Dear Great Aunt Vera

Thank you very much for your very kind wedding present. We decided to spend it on two nights on Koh Phi Phi. Koh Phi Phi is quite a party island so it was our last hurrah in Thailand before we go and spend a week volunteering in an ecolodge on Koh Lanta.

To this end, we stayed in the appropriately named Ibiza Hotel. It was right in the middle of the action so any hope of sleep before 3am was optimistic. But hey we weren't there to sleep. We were there to use their lovely pool, once again with its own swim-up bar. This seems to be a staple way for us to spend sunny afternoons while away and we are going to miss this when we are home.

The pool was beautiful. You have probably seen it if you have ever watched the Koh Phi Phi episode of 'Sun, Sea and Suspicious Parents'. It is where they go for a big pool party. Luckily (or unluckily depending on your point of view) we had missed the pool party as it is only on Sundays, but there were plenty of other places to go out while we were there (and most of them within earshot of our hotel room).

I am a big fan of 'Sun, Sea and Suspicious Parents' so it was a special moment to feel like we were in an episode. If we pretended really hard then we could almost imagine our parents jumping out at us at some point and be shocked and appauled by what we are up to…but then we realized we will have to wait for Bali for that, and anything we can do, I am sure Roy can top.

Koh Phi Phi has changed a bit since I last went there. There seems to be more high-rise buildings everywhere, there are hotels all over the mountainside when once it was bare and the price of any accommodation has sky rocketed. But then there is still lots of familiarity about the place: the beach with the ridiculously shallow water where you can walk out for ages and it still only reaches up to your calves, the little stalls that come out at night all selling the famous Thai buckets for 200 baht and Garlic Restaurant is still there, still selling Rostis with ham, egg and cheese to make me feel like I am eating an exotic foreign meal which is in fact just a large hash brown, yum.

Actually, while on Koh Phi Phi, I made a habit of only eating food that began with R, living almost exclusively on Rostis and Rotis (Thai pancakes) with an occasional Roast chicken burger thrown it. I think that R is a good letter to base your food on and I will see how long I can keep it up for (hopefully longer than my Thai food escapade).

There isn't much more to say about Koh Phi Phi other than we danced to some great Thai cover bands, we danced to some bad house music and we danced to some average Drum n Bass and we watched Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts. It was rubbish.

The nice things about Koh Phi Phi is that it is the first place we have been to which we have not been missold on the name: We didn't eat any pie in Pai, we were in a good mood and not crabby in Krabbie, we avoided drinking Chang beer in Chiang Mai and we certainly didn't take Bangkok up on its name but yes we have definitely gone for more than one pee pee in Phi Phi (most of them in the pool).

I have also managed to break my own record. I left our room this morning completely sober and managed to lose my wallet in the 200 meter walk to the ATM.

That is all the update for now but I wanted to leave you with a wonderful conversation we had with a rather strange and mental Austrian man on our last night on Koh Yai Noi and the reason way he didn't recommend Koh Phi Phi to us.

Love

Jim and Donna

Weird Austrian Man (WAM) - I didn't like Phi Phi

Us - Why not?

WAM - It was really noisy

Us - Yes, we have heard that the clubs and bars can be like that

WAM - It was like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Us - The clubs were like that?

WAM - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Us - You can stop that now

WAM - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Us - Seriously, stop that now

WAM - EEEEEEEKKKKK

Us - So the bar music was like that?

WAM - No, that wasn't the bars

Us - What was it?

WAM - It was a frog

Us - A frog?

WAM - Yes a frog. It went on and on and on. I had to kill it in the end

Us - You killed a frog?

WAM - Yes

Us - Because it was too noisy?

WAM - Yes it was driving me insane

Us - Ok we might go now

WAM - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK