27 Oct 06

Was really excited to head to Koh Phi Phi and it didn't disappoint! It was absolutely beautiful! The boat journey from Krabi was pretty cool and the closer you got to Phi Phi the more beautful the sea got and it was full of tropical fish. The port was buzzing and the town was full of dive schools, cafes, bars and shops. Having not had a hot shower or air con for a month I decided to treat myself and checked in to a really nice guesthouse on the centre of town called Kinnaree...it was like luxury with not only a hot shower and air con, but a tv too!!...and no mosquitos, cockroaches or frogs in sight!!!

After chilling out on the beach for the afternoon I booked a boat tour for the following morning and got an early night.

28th Oct

Headed off for the boat tour which started at 11am and had an amazing day.The weather was awesome and everyone on the boat was really good fun. The scenery was beautiful..we saw loads of tropical fish at the snorkel stops, had lunch and played frisbee on Bamboo beach which was BEAUTIFUL, saw the monkeys at Monkey Beach (original!) and of course checked out Maya Bay (where they filmed the beach!) then headed back to the port after watching the sun set from on board the boat.

Whilst on board 4 of us planned to go to Malaysia together as our visa were running out!!! So that evening Shaun, Tom, Chris and I booked our bus to Malaysia for the following morning and then met the Canadian girls who were on the boat (Jill, Laura and Adrienne) for a few drinks..which turned in to lots of drinks at Apache Bar and Hippies Bar!!!

The following morning (29th Oct) we had all planned to meet at the Pier at 8.45pm...bumped in to Shaun on the way (who was seriously worse for wear having had an hours sleep and too much Chang Beer!), although at 9am there was no sign of Chris and Tom so we jumped aboard without them. We had only been on the boat 5 minutes when they said we had to turn back as there was a fault with the boat that they quickly had to fix back at the port and as we headed back we saw Tom and Chris running down the pier having overslept!!! The boat was fixed in a few minutes and the others stepped aboard (very very jammy!)

So we started our loooooooooooong journey to the Perinthian Islands off the East Coast of Malaysia. It was a pretty grim journey, particularly as we had to keep changing buses and one of them dropped us off in the middle of a random town in southern Thailand and we were told we had to pay for a taxi to the boarder...which was absolute rubbish! So we held out and eventually another minibus picked us up and dropped us at the border (literally!!...as we never saw it again even though we had paid to go all the way to the Kuala Besut the port town near the Perinthians). We headed through the boarder, with 2 minutes to spare before it closed for the night!, got our stamps and walked through to Malaysia!! Apparantely that journey is notorious for being a nightmare so pretty glad I didn't have to do that journey on my own!

We got a taxi to Kuala Besut (an hour and a half away from the border!), booked our boat tickets to the Perinthians for the following morning and checked in to random guesthouse!...