I'm desperately back tracking my journal entries having bee incredibly lazy for the last couple of weeks so hopefully haven't forgotten too many important details...

After a couple of fairly hectic days in Bangkok we headed off to a well-deserved beach break on Ko Phi Phi, the island that was used for the film The Beach a few years ago. It was completely destroyed in the tsunami, one of the worst hit places in Thailand but is an amazing example of how much work has been done since then (not all good...)

November is the start of high season on Phi Phi so we arrived with a boatload of other backpack wearing tourists and were marched off to our beachfront bungalow in a long line through hundreds of stalls all selling the same jewellery and flipflops without really getting a look at the beach. Phi Phi seems to be a really good example of how tourism can really ruin a place. The whole island is completely geared up to tourism with hundreds of cheap hostels and pizza restaurants showing western films so feels quite soulless and we really struggled to find any decent Thai food in the time we were there. The rebuilding since 2004 has been absolutely huge and doesn't seem to show any sign of slowing down. Apparently immediately after the tsunami the government promised that the main beach would be redevloped as a natural park but the local businesses make so much from tourism that any thought of restraining development was very quickly dismissed and it's now even more developed than it was before.

It's a real shame because the island is absolutely beautiful - white sand, blue sea, tropical fish etc. We took a boat trip to Phi Phi Ley which is the smaller, uninhabited (and so still protected) island and the difference was really noticeable. When you jump off the boat onto the beach on Phi Phi Don you have to walk over a mound of broken coral and rubbish that's all been washed up but despite the huge numbers of boat tripping tourists, Phi Phi Ley is still clean white sand and absolutely stunning, especially as the sun goes down over the water.

I was even brave enough to go snorkelling off the boat and spotted pretty much every type of fish featured in Finding Nemo - some at very close quarters bouncing off my mask when they started a bit of a feeding frenzy with our leftover rice!

All in all I can't deny that it's still an incredibly beautiful place but I think in a year's time will just be far too over-developed and full of Irish pubs and theme bars which is really quite a sad thought...