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When, at breakfast-time, I was having a beer in the sunshine on the front of a speedboat bound for the Phi Phi islands, I had a feeling it was going to be a good day... and it certainly was! The weather was fantastic and the scenery was beautiful - the water was bright turquoise and dotted with limestone karsts. The boat stopped in a couple of places where we could go snorkelling over the coral reef; the water was warm and there were so many fish in different sizes, shapes and colours - I had never seen anything like it before unless on TV or in an aquarium - there were small fish with blue, yellow and black stripes and big fish with fluorescent green, pink and purple scales. I was swimming right in the middle of them, they didn't even swim away from me, it was amazing!
Later I sunbathed at the Maya Beach on Koh Phi Phi Ley where parts of the movie The Beach were filmed. We went for lunch on Koh Phi Phi Don. We finished up on Bamboo Island where I did some more snorkelling and some of the others chilled out on the beach. One of the crazy guys running our boat was going round with a tray of watermelon and pineapple for us and he came right out into the water to give me mine!
Just as we were setting off to return to the mainland a storm hit - the water was very choppy and it was a painful trip back as the boat jumped up and slammed back down on the waves continually for nearly an hour, bouncing us around inside. Then, as we neared the landing point, our boat ran out of petrol and another boat had to come and rescue us - quite eventful!
Back at the guesthouse in the evening we had a huge barbeque on the beach. And I discovered that I had managed to sunburn my scalp (never done that before!) while still not getting tanned anywhere else We were staying in bungalows on a beach, just outside Aonang in Krabi province. This area was badly hit by the tsunami a few years ago but you wouldn't know to look at it now, apart from the 'Tsunami Evacuation Route' signs that were subsequently installed all over the place (in case it happens again - they helpfully direct people to run uphill). Aonang is a tiny one-street town but it is very touristy, it could be anywhere in the world - it has a McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks and two Irish pubs. One evening, after watching sunset at a bar on the beach, I had a break from the Thai food and took advantage of the opportunity to have steak and chips washed down with a draught Guinness
I had planned to spend my last day in Aonang (and last day in Thailand) sunbathing but the weather had other ideas so instead I spent the morning in bed and the afternoon in Starbucks. In the evening I went horse riding on the beach, which turned out to be more 'horse walking very slowly' than 'horse riding' - firstly I got a very small skinny horse that looked as though it was about to keel over and die, then after ten minutes they switched me with someone else so I got a better horse but a guy was walking alongside holding it's head the whole time, I kept asking if it could go faster and he would say "yes" but then not let go of it.
Later Sarah, Livi and I were serenaded by a Philippino songstress at the Thai Thai restaurant next to the beach - she tried to get us to sing along to Gabrielle's 'Out of Reach'.
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