SMELLS LIKE PHI PHI

As it would be for most of the following 4 weeks, it was tipping it down when we arrived at Ko Phi Phi (pronounced 'pee pee'), on a 2 and a half hour express boat from Railay. This island had been recommended to us by many people on our travels, but was one of the worst hit by the tsunami. As a result, rapid new development has replaced a lot of the charm and character with slapdash, ill-considered concrete buildings - the main town is grim, overflowing with nightclubbing holiday-makers and stinks to high heaven of sewage.

Having arrived in heavy rain, we cut our losses and decided to stay one night in the town. This meant we could take advantage of the nightlife on the beach... which we did, to the max: Buckets, fireshows, jumping through burning hoops of fire, more buckets, flaming limbo, mixing with the locals... an amazing night, but unfortunately we forgot our camera so we felt obliged to repeat it on our last night, just so we could show you the pics of course!

On the second day, we went exploring further along the coast and stumbled upon a ramshackle old bamboo hut, all on its own and overlooking the rocks and sea. After enquiring, we booked ourselves in for 5 days. This old hut was part of the slightly larger, but lovely, Viking Resort, which had its own beach and beautifully designed restaurant. We spent all of our time here, much of it sheltering from the rain and staring across at Ko Phi Phi Leh in the distance (the famous island from the film 'The Beach').

Finally the rain stopped, the sun came out, and we decided to kayak across. It didn't look that far away, so we slapped on the sun cream and set off. It was when we were almost halfway there (an hour into it), when we realised we'd forgotten to bring any water. We couldn't rely on being able to buy any there, so we reluctantly turned back to get some. About 3 hours later we finally made it to the famous beach. Due to our unforseen delay, we had only 40 minutes to relax before making the journey back to beat the sunset. The beach itself was lovely, but ultimately disappointing, due to the water being polluted by all the boats anchored in the bay waiting to take back the hordes of day trippers - not surprisingly, it looked nothing like the beach from the film! 

The journey back was basically a nightmare. The sea had become really choppy around the island and we were battling against a very strong current all the way back to Ko Phi Phi. Another 3 hours later, we made it... exhausted, fed up and very thirsty. After a couple of Chang beers, we were relieved to be back on dry land but also buzzing from another adventure.