Phi Phi Island

I cant believe I missed this out. Especially after the effort we went through to get this. On our first day we were approached by a really nice friendly Austrian named Frank. He told us that he was offering a special deal to all new holidaying people. So we took the cards and scratched away. He made such a big deal about Shane getting 3 stars (a great performance when I look back..) Any how he was able to give away tour trips to only a few people and so he gave us the free Phi Phi Island Tour. We were promptly put into a taxi and speed away to Patong. Both of us rather wide eyed as we had no idea of where we would end up. We got given another free breakfast and our host was Marley (who thought he was rather shit hot) any how...after 4 hours of total boredom I could finally see light at the end of the tunnel and when it came time to give a yes or no....it was a loud NO and we were shown the door. But they were true to their word and gave me my tee shirt and booked our tour. We had no idea of if the tour would happen but as optimists we got up on Thursday and waited to be collected at 7am.






The boats all getting loaded up to head to Phi Phi Island. There were about 8 boats.





To our surprise we did get collected and along with 3 other couples we headed to the boats. On our boat were 40 other people of all races. Not many spoke English. The couple that fascinated Shane the most was the man from Istanbul who had two wives. They had a baby girl (approx 7 months old) but we still cant work out which women was the mum as she called them both mum. They wore black robes but showed their faces. The younger one had a white head scarf with pink and the older one had a black one. Shane joked that he was offered 2 camels and 50 goats for me...he thought it was a good offer....I thought 3 camels would have been better!!!

Anyway ... it takes 90mins to get to Phi Phi Island. This is where the beach was filmed. On the way they circle around a couple of smaller Islands.




A small bay on the way.



These are I guess hollow is the easiest way to explain and at low tide the small cave entrance can be seen. This is where the sea kayaks can enter. Inside it is lush with rain forest and a small sandy beach. The rocks are so soft that the trees can actually grow threw the rock. The tree roots make their way down to the water and then when the tree dies the roots dry up leaving a hole. Then water runs through this and creates stalagmites that hang into the water and all along the rock walls. It all looks so pretty.






Some Rock formations along the way



We stop and are given the chance to go snorkeling over the coral reef. We jump at this and sadly didn't by an under water camera as we had no idea this was on the tour. It was amazing....I just laid in the water with my arms hanging down...and watched all colours and sized fish swim through my fingers. 40 mins went by so fast!!




The view as you pull up to the wharf at Phi Phi Island




Next we were off again to pull into Phi Phi Island where we had lunch (which was a really nice buffet type) and then were given an hour to stroll and shop. Our main purchase here were DVD's. Paying 100bht each or 6 for 500bht. These are all working fine in our DVD player at home and also in the laptop. They are latest release that are still to come to the movies here.


This shows left and right of "The Beach" on Phi Phi Island

Shane was disappointed when we crossed the island to where the beach was filmed. He thought it would still look the same...but you can hardly recognise it. So we headed back to the shops and brought more DVD's.

It wasn't long til the horn blew on the boat and we had to head back. It was an awesome day and well worth it.