Krabi - Phi Phi Island

by DaleandBella

We booked a tour to one of the 'must see' islands off Krabi Mainland - Phi Phi Islands. These are well known for two strikingly different reasons - one is they are probably one of the most picturesque set of islands in Asia, and so became the setting for the Leonardo di Caprio film "The Beach" (which we haven't watched yet), and secondly because they were badly devasted in the 2004 Tsunami - they took the worst impact of all the islands.

You wouldn't be able to tell this though, if you visit the islands now - as they look so beautiful, and the islands have been rebuilt with beach huts etc. The morning started early with an 8am pick up from our hostel, a mini bus took us to Aonang beach (about 20 minutes away) where we joined more people and boarded a 16 seater speed boat. I don't know why - but we chose to sit at the front of the boat (along with a few other brave souls) - I didn't realise that you have to be a bit of a thrill seeker to sit there until after we set off.

The boat speeds along at about

Phi Phi lagoon100 mph breaking through the waves and everytime you hit one, you would come down with a thud. Of course the front of the boat (which had it's nose right up in the air) took most of the impact of this - and so did we! It was an exhilarating ride - and a good team bonding exercise - you got to know the people around you very quickly as you were practically sitting on their laps every choppy wave! Great bunch of people though - we had such a laugh.

The speed boat took around 45 minutes to get to our first stop. Today we were being taken around a series of islands - monkey island (for snorkelling), Maya Bay (the famous "the Beach" location that all guides boast about), Phi Phi Don for a spot of lunch, a blue lagoon, Viking Cave, and lastly Bamboo island which was my favourite of them all. The water on the beach at Bamboo Island was so crystal clear it was like sitting in mineral water - and so warm too!.

The sand was pure white like caster sugar and there were so many beautiful shells, corals and fish around

Phi Phi backdropsthat it felt like there couldn't be a more perfect beach than this. In fact, we (by this time we had made a little network of 'front-of-speedboat' friends) were so enjoying just laying on the shore line and letting the white waves lap over us that we didn't even realise that the rest of our speedboat had boarded and they were all tucking into fresh pinapple and watermelon! Even that didn't make us rush from our places very quickly.

This was an amazing day, again we felt a little guilty for having such an exotic time when we were backpackers - this should be for honeymooners! But this is what travelling is all about - experiencing things which are once in a lifetime.

I am sure when we are in Bangkok in a few days we will slip back into traditional traveller mode!

Lovely Scenery. Lovely Company. Lovely Day.