We caught the ferry from Ao Nang to Koh Phi Phi Don early doors on 3rd October. Most people know about Phi Phi as it was where The Beach was filmed a few years ago with Leonardo Decaprio. It's made up of two small islands, Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Ley of which only Don is inhabited. We arrived on Don pretty early and had to find somewhere to stay as we hadn't booked anything, so we were walking around for a bit with our rucksacks on in the blistering heat which isn't exactly fun. There's a couple of things that set Phi Phi apart from some of the other locations in Thailand, firstly both islands are absolutely stunning and second there are supposed to be no vehicles.
Apart from a couple of mopeds that rings true but it still doesn't stop loads of Thai's trying to run you over with their push bikes. There's shit loads of them, most of the bikes are a mess and it's not unusual to see a guy on the gayest, pinkest bike with a basket on the front. Anyhoo, we haven't done a lot on Phi Phi yet apart from loads of sunbathing, getting pissed, watching dodgy Thai boxing and a half day trip. I have to say, the night life is awful. There's a few nice beach bars but they are just pumping out the biggest pile of shite music I've ever heard so we're getting a bit pissed off with that.
One of the most entertaining bars is Reggae Bar, which incidentally has no Reggae influence whatsoever, as it hosts Thai Boxing every night. This is not the same level of Thai Boxing we watched in Bangkok, it's basically holidaymakers kicking the living shit out of each other. It's absolutely mental that it's allowed as most fights end up with a couple of guys throwing haymakers at each other with the end result being one of them getting sparked out. There was one Irish guy who fights every night, and to give him credit he wins most fights as he's clearly done it before. The guy is a total cock end though and he's strutting round the place like some kind of Kung Fu warrier.
Anyway, he had two fights that we saw on the first night, the second fight being with a handy professional Thai Boxer. T'was quite funny seeing the little Irish prick having the shit kicked out of him. The only downside is that there's inevitably a fight between two so called professionals but it's a proper fix like WWF so it's very disappointing. The Thai staff weren't too happy with the boos coming from the crowd, namely from me and Kev.
The highlight of Phi Phi had to be the half day trip that we embarked upon on the second day. There were three main activities: snorkeling with sharks, cliff jumping and a trip over to Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley where The Beach was filmed. After kitting us out with masks and fins Owen, our Thai guide, took us down to the pier and piled us into a long boat to head out for the shark snorkeling. It wasn't very far and we were soon in the water snorkeling in crystal clear waters looking for sharks. Almost immediately Owen popped up and said he caught sight of one. I was right behind him and to be honest I thought he was taking the piss as I couldn't see anything.
A few minutes later we started to see loads of them. They were black tip reef sharks I think between 3 and 4 feet long. I have to say I shit my pants the first time I clapped eyes on one as they were really close and they looked like mean little fuckers. Harmless apparently though - my arse! I would say we must have had around 20 sightings but of the same 6 or seven sharks and it was such an awesome experience to be so close to them. Both Kev and I had a few moments when they started circling us and in particular in the last 5 minutes we both decided it was time to retreat as one swam past with it's mouth open.
After that we headed to another small island to do some cliff jumping which, for the uneducated, is jumping off cliffs into the sea! There were 3 jumps that we were allowed to do, 8 metres, 10 metres and 12 metres. 8 metres doesn't seem that high but it kind of does when you're standing on the edge of a cliff but we both did that one no bother. Kev was unscathed but I thought I'd popped an eardrum or something so decided to take 5 minutes and jump from 8 metres again. In that time Kev had done the 10m and 12m jumps; I managed a couple of 10m jumps and decided that was about enough for me.
Maya Bay was absolutely stunning although it looked totally different than in The Beach but apparently it was digitally enhanced and it was damaged quite severely in the Tsunami. We hung around there for a bit and then tried to catch the sunset, which we missed, before heading back to our resort. The whole thing was filmed by Owen and we watched it back afterwards which was pretty cool but we aren't buying it coz were tight arses. That's about all we've done on Phi Phi as we've spent the last couple of days lying on the beach - I hate Mondays!!! Next we're off to Phuket for a night before we go to Hat Rai which is a surfing beach really close to Phuket town, can't wait for that...
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