Ah Koh Phi Phi (of course if it was in the UK it would be called, Isle Piss Piss, but a rose by any other name), this place was amazing, so amazing we managed to do just about nothing! It was difficult but we managed it on all but one day, were we went to an other beach, but thats an other story.

The place we stayed in Phi Phi, first of all seemed in a horrible location, obviously because we got there by the long way round, but it turned out to be in an excellent location, not because it was right beside the best beach on the island, or because it was right beside a shop that gave away free cakes and beer to the whitest people they saw (we still held this title at this point), but because it was 93 paces away from the Tsumani evacuation point! Although we didnt realise we where this lucky until a couple of days into our stay. We had seen all these evacuation signs all around the island, but we had never seen the evacuation point itself, so on one of my water/ snack runs i decided to measure out the closest sign, it claimed the evacuatin point was 300m up the hill so off i went, and just past our abode, there i was but so was nothing else, then it hit me, I dont know what i was expecting but the evacuation point was simply the top of the hill. Although I wasnt worried, I was hoping for at least a helipad, or jetpacks that would take me to somewhere that was slightly higher above land, but at least we where higher up than anyone else in the island.

PP was and mostly likely still is the most beautiful of all the islands in Thailand (well out of all 4 of the ones we went to), so like i said before to celebrate this beauty we lay on its beaches for every minute we could. It was with this we queried the colour of our skin! Now over the best part of the month we had been away, yes we had changed from pale white to maybe a Dulux egg shell colour, but we thought and had vague recollections that on previous 2 week holidays we had maybe gone a bit darker than this and espeically with weather like this we should have gone a better colour than this. Then with the detective in training that I am i read something. The sun screen botlle, apparently we had been using (for only 1 week may i add, so we arent that bad) a sun screen that protects us from UV a b, excellent good to hear, skin ageing, also good and skin darkening!!! Who on Gods green earth (well white sand on this occasion) would not want to have their skin a bit darker! So after reading this and swearing quite loudly on a quiet beach, i chucked this devil concoction as far as i could (about 1 meter, i was in a bad throwing position), then we went and carefully bought a new bottle of sun screen.

Apart from the sun screen disaster it was on the beach that i also had my first realisation of what was going on. One day I just started laugh, quite louldy in fact while just lying on the beach. It was becuase i was on a beach, it was 35 degrees, there where no clouds and it was 2pm on a tuesday afternoon and i wasnt at work. It had took me over 3 weeks to realise that i was 'travelling' that this is what i shall be doing fo rthe next 5 months. I enjoyed this thought!

It was here that I realised I had a battle, actually more of a war on my hands, the cruel and bloodly war of dehydration, it was also here that i realised I was losing and losing badly! Since PP was the place we stayed the longest, we where able to guage how much water we where to trying to drink, at the end of the 5 days it seemed as if there where around 250 litre bottles of water scattered around, plus we had to take into account the hundreds we had drunk while at the beach but this was getting silly! Also the accountant in me worked out us having to drink so much water the the main thing eating into our budget!

Since we had found our accomodation the long way, we decided during our second day to take note of some land marks during the day to find our way back at night the quick way so we didnt have to walk the whole way around the island to get to back where we where staying. So it was pretty easy, right past the irish pub, right at the big boat, straight past the lovely gardens etc. it was lovely. At night it was slightly different; try to find the irish pub, think why we hadnt made a landmark between the irish pub and the boat, then it was straight down what at day was a fairly busy street, which at night began know to us and probably many others as, Bat Alley, which was definetly wasnt named ironically, which myself and charlotte walked down at an incredile speed, hunched over more than yer man from Notre Dame to avoid the (what left like 100) bats, that dived and darted up and down this now empty, dark scary street. After that delight we do indeed turn right past the boat but instead of a lovley garden we found what became know as 's*** Creek', which we found out actually was. It was the the islands sewage collection which they planted foilage over to try and hide the smell, my advice plant more plants!!

We were in PP well into our 3rd week and luckily and unfortunately, we decided to get our clothes washed for the first time. We didnt do this because they smelt or were dirty, well some of them were. Mainly because we thought it was the right thing to do! This was a triumphant day for both of us as when we got our clothes back we realised that they were dirty and that they did smell, but at least started a lovely 3 week cycle, well hopefully anyway.

Anyway the 'other' thing we accomplised was a trip to Phi Phi leh, which is a national and marine park, which is where they filmed most of the 'Beach', this well for me was a slight disappointment, mainly because i thought the beah we had been lying on for the last 4 days was better and we chose to go in the afternoon instead of the morning when the sun wasnt hitting the bay. Apart from all that it was a lovely place and I would recommend people to head over there, but try and do the morning trip!

One final thing about Phi Phi, there were lots of bars doing various thing to get more people into there bar, 2-4-1 etc, but one bar offered free buckets of cocktails to anyone and their friend who would get in the ring and go a few rounds of Thai boxing. Now as much as would love a free drink, and Charlotte is the only person i would go into the ring with I knew for certain I could defeat, and no matter how annoying she had been that day I still dont think I could have gone into the ring with her, mianly because deep down i still think I would lose!