reef.  I felt like I was going the wrong way in traffic!  But it was very cool. 

After snorkeling, we anchored the boat on Bamboo Island, and we had almost 2 hours to explore and relax.  We all immediately went for a swim in the clear turquoise water, but soon found that we were being bitten by some invisible thing -- we later found out it was SEA LICE, which was explained to me as "water mosquitos"... gross!  Instead of swimming, a group of us went for a walk on the beach and I went crazy picking up pieces of coral broken off from the reef.  I wanted to bring them all home!  Sara and I then went off exploring other parts of the island, walking through caves and climbing around  lagoons.  Lots of fun! 

By the time we went back from our expedition, the boat was nearly fully loaded and we had to go back!  :( :(  On the way back to Krabi proper, the captain stopped at a bunch of different islands including "Chicken Island", so named because it is shaped like a chicken, and some others that I don't know the name of.  Point being: Krabi and its surrounding waters are stunning... go there if you can!

Back at the ranch, we were fairly exhausted, so we all called it an early night after dinner.  What a day!