6am start, minibus-ferry-minibus-minibus-minibus-ferry and we arrived on Phi Phi at around 1630 with no accomodation after just reading the Lonely Planet's recommendation of booking 3 days in advance! Ah well, this was supposedly one of the nicest islands in the world so we were prepared to spend a bit more! After a few rediculously high quotes, we rang Popular Beach Resort who had a beautiful beach side bungalow for 40quid a night, pricey for us but well worth it for the views and location - the very last lodge on the beach at the base of a towering lime stone crag complete with climbers!

On arrival to the lodge a team of well trained monkeys were destroying our porch furniture, they soon fled at the sight of the feisty little owner with her catapult and stones! We got settled then went to find a restaurant. Phi Phi was full of lovely fresh fish restaurants and this was our initial idea . . . . .then we decided we were too tight and our accomodation was so expensive so settled for a little thai cafe/restaurant. This turned out to be a great choice with some of the best Thai food we've had so we returned the following night for seconds! After our first dinner we spotted Brian and Tamara we'd met before and found out the Alex's were also around so decided to meet up the next day!

Thursday morning up bright and early, it was a bit overcast so we decide to go for a stroll . . . . .which became a hike . . . . .which became a jungle trek . . . . .which brought us (extremely sweatily) to the island viewpoints! Although slightly hazy on the pics, it was an amazing view in beautiful gardens and worth the pain!

After a much shorter trek down (the way we should've come up) we met Bri and T-bag in a cafe and decided to treat ourselves, waffles n honey for Matt, chocolate ice-cream sundae for miss Moloney - yum! We then met the Alex's on the beach who'd just been Kayaking and all planned a trip to Long Beach, one of the most desirable beaches on the island! The boat around was £2 each so we went against the boatmans advice and warnings of slippy rocks and steep hikes and opted to walk it! Surprise surprise, it was a lovely walk through forest and lodges and beautiful secluded sandy coves AND it only took 40 mins! Another scam attempt by the boat boys! We enjoyed an afternoon of swimming, snorkelling and sun bathing before strolling back through the woods to our luxury bungalow!

That evening we went to watch some fire shows on the beach with the rest of the guys, much more impressive than the lame UK ones but that was mainly down to their blatant disregard to health and safety. Flaming bars were tossed high into the air over the crowd and flaming ball and chains were thrown from podiums to a waiting artist on the beach regardless of passers by. We then went to a Muay Thai kick boxing bar where live matches go on all night. Tourists get up against tourists (mostly 2 mates knocking lumps out each other), then the locals get up and put on a WWF style 'setup' show, they were entertaining none the less.

The next day, with slightly heavy heads, we all piled aboard a longboat for a trip to the famous 'Maya Beach' on Phi Phi Ley, location of the movie 'The Beach'. We stopped off first at 'Monkey Island', a patch of beach full of cheeky little monkeys that pranced around and posed and took treats of banana's and pineapple. Next stop was a gorgeous lagoon like bay where swam and climbed ropes and basically arsed around. On to the snorkelling - Sinead finally gave it a go and what a time to do it! A nearby boat had thrown some bread overboard and we were literally surrounded by thousands of fish of all different shapes and sizes, it was brilliannnnt!

When we arrived at Maya Beach it was already swarming with tourists, boats coming and going, but it didn't take TOO much away from this stunning beach in crystal waters surrounded by limestone karsts. Although the scenery was stunning, the weather wasn't great and we were told we had FOUR HOURS to kill! There's only so much swimming you can do in the same patch and it's hard to sunbathe without any sun . . . we had to come up with something to pass the time! It was decided . . .we'll bury Brian! He put my snorkle on for a breathing pipe and said goodnight! We had him buried far too quickly so decided to build a womans body from the sand above him - this intrigued many a passer by and some orientals even laid down beside him and posed for photo's haha.

After our trip we went straight for Pizza's and were in bed for half 9 - shattered and ready for an early rise again for our boat trip to Phuket!

S&M