Koh Phi Phi

After a tearful goodbye to our fellow backpacker Adam at Sri Panwa
(some people have to work), we only just caught the next ferry to the
island of koh phi phi, in a classic chris-steph mad dash to the pier.
Phi Phi would be the last stop of our island hopping tour of southern
thailand. Steph and i were on really good form from an unexpected
christmas miracle. My parents asked us to emergency skype them, you
see, as soon as we got off the next ferry for some exciting news -
they have decided to fly out on boxing day to meet us in Sydney on the
28th of December, just in time for new years! We were thrilled to be
looking forward to seeing family (how incredible!) and this was a
really good antitdote to christmas homesickniss.

Now phi phi don island is one of thailand's top tourist destinations,
with very unique and picturesque beaches on either side of very thin
stretches of land. The fragile town in between was also one of the
hardest hit by the tsunami. After about two years to the day, it's
very aparent that phi phi has been lucky to bounce back in a big way.
The island is filled again with restaurants, bars and backpacker
hotels that were all booked up, and triple in price! We were lucky to
find a remote set of bungalows up on a hill with distant views of the
sea from our balcony. Besides diving, eating, drinking and bech
bumming, there is one thing left to do on phi phi that almost every
tourist does - take a boat tour out to the even more remote islands in
the area. So we set off on a full day island hopping cruise of remote
islands with lots of sun an snorkling. We even visited koh phi phi ley
which is the island from Alex Garland's 'The Beach' (from the film of
Leonardo di Caprio fame).

Unfortunately there was a bit too much sun and I managed to get a
little burned on my shoulders, and the amphibious 'scuba steph' was
still getting used to life back above water. But all in all we were
enjoying our last days on the thai backpacker trail. So we decided to
celebrate and went out for one last night on the town.

We found a Maui Thai boxing ring and then went to a classic beach bar
party that always includes buckets and fire jumping. Here's to our
next stop - Singapore !