Ok we arrived in Krabi (well just outside Krabi Town and had to get a taxi in). Don't think either of us realised before we arrived that the beach was so far away from the town! It didn't matter though it was a nice enough town to hang around in. In the evening Tom, Tom and Lisa had some tea at the local market (still feeling ill I couldn't eat even though the food looked so good!). After that we went to the pharmacy, the lady was very helpful and gave me two lots of tablets. One I had to take with food so we went into a bar where I got some toast, the waitress did give me a strange look when Tom ordered a beer and I asked for something off the breakfast menu! Anyway, while we were sat there who should walk in but our old friends Andy and kaylee, who we haven't seen properly since Laos!! It was a really nice surprise, we went to another bar and had a good catch up with them!

Next morning we rented a motorbike and went off in search of Ao Nang beach. Beautiful beach and the sun was shining YESS! Went for a walk down to the end of the beach and discovered some wild monkeys!.. Which I admired only from a distance, after my experience of that last one in Koh Phangan! They definitely weren't scared of people, one went over to a couple who were sun bathing and started emptying out the contents of their beach bag! The man had to scare the monkey off by chasing him down the beach slapping his flip flops together, it was hard not to laugh!! That evening we went out for tea with Tom and Lisa, after tea Lisa and I went off to bed (Lisa was tired and me not feeling well). So this left the Toms together unsupervised, well that is never a good idea! Next thing I was woken up at about midnight with someone trying to bang the door down, when I'd jumped out of bed wondering what the emergency was Tom came stumbling in, crash landed on the bed and was instantly sound asleep! Needless to say Tom and Tom were both suffering headaches the next morning! Once they had perked up we headed back for another day on Ao Nang beach. In the afternoon we had a massage (my first). We had coconut oil, wasn't quite brave enough to try a Thai massage, it looks more painful than anything!

Ok so where are we, Friday 18th November. This morning we got our bus/ferry to Koh Phi Phi. Very excited about visiting this island and obviously we weren't the only ones, when we arrived the small pier was packed with tourists. There was a travel agent type desk showing pictures and prices of all the accommodation on the island. More expensive than we had anticipated, quickly we realised we weren't getting the quiet beach side bungalow we had been hoping for so off we all went (still travelling with Tom and Lisa) to find a room, any room, under 1000 baht!!!! To be fair it didn't take us too long to stumble upon a guest house, even though the lady at the front desk obviously hated tourists (we couldn't quite work out why, seemed she must have been making some good money off them!) the room was clean and decent enough. There are no cars on Phi Phi just a few bicycles which was a nice change! We didn't waste any time getting down to the beach, even more beautiful than Ao Nang, not overly busy considering how many people seem to be on the island. Went into the sea to cool off but the water was hot! Lovely and clear though, we were able to walk out quite far and it stayed really shallow. Went for a walk in the evening and then there was a huge thunder storm.

Saturday was another beach day although we didn't last too long as it was SO hot! Not that I'm complaining J Had a skype chat with Mum Dad Steph and Archie, Archie has started walking! Very sad I wasn't there for it but its great seeing him on skype, he just gets cuter!

Sunday we went for it and tried scuba diving, Tom, Lisa, Tom and I were in a group altogether with 2 instructors. We went out on the boat, had a safety talk and then got into the water. Well getting into the water was a drama in itself!... didn't realise how heavy a tank of oxygen is, my knees were buckling as I stood up and tried to waddle to the back of the boat!! (as for getting back onto the boat afterwards well don't even go there, and it's just my luck the camera man was filming at that point as well!!!) Once in the water anyway we learnt the basics like how to clear your mask and take your mouth piece in and out. After that we went for our first dive. It was amazing, visibility was really good and we saw loads of fish that I don't know the name of and 3 reef shark! On the second dive Tom had to go back to the boat early as he had trouble with his ears, the rest of us got to continue the dive. The best thing was seeing Nemo (didn't realise how diddy he was!) and this fish that looked like a big potato! That evening we went back to the dive shop to watch the dvd of footage the cameraman had taken of us, both on the boat and in the water. It was really good, except me trying to get back on the boat looked as hilarious as I feared it would. In the evening we went to a bar and watched a local band who were really good, this is where we met Bia the tattooist (mistaking him for one of the singers in the band!).

Next day (Monday) we got up for our boat trip. About 15 people piled onto a longtail boat and off we went to monkey beach, when we got close there were no monkeys in sight so we continued to Maya Bay (where the Beach was filmed). I can understand why they chose to do the film there as it's a beautiful little beach, obviously though it's gotten very popular with tourists and when we came to get off the boat there was already quite a crowd of people there! Once we left the beach the sky went very dark and the wind picked up, not a time you want to be on the sea in a wooden boat! Lisa was soon (quite rightly) reaching for her life jacket! Then we hit a rock!!!! Luckily we were near a small very quiet beach so we stopped there and waited until the storm died down and a more experienced driver came to rescue us! It was still quite a hairy ride back to Phi Phi and everyone on the boat got soaked, I was just glad to get back before capsizing! In the evening we went by to see the tattooist that we met the night before. Before I knew it I was getting a design on my back added to my old (quite lame) tattoo. About 7 hours and 6 whiskey and cokes (and a shot of tequila and sambuca) later, I had a lotus flower on top of my original tattoo, all done quite amazingly with a bamboo stick!!!! Thinking back now it does all sound a bit dodgy, even before I've mentioned that the tattooist drank at least twice and much whiskey as I did! Anyway it was fine straight after, didn't bleed while it was being done and didn't go all scabby like normal ones do. Tom obviously caught the bug and the next evening we went back for him to get one done too, a Chinese/Vietnamese symbol which he's had in mind for a while. For the 5 hours of pain Tom went through (with the help of many shots of whiskey!) it was well worth it in the end it looks great!

The next morning (Thursday) we had to say goodbye to Tom and Lisa as they were headed for Phuket and us to Koh Lanta, we've definitely missed having them around since then!

Well I think that's enough for now, I will continue with this next time!

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