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Initially we were going to spend a couple of nights in Krabi before catching yhe ferry over to Koh Phi Phi, however upon arrival the place seemed rundown and lifeless. Against our better judgements we immediately crossed to Phi Phi even though we were warned we wouldn't be able to find abywhere to stay without pre-booking. Furtunately they were wrong and we managed to find a room, only a few long hours of walking in the baking sun later, i also only had 1 flip flop as my other one broke.
WE were extremley lucky to find anywhere at all eventhough the fan in the room shook itself to pieces and made a noise even more annoying than moms singing (i know its hard to believe). You see the accomadation is so scarse because of the boxing day tsunami whihc hit Koh Phi Phithe worst. The majority of all the buildings on the island had been built ona 1km stretch of peninsula that raised to the dazzling height of 1 metre above sea level. When the tsunami hit it washed away buildings and killed thousands, and due to the island being a national park they weren't allowed to rebuild only repair. You can still see the repair work going on! Obviosly the locals are terrifed and have put up large tsunami warning sirens everywhere and marked escape routes to the nearest high ground. You see reminiscents of it everywhere. We spent the rest of that day taking cold showers and wallowing ina true paradise island!
The following day we decided to leave the hustle and bustle of the main beaches and hire a sea kayak to get to the more secluded beaches that cant be reached by land. We came across one beach called Monkey Beach which amazingly enough was full of monkeys. They're called makets and are so unafraid of humans they come and sit next to you and pinch food from your hand. We also rowed to another beach where we saw a picturesque sunset over the sea.
A must do on Koh Phi Phi is to set sail for the other island which is a more highly protected national park and completely unspoilt. Here we snorkled in the clearest water ive ever seen and swam with all kinds of tropical fish. However the highlight of the tour was to go to the world famous idealic beach known for being the beach used in the film "the beach". Aloughth there was some camera trickery, it was a breathtakingly beautiful place just like in the film.
Unfortunately we left Koh Phi Phi in a rather depressed mood. You see after having a very very very painful thai massage we decided to save a bit of money and sleep under the stars on the beach in our sleeping bags. As well as this we accidently bumped into the Americans from our PADI Course and consequently got bladded. Much to my regret i ended up crawling into my sleeping bag at the end of the night and not putting on mosquito repelent. I awoke to a black cloud of mossies enjoying an all you can eat buffet. My shoulders were covered as were my arms and it took a whole tube of bite cream and several days for the swelling to disappear. I looked like i had some tropical disease. Thats not all aswell. We decided to leave the island as quick as possible that morning, and after buying a ticket from a tour company we hoped on the ferry, only to be thrown off. Supposedly the ticket only covered 1 person eventough we were told it was for 2. It took several hours of arguing with the tour company and a couple of ferrys later until we managed to board the ferry to Phuket. We stayed in Phuket 1 night and have nothing much to say apart from how much of a rip off it was. Especially for food where i paidabout 5 quid for a microwave lasagne, thats ridiculous by the way for Thailand, and just to topit off they managed to somehow undercook it.
We flew off from Thailand the next day for Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia but will always remember Tahiland for its cheap chang beer.
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