Well today was a super awesome I went scuba diving which was totally fantastic as was able to get some super cool underwater pictures and then after that went had dinner and ended up at this Thai kickboxing place.I'll let the scuba pictures talk for themselves and you can tell me what you think!!! 

It's pretty easy to know people on this island.  You just sit down anywhere and the person you end up next to is your buddy.  I met these two Canadians Eric and Bill. They are Canadian soldiers stationed in Afghanistan on a 30 day R&R here in Thailand.  The five of us drank at the Hippy Bar and then stumbled over to the Thai Boxing ring down the path.  It was an interesting night.  Bill ended up getting in the ring and well, you can see the pictures.

Koh Phi Phi Island, is remote.  Really remote.  No trains go near it.  So you have to travel by car/van/bus.  The van that got me from my hostel was actually really nice, it was oversized - more like a small bus - leather seats, A/C, driver had a decent CD collection.  I had the front three seats to myself so as soon as we got going I layed down for another couple hours of sleep.  Everyone else slept too.  The driver woke us all up when we got to the Malaysian/Thailand border and had to get out to go through customs. A few minutes later we got out of the van again for entry stamps into Thailand.  I can only stay here 30 days, which I know won't be enough.  But I've got a plan...tell you that later.

This is all great so far, the 'hell' part really started when the first van started dropping people off in random cafes all over Hat Yai, a mid-point on the day long trek.  None of us were really given info, and every time the driver stopped somewhere we all looked curiously/nervously at one another as to who was going to be plucked from the group and dropped this time.  It was no more than a quick point from the driver, and out you go.  What happens next?   No idea.  Can't ask, he won't tell you.  Just "wait. sit.".  OK.  We are all going to different destinations, how did this driver remember who goes where?  When it was my turn, I got out and was 'handed off' to this other guy who pointed to a seat in a cafe.  I sat.  I waited.  Twenty minutes later, he pointed to me again, and signaled to follow him.  We walked half a block to a big truck, looks like the kind that would be on a farm.  He get's in the front and points to the back.  I throw my pack on and climb in.  No idea.  In 20 minutes time we've circled the town and collected a dozen other confused and disoriented packers from other cafes.  We all share stories of our day, all of us shuttled with no info and no sense of 'customer service' (Ha!) from van to van, to cafe, and now to this truck-thing.  All of us hoping that we are on our way to Koh Phi Phi.  And we were.

We arrived at the ferry station in Krabi, the last transfer of my journey.  And even though I'd bought a ticket inclusive of the ferry ride, I no longer had my ticket because the last driver in the series had taken it from me.  So even though I was the fist one off the truck, I was the last one on the boat because of the 5 calls that had to be made to confirm I had bought my ticket.  That was fun.

The ferry was fun though.  I finally got to see those tall rocky islands that I'd seen so many pictures of.  They seem synonymous with Southern Thailand.  They are just what I had hoped they'd be, tall majestic, beautiful.  And I couldn't wait to get closer to them.

Arriving on the island, the hotel didn't have my reservation.  It was late, I was really tired, I picked a fight with the lady at reception who refused to honor the receipt that I'd printed to prove that i'd paid for three nights lodging at her hotel.  After arguing with her for 45 minutes, and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, I left in a huff.  Walked to the nearest travel agent, and got another room without a hassle.  I didn't get to it until after 8pm.  It was a long day.  I walked to the nearest restaurant, along the beach, had a really great piece of fish, listened to the waves, and then went straight to bed.  Thank god this day is over, tomorrow I get to wake up in paradise.

This is the place where the taste of thai food doesn't mix up with west flavor. They have yummieee pad thai, roast duck with rice and tom yum coming with really cheap price. The place is quite small located just behind the irish bar.

For those who call themselves backpackers but still look for the luxury of cheap hotel, i would say they should go with The White 2 hotel. It's a clean, chic and cheap hotel, located on midpoint of phi phi. Surrounded by restos to eat and just near the pier. You won't find it on the net list. They use email for booking. Try thewhite_pp@hotmail.com and ask for the room on the rooftop.. the view is greatt!

The Relax beach Club is a great place to stay if you visit the Phi Phi islands. There are a couple of bungalows right on the beach. They are very simple accomodations, but....it's far from everything and you have your own private beach! There are is a restaurant (of the hostel) runned by the same owners. They are a very nice family. Mr Tea is the father and manager. The food is delicious. The location is very good if you want to relax away from the crowd. And not so good if you enjoy partying at night. It's a 60 min walk through the "jungle" to Ton Sai beach or 30 min by longtail. During the day, the trip will cost you 500 baht and at night, 600 baht. The bungalows on the front row cost 1600 baht (you're right on the beach!). I loved this place. It's great for long night conversation with other travelers :)

Khai (Khai Nok) Island - pretty place for snorkeling, corals are close to the beach and beautiful fishes : colourful parrot fish and even Nemo the clown fish.

Maya Bay at Phi Phi Ley, 'The Beach' beach

Took a tour that includes Maya Bay - 'The Beach' beach, breathtaking!

After the Laguna in the morning we went to Koh Phi Phi Don to snorkel on a different reef in Ton Sai Bay. This place was very nice for snorkeling as the water was very shallow with great number of fish and reef and plants. Our guide actually got in the water and snorkeled with us. He later told us that he enjoyed the day so much because he didn't have to 'babysit' a boat load of tourists. We surprised him at one point because we were free diving along the bottom and we came into his view very unexpectedly. It was a good laugh. I think also the captains on the other boats were very jealous of him on that day.

The snorkel made us very hungry so we took the guide to find a restro. On the walk down the beach, we bought a coconut to drink. Very refreshing as it had been soaking in ice. I think it was only about 40 baht but worth more! The vendor was very good with his sharp cleaver. He could have easily cut off his thumb with his quick 'thwacks' at the coconuts.

The guide joined with us for lunch at PP Nice Resort and we all eat various curry and Thai spicy!! It was great, and the view was amazing as it always is in Thailand. Just down the beach from PP Nice was Joe's favorite spot. He noticed a secluded little beach surrounded by soaring cliffs. Only along this beach there was a stand of coconut palms and they look amazing. That foto is not the background on my computer.

On the return trip, we were against the waves and had some incredible impacts when landing in the trough of the waves. The captain was happy we didn't complain at all and after 45 mins or more we landed at a little island with white sand and very chill environment. The number of people was huge so we rented chairs in the mass of people. It felt nice to relax a bit after all the motion from the boat we were both feeling a little 'green'. We had only about 45 mins on the island and the black clouds starting rolling in. We quickly jumped on the boat to head for Phuket Town, but in 5 mins the squall hit us. The rain felt like pins in the face, but we wanted to hurry back to the pier. The pictures don't show how hard the squall was, but it didn't ruin our fun at all.

Five days of partying to the max and a gruelling day in transit from Koh Pha-Ngan to Phuket do me in, and I’m destroyed once I arrive in Phuket. The day in transit is very much Thai; a whole scala of different vehicles, from buses to taxi’s to tuktuk’s to boats and minivans, a heap of misunderstandings from drivers and passengers alike and a lot of shops along the way where commission is to be earned. It’s not strange at all to be dropped off and directed to a waiting van to bring you to your next destination, but only after he’s shown you his shop, and his mum’s shop, too. It’s not at all like the tuktuk’s commission rides in Bangkok that you can easily turn down. You have no choice but to go with the driver as he’s the one that will have to drive you later on. In Surat Thani, the main transit hub that connects Southern Thailand and the islands, these jokes take us two full hours, as the bus has to completely fill up before taking off as well. I’m sick and have no choice but to quietly let it unfold; leave me alone and just shut up.

In Phuket I find myself a cheap but decent hotel room; nice bathroom, fridge, TV, big bed. The only problem is that I can’t seem to sleep. I have no energy whatsoever during the day and lie on bed most of the time, but can’t find any sleep at night either. I sleep fifteen minutes at a time before waking up and this makes me paranoia. I get half schizophrenic due to sleep deprivation and start imagining stuff and seeing things. I’m confused about dates and times of the day and my living rhythm is completely messed up. That rat on my bed though? I’m pretty sure that was real. After two sleepless nights enough is enough and move to a more expensive hotel in the hope to get some sleep there.

I’m slowly getting better, but my body takes its time. Five days in Phuket and all I’ve seen are my hotel rooms, the breakfast joint next door and a convenience store. Phuket is not for me though. Where Koh Pha-Ngan was backpacker party paradise, Phuket is sex tourist party paradise; it seems to cater only for the sex tourists. The streets are packed with your average guy with a petite Thai on his arm, the strip clubs are even more in your face than in some suburbs in Bangkok, and everywhere are packs of women on the hunt. After having read Bangkok 8 and talking with some other travellers about the subject, I look at prostitution in a different way. Sure there is always abuse and mistreatment going on, but I reckon the girls here have it pretty good. Living the good life is addicting, and the price they pay is relative. That’s all there is to see in Phuket and I don’t think I’ll go back there anytime soon, except maybe to do some diving. That’s the only thing I missed.

From Phuket I make my way to Koh Phi Phi, an hour and a half by boat. Koh Phi Phi isn’t that special, but when I take a boat tour to sister island Phi Phi Leh I am completely stunned. Maya Bay, where Leo DiCaprio filmed the Beach, is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, right up there with Yangshuo in China. The high rising cliffs, the incredible blue green waters, the beach... it’s a little paradise. Of course the fact that the beach is actually the beach adds a lot to the place, and I can’t stop but fantasizing about the Beach community, being self sufficient, back to the basics, freedom. If you have no idea what I’m talking about go and read Alex Garland’s The Beach and see the movie. The book for the superior story, the film so you can see Maya Bay. It’s a magical place.

But why Nicander, you ask, are we not seeing any photo’s of this paradise? Do not withhold such magnificent beauty from us! Don’t keep it all to yourself, you sleeky bastard!

Believe me, I would love to share my pictures of Maya Bay, but I can’t. I’m writing this in Alice Springs, Australia (I know, I’m sorry) where I lost my camera. I don’t care a rat’s ass for my camera, but the pictures on the card? [Insert appropriate swearword here]. I burned my pictures on CD in Bangkok, which means I lost all my photos and videos since; Chiang Mai, Laos, the Gibbon Experience, Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, Bangkok once again, Koh Tao and Koh Pha-Ngan, Phuket, Koh Phi Phi, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Adelaide. Fuck indeed. I uploaded the most important pictures until Koh Pha-Ngan on TravBuddy so it’s not like I lost everything, but I feel especially bad about losing Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. I reckon I lost my camera in a cab in Alice but a search didn’t yield any results. There’s a tiny tiny chance someone still hands it in to the police, but I don’t count on that. Tough lesson learned.

In the next three days on Koh Phi Phi I sleep a lot, still a bit weak. I’m eating more than in Phuket, but a meal and a half a day is still enough. I shop around for transport to Malaysia and decide to fly instead of going overland. I don’t fancy the 12+ hour bus to Kuala Lumpur and book an AirAsia flight, but the trip still takes me a whopping nine hours, much thanks to the ultra efficient Malaysian immigration service. Ahem. Another stamp in the passport, another country to tick of the list, another place to discover, another place to conquer, and another TravBuddy to meet!

I think every country has a beach that they refer to as a 'top 10 beach in the world'. Ha, Thailand is one of the country's that do not lie about this. It is fact and you can observe this for yourself if you wish.

Why did we book a private speedboat? Well two reasons, we are impatient and don't enjoy to wait for slow, lazy tourists to haul their lazy azz outta the hotel at 7:45am. The second is that the same tourist are sometime ignorant and obnoxious and insensitive to their host country. There were other advantages, we got picked up in a car instead of a tour bus. Our guide had pimp'd his Honda civic. It was slamm'd low, upsized rims, brembo brakes, enormous aftermarket amp's etc. Very funny, cuz Joe and I both enjoy automotive technology.

The guide drove us to Phuket Town where boat 59 was waiting with the captain. In only the time it took to step aboard we were on our way! We passed by a couple of islands, and made fast time to Koh Phi Phi. Our first Island was uninhabited Koh Phi Phi Leh where we went first to Maya Bay. We arrived and were amazed at the bay surrounded by high cliffs and with a perfect crescent beach of white sand. We wasted no time and as soon as the captain slowed we spontaneously and simultaneously dove into the water and swam to the beach. Actually I think we mis-judged the distance and we were tired by the time we got to shore. Joe had serious salt burn in the eye so the captain beached the boat to give us fresh water and our digi's. We first headed up a trail to see the other side where you can enter the snorkel spot via a hole in the rocks. Later we came back and spent time on the beach, but we knew it was time to leave as the volume of noisy tourists became too much. Joe swam back to the boat, but I decided to conserve energy and waited for the boat to come to me. Hahahaha

Our next stop was at the snorkel spot where we saw sooooo many fish. Great colors and a huge variety. I can not name all the fish, but some we saw were, clown fish, Sea urchin, Bannerfish, Moorish Idol, Yellow tail Coris, Angelfish, and other reef fish in every color. The captain kept feeding them so the fish just swarmed us, very nice.

Joe's favorite place was Pilah Laguna, and it was a big surprise. Our boat entered a narrow gap in the cliff and as we entered, the laguna opened in front of us. It was an amazing place maybe 2-3 km sq but all protected by very high cliffs. Again we started diving from the boat and having a great time. Everytime we dove though, we pushed the boat toward the rocks and eventually the captain had to re-position the boat. Funny! The water conditions were very nice, warm water, very clear and a perfect environment. I tryed to snorkel, but the water was too deep to see anything.

The final stop on Phi Phi Leh was the Viking Cave. This cave is jealously guarded by the guys with permits to harvest swallow nest. The nests are exported to China at a very high price as the key ingredient in bird nest soup. The guards are allowed to shoot those that dare trespass! We stayed in our boat. Hahaha.

It's where I want to stay forever...^_^ Love this hotel very much, just like an apartment. So clean, ethnic, and white (just like it's name). The receptionist is very funny and friendly. She doesn't speak english fluently, but she'll understand you. She will help you alot with everything. The room is big, with AC, cable tv, refrigerator, safe deposit box, and hot & cold water. The rate on high season is 1500 baht/room/night. Very lovely hotel:)

If you go to Koh Phi Phi and wanted to eat Tom Yam or any other thai food, you must go to this place. The Tom Yam is super fantastic! Order the seafood Tom Yam and you'll be given oyster, crab, shrimps, squids, and others. Very yummy....(i'v been to several resto, and only this resto serve the best Tom Yam). Well...you can lie about anything, but your tongue and stomach can't lie about the taste. This Tom Yam is super delicious=p~ And for the best drink is Banana shake. It made from fresh banana mix with ice cream....slrrruuupppp....makes you want more! Just try it at noon, then you'll be in heaven for sure^_^

Today I didn’t manage to get up till 1pm as I was just drained from all the swimming yesterday and the late night of drinking. I was the first one up in our group so I decided to go down and use the free wi-fi at Breakers Pub and get some eats. I spent close to 4 hours sitting there uploading pics and updating my blog since I’ve been really behind on posting. Eventually Will and Hannah came by and were going to be walking up to the viewpoint so I figured I’d go with them again since this time they seemed to know where it actually was. On the way towards the viewpoint I stopped off at our room and grabbed Nagel since he was the only one around and the 4 of us climber the 400+ steps to the top of the viewpoint. It was a great view from the top and with the sun just setting we managed to get some pretty good pics. After making the trek back down the steps we all split up and I went back to the room to get showered up and ready to go out for the night since it was going to be our last night in Ko Phi Phi and our last night with Will and Hannah. When I got to the room everyone was gone so I figured they were all getting eats or something so I jumped in the shower and by the time I got ready, Nagel had made his way back to the room and was looking to go out to eat since he hadn’t really eaten anything all day. We weren’t sure where we wanted to eat but ended up stopping at an Italian restaurant for pasta since neither of us had had pasta at all during our trip.

The alarms went off at 7am and although it was tough to get up, we managed to b up and at the travel agency place by 8am. From there we went down to the pier and jumped on the boat that would be taking us around for the day and thankfully there was only about 20 people or so on the boat rather than the 50+ people that I had seen on a few other boats. Our first stop of the day was a cave which we didn’t actually get to go into and I can’t remember the name of but it was pretty cool from the outside and we managed to get a few pics of it. From there they took us to some island where we got to snorkel for like 45 minutes and although my goggles leaked like crazy, the coral was pretty good and there were quite a few different fish to see. Our next stop after that was Maya Bay but because the water was choppy we couldn’t go around the front to get to the beach so they dropped us around the back, made us swim up into these rocks where every wave belts you into the rocks and then walk through up through this rocky cave like part to get up to the beach. It was really shitty because we were so tired from battling the water and the rocks that all we wanted to do was relax once we were on the beach. After about an hour they called us back to the boat and we had to climb down through the rocks and fight the big waves again to get off the island. By the time we got back to the boat we were all spent and didn’t really want to do anymore swimming for the rest of the boat tour. Our next stop was a really quite island and 3 of the Irish guys got to Kayak in cus they managed to get a kayak before they were all gone which left me to swim into shore yet again. At least this time there weren’t really any waves and no rocks to contend with so it was relatively easy to swim onto shore. There we stayed about 35 minutes and in that time Will, Hannah and I buried Nagle in the sand and got some pretty funny pictures of him while he couldn’t move. Will and Hannah had got a Kayak as well and Milky and Sean had left with the Kayak to go back to the boat early so Nagle and I had to do the swim back to the boat together. Our last stop of the day was Monkey Beach and yet again I got screwed out of a Kayak cus Sean and Nagle got the last one so Milky and I had to swim onto shore. There were a bunch of rally drunk Irish guys from another boat that dropped people off at the same time that were teasing the monkeys and trying to piss them off. Unfortunately despite all their efforts they didn’t manage to get bitten which I think half the people wanted to see since these guys were total tools. On the way back to the boat Bernie, Nagle and I stole a Kayak from the shore and kayaked back to the boat cus I don’t think I could handle anymore swimming for the day. From there we went back to Koh Phi Phi where they dropped us off and we all went back to the room to get some rest since we were all dead tired and had managed to get quite a bit of sun even though the sun was behind the clouds most of the day.