We caught a minibus to the pier at 12.30pm yesterday to catch a boat to Ko Pi Pi. It took us about 30 mins to get there and when we did it was like Piccadilly Circus. We had miscalculated a bit and the boat wasn't due to set sail until about 2.30pm so there was quite a bit of hanging around to do. Harnaik and I found a seat, and it was reassuring to see that all seats had life jackets attached to them - just in case.....

We set sail and it soon became clear that the sea was rougher than first thought. It was riding up steeply, riding down steeply, tilting sideways and then the other way, quite horrendous really and a queue of rather green looking people started to form outside the toilets - some couldn't wait and were throwing up over the side. I'm not really scared by many things but the journey definitely wasn't for the faint hearted and it was made worse by torrential rain. We had 2 hours of this and I was glad to see land when Phi Phi came into sight.

We landed in Phi Phi and it struck me what a lovely little island it was. I've wanted to come to this island ever since I saw the film The Beach which was amazing. We booked a place pretty near to the pier and on the beach front and it was very cheap because it's the rainy season. It costs the equivalent of 15 pounds for the room each night and it is so near to the beach and the centre. It was raining heavily when we arrived and just got worse and worse so last night was pretty much a wash out but that didn't stop us from exploring. At one point the rain was so heavy and we happened to be near a massage place so we just went in for a foot massage for an hour hoping that it would stop by the time we came out but alas it didn't. We went round some of the shops, ate a snack at a beach side restaurant and then went back to watch some TV (which was drowned out by the sound of the heavy rain).

I liked Phi Phi as soon as we arrived, it has a small feel to it. Well it is relatively small and there are no roads and no cars or motorcycles. Mode of transport is either bicycle, foot or boat - that's it. It is touristy of course, but in a nice way. Everything is also very new because this island was one of the worst hit islands from the Tsunami in 2004. I was speaking to the masseuse as she was massaging my feet and she was telling me how awful it really was. The first thing she knew about it was when people started to shout "the water is coming, the water is coming". Everyone started to run up to the hills (bear in mind no cars or motorcycles - people had to run for their lives). They could hear it long before they could see it and the sea literally disappeared. Of course, many didn't make it and drowned. I have found my paradise - I think I could stay here forever.

I decided to take a one day boat trip today, going round all of Phi Phi's islands where we could kayak and snorkel. Harnaik decided not to as he was still recovering from yesterdays boat trip to here. We started off at Maya Bay (where The Beach was actually filmed). The boat moored in the bay and we had to swim to the actual beach. It was hard work because the sea was rough but I made it and it was well worth it to stand on THE BEACH of all beaches. The swim back was even harder and I was a notch off from needing to be rescued. Some people did need to be rescued as it was tough - so they sent a dinghy to get them.

We then went to Losamah Bay, Pileh Bay, Viking Cave, Shark Point, Bamboo Island, Mosquito Island and then Monkey Bay. Obviously, Maya Bay was my favourite, but my second favourite was Monkey Bay, which was actually full of monkeys. We Kayaked to shore and I've never seen so many monkeys in my life. They looked cute, but turned out to be very nasty. Go near them at your peril.

I kayaked over with 2 girls and the monkeys immediately all started jumping on our kayak when we dragged it onto the beach. It was fine, we just left them to it and watched them for a while and then walked along the beach and watched the others playing, fighting and mating. After about 30 mins it was time to head back and we went to drag the Kayak from the beach into the sea and the monkeys just went for us. I was chased into the sea by one of them but they just attacked one of the girls and gave her a nasty bite on her leg. 4 people from our group got bitten but luckily we were on our last stop. We looked it up in the Lonely Planet travel guide and it said that Monkeys and Dogs were the most common carriers of rabies in Thailand, so the next stop was the hospital for those 4 as none had had the rabies jab (me too but luckily wasn't bitten but will stay away from crazy monkeys from now on).

The only disappointment I had was not being able to take my camera to the Beach on Maya Bay as we had to swim there. I really wanted a picture of me on that beach but never mind, I have some of the beach taken from the boat.

That it for this entry, a rather long one at that. I've added some more pics for Phi Phi from the boat trip. It's raining again, and we've decided that we're going to leave the island tomorrow on the 2.30pm boat back to Phuket and stay in Phuket one more night en-route to Ko Samui - I'm really looking forward to a few days of staying in the same place.

I've got loads of movies to add but need to wait until I find an internet cafe with a decent speed connection as most of them are quite poor.