Koh Phi Phi

So we arrived at Koh Phi Phi in the late morning, and leaving Nick and Sarah at the port to mind our bags, myself and Mullins ignored all the touts and started strolling about the town looking for accommodation.

Mullins has been to Phi Phi twice before, and thought he knew the lay of the land, but it turned out things have changed a bit since his last visit. After a bit of backtracking we ended up checking about 15 places without finding anything with available rooms at a good price. We ended up going back to Nick and Sarah and taking a tout to a nearby large complex of concrete bungalows. The rooms were very nice though, and we stayed there for 2 nights before finding much cheaper rooms in the centre of the town.

All-in-all I don't think any of us was particularly impressed with Koh Phi Phi. Although the scenic setting is lovely (I personally preferred Raileh though), it was still very much high season (although thankfully not super-high season which is the time between Christmas and Jan 10th), and so everywhere was very, very crowded, with everything from rooms, food and drink all very overpriced. The main beach was also very crowded, and if it wasn't for Nick finding a secluded area of beach on the pier-side of the island we almost certainly would have left the island after just a day or two.

As it was, we basically just hung out on that secluded part of beach every day for 4 days. There were free umbrellas and sun loungers (although the umbrellas weren't very effective, and I got burnt after the first day sitting under one), and a great, cheap little local restaurant right beside us.

We had all wanted to try scuba diving in the area (and had been thinking of maybe heading to Phuket to do a live-aboard to the world famous Similans, but in the end my budget wouldn't really have stretched to that). But the reports from the dive shops all told us the visibility was pretty terrible, but that it might improve in a day or two. So we decided to skip Phuket and just hang around Phi Phi for another couple of days hoping the seas would clear up a bit.

It all turned out very well too, as a couple of days later all 3 of us did 2 fun dives together and the visibility was a very healthy 12-14 meters. We got to approach a very beautiful, heavily pregnant leopard shark just resting on the sea floor, a small turtle feeding on coral, lots of shoals of small, colourful fish, quite a few lion fish, barracuda and just lovely rock and coral formations.

On one of the mornings we trekked up to the viewpoint that gives great views over the isthmus to the two crescent beaches below. It also provides views of just how overly developed the island has become since the tsunami destroyed much of it in 2004. It was fascinating to see the before and after photos of the area, but not so nice to see what a mess the Thais have made of developing the 'clean-slate' they had after the tsunami.

Each evening was pretty much the same - after the beach and a shower we'd stroll to a nice restaurant for cheap Thai food and then a few beers in the places we knew had happy hours. Then maybe we'd check out the fire shows on the beach (one night there was a traditional Thai dance troupe of lady boys from Phuket, which got a bit boring after about half-an-hour).

So after 6 nights on the island it was time to leave and start heading up North. Mullins wanted to catch up with another friend of his currently volunteering with refugees on the Thai/Burmese border, and so myself and Sarah decided to join him for the long trip up to Mae Sot.