Thailand :: Phi Phi islands + my b-day
Today is my 33rd birthday. We woke up at 6:30a so we could have a nice breakfast before leaving for the Phi Phi islands.
We took a truck to the launch area for our days trip. We shared a ride with a French girl named Sophie who was traveling alone. Then we picked up two more soon-to-be-friends, Jana and Marco were from Brazil, before heading to the boat to load up.

The sky was hazy all morning, and maybe that turned out to be a blessing because when you are island-hopping there are few places to hide from the sun.

Along the way to our first stop we saw many limestone islands or rock formations jutting out of the water — extremely picturesque. The first island we explored was Bamboo Island. It had a large beach area with some of the softest sand my feet have ever felt! As the five of us trudged alone (we kinda became a fivesome for the rest of the day) I spotted a sea eel hunting in the crystal clear shallows by the beach. The yellow spotted eel was about 3 feet long, maybe more, and as I was describing it to Aaron (who was wading in the shallows) he insisted on walking toward it because he wanted to get a look! Sure enough, he walked within literally a foot of the creature, and then I finally convinced him to take a big step up and out of the water. My photos will have to be enough for him.

From there we took the boat on over to Monkey Beach. Low and behold, there were monkeys on the beach!!! They were doing monkey things — climbing around in the trees, picking things off each other, playing with each other, running around in the sand — it was quite cool and somewhat astonishing to see! They were not tame, per sey, but you could feed them.

From that spot we zoomed over for some snorkeling and swimming. This was so much fun in the warm water! The fish were so bright and colorful and big and small and fat and skinny. You name it. The reefs were huge and healthy looking (more so than any I've ever seen). The sea urchins had needle spines that appeared to be at least 24 inches long. there were sea slugs and sea cucumbers and just every kind of reef life. At one point I got kinda freaked out because I could not find Aaron who had swum off and disappeared. I ran to the boat to ditch my snorkel gear and grab my goggles so I could go swimming and find him, but just about after I did that he showed up with the same idea (time for goggles), and sure enough he had been lost among the snorkelers and had been approaching boats asking the people, "is this my boat?"....

After that we boated around a bit more, and then headed for Koh Phi Phi for lunch — this is a beautiful place. You can see where it was affected by the tsunami. Palm trees are being nurtured back to health, and there are bald spots on the land. There is also and exhibit showing some before and after photos as well as photos of people who went missing. Heartbreaking. The 26th was the 2 year anniversary of that tragedy.

Lunch was consumed in haste as we were all very hungry and the food was good. After we ate, we trudged around town, stopping here and there so that one of the five of us could look at this or that. We all were feeling tired from the heat, having eaten, and having been on the go already for half the day.

We left Phi Phi and made one more snorkel stop before heading home. Aaron went in solo this time and promised to stay near the boat. He said afterwards that the tiny little minnows (thousands of them I could see) would nip you if you sat still in the water. Yikes!!

On the way back home it began to rain. The boat ride is about 30 minutes if you are going full-steam-ahead, but we could do that because it was very choppy. I felt like the boat was playing crack-the-egg with me (like you do on a trampoline). It was awesome though, I didn't mind the chop, I just wish it didn't rain because that stung our faces. At least it was warm — and, that ended up being the only time it rained during our whole trip!

When we got back to the hotel I was greeted by the hostess with a “Happy Birthday” greeting! Aaron had arranged for flowers to be delivered to our room and for everyone to know it was my special day. It was really sweet! So, after we got cleaned up again we headed back up to meet our new buddies for dinner.

We went with Sophie to Ao Phra Nang for dinner. The town is more touristy than here in Krabi City. We found Jana and Marco and they had picked up another new friend. We all trudged down the street looking for a nice spot to have dinner. We were all very tired from the full day on the water. We got a nice table on the water and had a wonder meal and a liz-birthday and to new friends cheers.

Afterwards, we walked up the street looking for the bus tickets office and a nice bar for a drink. By this time, I felt like I could fall asleep standing up — so instead of the drink, we walked Jana and Marco back to their bungalow before heading out to the street for a taxi. Getting a taxi back to our hotel was much more challenging than getting one to an naung. For too much money, anyone would take us home, but everyone wanted big money, and Sophie would negotiate for cheap. We finally found a suitable ride, and we were all nodding off in the back of the truck on the way home.