After spending a few days in a room of 5 people with on and off rain it was the day of the half moon party. Chris Rach and Vik got stuck at the supermarket in torrential rain after heading out to get some provisions for the evening. The provisions as Vik has just stated were more buckets, but dead cheap. The half moon party was a little dissapointing as unfortunately we had to pay to get in (full moon as we're told is free). It started well but the police hadn't been paid off and so was closed half way trhough at about 2 am; it's supposed to go on till 10 am, gutted.
Arriving on the island was a bit of a shock, the town is like a maze of market stalls, there are no cars just hundreds of bikes constantly ringing their bells of shouting beep beep at you to move, which really pissed vik off (i think more than her mosquito bites).
Phi Phi Don is the main island which we got the feeling had a huge potential, but has been sadly marred by the effects of tourism: bottles/cans floating in the water and on the beaches. Moving further round, however there were less beaches raped by careless tourists, and it's true beauty and crystal clear water was priceless. Next day a few of us went on a boat trip around Don and Leh (Leh being where 'the beach' was filmed), and boy do they rub it in. We half expected a life size DiCaprio waiting for us on the beach when we got there. The trip was a mixture of snorkelling/swimming and walking on beaches. Probably one of the best things we've ever done, some of the beaches/islands surrounding Leh were incredible, huge fish of all colours, white sandy beaches with no trash. We were able to dive off the boat into 15m water surrounded by sheer (spelling? sorry dad) cliffs with coral below us the size of a football pitch.
We're now on Ko lanta which personally is my favourite place along with koh tao. This place has everything, not too touristy, but not too quiet and great swimming beaches. It's all dead cheap compared to the expensive Phi Phi, and the lads have already had a happy shake and what they call a 'hot shot' (we were later told it was actually cobra blood), hopefully those injections will cover that... Only a few days left then off to singapore/malaysia and then OZ!!!
Till the next time (probably in Aus) xx