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After leaving what felt like our second home, namely the sandy resort, we said our goodbyes to all the staff who we became very friendly with (I was greeted like a local celebrity upon my return from the hospital!). We were picked up by a minibus and taken to the ferry. The ferry was not quite like the ones we had become used to, but we survived for the next couple of hours.
After getting off the ferry we got back onto the bus we thought would be our transport all the way to Krabi. We were driving along for about an hour when the bus pulled over at the side of the road, and the people who were traveling to Krabi were asked to get off. Here we waited next to a busy road wondering what was going to pick us up next. Whilst waiting we got chatting to the three other people also traveling to Krabi. They were Toni an Australian girl, Tod a Canadian and Jay a guy from London. We all soon erupted into laughter as we saw what can only be described as a small milk float arriving to pick us up. It was another four hours until Krabi and we certainly did not fancy a long and uncomfortable journey in this!! Luckily this current mode of transport was only temporary and after a short journey we stopped off again, where we were able to book some accommodation for the night, before heading off to Krabi in yet another minibus.
During the journey Jay, who had only just left England, brought me up to speed with the football season whilst Mandy chatted to Toni about all the places we had visited. When we arrived in Krabi we were dropped off and taken by car to our guest house. The car was a normal pickup, but there were nine of us including the driver to fit in it. Mandy and I were lucky enough to get seats inside, whilst the others had to sit in the back with all the bags. The driver was not exactly careful as he drove, and proceeded to put all the windows down and blasted out Westlife songs! When booking Koh Samui to Krabi Mandy and I wondered why it was so cheap. As our journey that included six different modes of makeshift transport came to an end, we realised why!
The guest house was not the nicest place we have stayed in, and we were given a room in the basement. It did for the night and we met up with our new friends, checked out the local night market and finished the evening off in a few bars.
The next day we traveled by ferry to the popular island of Koh Phi Phi. Our hotel was very nice and extremely different from the previous nights. That night we had dinner at an 'all you can eat' BBQ, were we had the best mashed potato since leaving home!
After realising how long it took to get to Phi Phi by ferry, we decided we would not have enough time on the Saturday morning to catch our first flight. We chartered our own personal speedboat (which was not cheap) in order to ensure we would make the airport in time.
The reason we went to Phi Phi was for the snorkeling and to visit Maya bay. We got to do both of these on the Friday as we had booked a sunset trip on a long tail boat. After choosing our flippers we headed off on the boat for our first stop, shark point. Although, to Mandy's relief, we never actually saw any sharks, we saw some amazing coral and an array of spectacular marine fish.
Next we moved onto Bamboo Island. This is probably the first place we have seen that could be described as 'paradise'. We stayed here for a while had a nice lunch and spent some time enjoying the white sands and crystal clear sea. On Bamboo Island we were able to see from a marker on the beach just how high the waves hit during the tsunami. This greatly saddened us but brought home just how far the islands around have come since the disaster.
We then headed to monkey beach. Here we were greeted by lots of monkeys who came down from the cliff face to receive their daily portion of bananas, brought by the tourists. Some of the baby monkeys could have only just been born as they were absolutely tiny and Mandy managed to take a great photo of one.
We sailed to a lagoon which was my favorite place, and I spent a long time here diving off the boat into the emerald water. Just over from here we were able to do some more snorkeling, with huge sea urchins just below our feet. I was lucky enough to spot three puffer fish although Mandy was really disappointed she did not get a chance to see any. Our captain threw in some food which stirred up the fish and they all came up to the surface to feed. Although I enjoyed this Mandy did not and after being bitten twice she quickly scrambled out of the water and back onto the boat!
Our last place to visit for the day was Maya bay, the backdrop for the film The Beach. Mandy was so excited about seeing the bay as she loved the film, and I had to keep reminding her that Leonardo Di Caprio was not going to be there! As the water in Maya bay was shallow by this time of the day our boat was not able to sail into it. This meant we had to walk through a rock face to get there. This was fairly dangerous in flip flops as it was extremely slippery but after dodging the hundreds of crabs and with Mandy cutting her foot (which was apparently my fault!) we finally reached the bay. The bay itself was breathtaking with the white sand and clear water encompassed by a semi circle of steep rock. By now the weather had taken a serious change for the worst and it turned very dark. The wind then came along and brought with it rain. We quickly made our way back to the boat for our tortuous and wet journey back to Phi Phi. Needless to say we did not see the sunset, but this did not take anything away from a fantastic day.
After returning to the hotel Mandy received a text from Asia Air telling us that our first flight for the following day had been delayed by two hours! This meant we would have had enough time to catch the normal ferry! The irony of it all!!
Our expensive and needless speedboat was very fun and for a short while we really felt like international jetsetters! We were soon brought back down to earth when the boat stopped back at Krabi. It did not stop at a normal pier, instead pulling up next to three very large boats that we had to walk across to get to land. After the boats there was a 20 foot plank of wood, floating on a few inflatable barrels, which we had to maneuver across to reach the bank. Not only would this have been difficult to cross normally, we had the added extra of our now almost 20 kilogram bags to carry across. Luckily we both kept our balance although we were certain at least one of us would have fallen in!
We made our flight from Krabi to Bangkok with plenty of time to spare and then boarded a flight out of Thailand to Singapore. Spending a week in hospital and a further five days recovering in Samui meant we could not explore the west coast as much as we had wanted to but we hope one day to return!
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