The aim of these blogs is not to sound repetitive and both of us say the same thing, but to give our own individual views on our travels. Since our last couple of blogs we have mainly caught up on tan time, with the odd party here and there. Plenty of eating, it seems that each night we eat is better than the last. Just a little warning we do look Tantastic, Rachel, miss Alex’s friend who is coming to meet us in January had best start hitting the sun beds now so she’s not playing catch up!!
As miss Alex wrote in the last blog we booked a one night camping trip to Maya bay. Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but the movie The Beach was filmed there. For this trip I would have quite happily paid a lot more than 2300 baht (£46 ish), especially if I’d have known there would be only 6 of us on the trip. As far as we were concerned the less people the better. Sometimes when a large group do the trip it can turn into a big beach party. Every night on Phi Phi is a big beach party so Maya Bay we hoped was an escape from this. We were told that the number of people can range from 4-30. The trip before we did it had 28.
On the way over the tour guide introduced himself to us as Chocolate. He is a cracking lad and an excellent host. He told us he’d lived on Phi Phi all of his life.
As if to tease our group on the short boat ride over to Maya bay from Phi Phi, Chocolate informed us we’d be stopping for 30 mins to snorkel in the sea. Once again I found myself wishing the 30 minutes away just so we could get to Maya bay and enjoy “the beach” to our selves. Miss Alex did spot a turtle from the boat. Then at the top of her voice screeched “TURTLE!!” grabbed her snorkel and dived straight in and made after the turtle. Time she got over there the turtle had gone, probably the pain ringing from his ears.
We pulled into the bay, finally. This is going to sound proper cheesy now but at this point I had All Saints song Pure shores playing in my head. (the theme song for The Beach) The Bay was virtually empty and the first thing we did was to take full advantage of it and walk the length of the beach. Taking pictures, it seems now of every step we took. As miss Alex said the weather was not fantastic but it didn’t really matter. There’s a big difference to a mild day on the beach in West Kirby and Scarborough and a mild day in Maya Bay. Once it went dark we headed back to the camp to meet the other “campers”. Little fact for you, it goes dark in Thailand between 6 ish and 7 all year round.
A Spanish couple called Rodrigo and Hellena, and two British lads called Sam and Tom, at the time we didn’t realize it but fate has since pulled us in the same direction on a few occasions. Earlier that day miss Alex had heard 2 lads on Phi Phi beach, chatting to 2 American girls. The subject was “fit” singers. The 2 lads in question just happened to be Sam and Tom. It was at the point where Tom asked the girls if they knew who Cher Lloyd was that miss Alex nudged me and burst into a fit of giggles. Back onto Maya Bay now and once we all introduced ourselves, the usual laughs when miss Alex and me say our name, Chocolate took us to a spot where thousands of crabs meet up every night for dinner. The crabs where huge!! When Chocolate picked one up it was making a hissing sound. I took a couple of pictures.
After this it was Dinnertime, we were peckish by this point. It was 9pm but the food was worth the wait, and again it seemed better than lasts Tea. We had a Panang curry, stir fried veg and a Thai style chicken soup. All soaked into the usual bowl of rice. Then it was Buckets, Beers and some card games. Chocolate told us he could fire dance, the obvious next step was for us to ask him to do a fire dance, which he was more than happy to do for us. He was brilliant. He even told us he could play guitar. All this on the best beach in the world. It was ours for the night, just 6 of us. A few yawns later and the whole group went to bed. Each picking a spot on the beach to make theirs for the night. So we got our roll mats and sleeping bags and headed to the beach. Miss Alex didn’t want to be too near the bushes but not to near the sea as the tide was heading in. We lay there for a while just looking up to the clear skies, by now all the clouds had disappeared and the stars were out. The moon seemed to light the whole bay up and the sound of the waves no more than 20 foot away from us.
The group had talked the night before about all waking up to see the sunrise. I was the only one to do so. I woke up just as the night sky was starting to turn light, and the mountains ahead of us were becoming much clearer, rather than just silhouettes. The sun was starting to hit the mountain in front of me and in the shallow water I noticed a dark patch moving. I got up to inspect and it turned out to be little tiny fish. Honestly there must have been at least a million of these all swimming in sync. Think back to the Carling advert and the birds in the sky all moving, this was very similar. An amazing sight. Miss Alex eventually woke up and guess what? She was knackered!! Its almost as if she is programmed to say these words to me every day. Its just automatic and she doesn’t realize she says it. The beach by now was starting to fill up and I felt disappointed that the beach was not ours anymore, these people were probably thinking the same, booking a taxi boat early morning to get to Maya Bay before any one is there and 6 people in sleeping bags scattered on the beach.
Breakfast was served at 8, and after a few group photos we were soon back on the boat heading back to Phi Phi. The sun was incredibly hot now.
We have since left Phi Phi and now find ourselves on Koh Lanta. A bigger but quieter Island about an hour away from Phi Phi. Sam and Tom from the camping trip are staying here by chance and last night we had a few beers together. Talking to people about Phi Phi, it seems that the Island is changing a lot. It is becoming more and more of a holiday Island like Ibiza, rather than a place for Backpackers. I would deffinatly go back there with miss Alex and overall we did enjoy our stay there, but its time for a change and Koh Lanta is a welcome change.
Speak soon xxx
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