Koh Phi Phi

We took a morning ferry to Phi Phi island and wished to find some accomodation. It was a peak-season and we had heard that pretty much all the accomodation is full. Luckily we arrived there in the morning and found great room from Ton Sai at a guesthouse called P.P.Dreams. On our way to Phi Phi we met a German guy Stefan who also got a room from the same house. Later we saw people wondering around with their backpacks on. Poor guys had taken the afternoon ferry and couldn't find accomodation anymore.

Koh Phi Phi seemed to be much busier than Koh Lanta and you could hear Swedish everywhere. Most of the people around were tourists but on the contrary to families in Ao Nang, you could mostly see young travellers here. After arriving to the island, you'll soon realize that there's something wrong with the streets. You can't hear the all-around honking and smell the fumes since there's no cars or motorbikes on the whole island whatsoever. It's pretty amazing since Koh Phi Phi was totally destroyed by the tsunami and now you can still see lots of construction sites around. Since there are no motored vehicles around, people are moving bags of cement with wooden carts. There's no cranes, so you can see men pulling ropes to lift up heavy stuff to the roofs. All this brings quite a relaxed and unique atmosphere to the life at the whole island.

When the dark comes, the relaxed atmosphere turns into booming nightlife. It's still nothing compared to the party island Koh Phangan but there's atleast some kind of fiesta every night. We used to go to great Thai dinners with our new German friend Stefan and after that check out the happenings at the nightclubs. I asked around for the diving options at Hin Daeng and Hin Muang but the visibility hadn't got much better. The prices from Koh Phi Phi to these sites were also 1000 bahts higher than from Koh Lanta.

We were really keen to do some activities so we booked a boat/kayaking/snorkelling trip from P.P.Sunset tour. It was a half day trip which started 3pm. I was surprised to see that there was only 10 people on the whole trip and we had a big boat capable of taking around 30-50 passengers. When the tour started we first stopped to do some kayaking and snorkelling. With my previous kayaking experience in New Zealand and Australia, I steered our double kayak through big swells to tight, dark caves. Pete was afraid of bats and thought crabs are gonna fall on him from the ceiling so we didn't hang around in the caves for long. Well not seriously, but it was our time to do some snorkelling. I was expecting to see some dead corals again since there was other tourists already doing their snorkelling. I can't describe how shocked I was after entering the water and realizing that the visibility was alright and there was already quite a big school of fish surrounding me. After the snorkelling session we had seen some beautiful corals, clams, fish and a seasnake. One of the best snorkelling I've ever had. The last stop on the tour was the Maya Bay which is seen on the movie "The beach". Not very special beach since it was a low tide but the limestone cliffs around the bay were really spectacular. We played some beach soccer with the local guides and Pete made a nice goal from my accurate pass. Hurrayh Finland. The tour ended by having a good dinner and watching the beautiful sunset onboard. Whole trip was 9 euros each and well worth it!

Even when people say Phi Phi has changed I still think it's a great place for young people to go for a holiday. We said goodbyes to our German friend Stefan and headed towards Phuket airport for our journey to Kuala Lumpur and Genting highlands.