Day 25
We went to sleep early last night. We checked out out of our hostel, had some breakfast and made our way to the pier where the longtailboats were lining up. The guy assured us it would be 150 baht to go to Railay beach. Once there though, he told us we had to wait for 6 other people to fill up the boat. They weren’t sure how long this would take. Probably 20 minutes, but it could be 2 hours too. After half an hour of waiting I was done and walked off. The guy asked me why we walked away. I told him I wasn’t going to wait all afternoon for tourists to arrive. He told us we could go right now for 1000 baht, which obviously we weren’t going to do either. Afterwards the captain of the boat came up to us and told us to wait 5 more minutes, as more tourists were arriving. I told him I would wait 5 minutes maximum. But to my surprise 2 german couples showed up. We got onto the boat, which was fairly choppy. We were completely wet after the 40 minute boatride.
Once we arrived in Railay we got to our resort, which was quite nice. The rest of the day we sat on the beach enjoying the sun. This island was hit hard by the Tsunami a few years ago, so construction was still going on on some parts of the islands. Resorts were still being build etc. That night we booked a tour to do some rockclimbing, as the rocks on this island are really good for rockclimbing. We had some great food on the waterfront and a few beers afterwards.
Day 26
We had a nice sleep in as we were climbing in the afternoon. We had some breakfast and went to the office where we booked our tour. There we had to try the rockclimbing shoes which were far too small for my feet. The girl assured me rockclimbing shoes were supposed to be uncomfortable as that’s how you have the best grip on the rocks. Once we got our equipment we walked over to the wall where we were going to climb. I had done it once before in Bolivia last year, but this wall was much more difficult and far higher. We were climbing the lowest level, meant for beginners. Still, this turned out to be harder than thought. The main thing about climbing is using your legs to push yourself up, instead of using your arms to pull yourself up. It took a while to figure this out and to climb the right way. We climbed about 5 walls which completely wore us out. I was really tired afterwards. We went back to the climbingshop where we ate a pancake with a beer. We relaxed for a while and then went back to our hostel to sleep.
Day 27
We woke up early and checked out of our hostel. We had a little problem as we wanted to catch the ferry to Koh Phi phi, which is only going in the morning in low season. But our laundry wasn’t ready yet. Our laundry apparently was sent to the mainland to get washed and the boat had yet to arrive. Half an hour later a guy showed up with a big bag with our laundry in it. Just in time we were able to catch our boat to Phi Phi. While we were waiting for the ferry we met two Irish girls we got along with really well. Once we got onto the island, which took about an hour we had some lunch together with the Irish girls. Afterwards we went to look for accomodation. The Irish girls were staying somewhere far up the hill, so we decided not to follow them and look for something ourselfs. We got a resort recommended by some people we had met a week earlier. The only room available turned out to be hut where a tsunami seemed to had just came through. A big mess with broken pieces of furniture and wood. Not exactly what we had in mind on a paradise island. We decided to look a bit further and found a nice accomodation on a good location.
We checked in and had a look around town. Afterwards we went to the beach where we met up with Irish girls. The views on the island were really stunning. Clear blue water with pearl white sand with green palm trees. Exactly what you’d expect from a paradise island. That night we had some food together with the girls at a bar on the beach. After dinner we went to the beachparties being held on the beach which was great fun. Nightlife on Phi Phi turned out to be quite good and we had a lot of fun.
Day 28
The next day we woke up fairly late. We payed for another night accomodation and went to the beach. There we slept a little bit more. Later on we met up with two dutch guys we had met in Railay before too. We played a bit of beach volleybal and footbal together with a few Italian guys from Milan. Afterwards we relaxed a little bit in our hotelroom and had some dinner in a restaurant nearby. That night we had told the dutch guys to meet us in a bar nearby, but due to the Queen’s birthday everything turned out to be closed. No beachparty, no bar, no club, no nothing. We walked for a little while across the beach where people were creating their own little parties with guitars, but we felt tired and decided to go back to our room. Around midnight the Irish girls sent us a text message saying they were on the beach. We decided to say bye to them as they were leaving the next day. We had a beer on the beach and played a bit of cards together and then went back to our hotel to sleep.
Day 29
I decided to do a bit of scuba diving again while I was here, as Koh Phi Phi is known to be one of the best divingspots in Thailand. The guy assured me I would see turtles and sharks, so I decided to do it as I hadn’t seen too much animals in Koh Tao. The two dutch guys told me they were doing it as well that afternoon, which was nice. We left around 13:00 to the dive site, next to Maya bay. The place where they filmed the movie “The Beach”. The dive was amazing, we saw a few turtles and about three sharks. Really good fun. The second dive, about an hour later was good too. We saw about 5 different turtles swimming around. They really didn’t care about us and just swam around searching for food.
We got back around 19:00. I went back to our hotelroom where Luc was watching some tv. I had a little sleep as I was quite tired after all the diving. Afterwards we went to have some food in town. We then went to a bar called Reggeabar, this bar is pretty popular among tourists as they have a boxing ring in the middle of the bar where tourists can go and fight against each other. Really fun to watch. The two dutch guys were here too, so we had a little chat with them. Later on we walked over to the beach where the beachparties were going on in full force again. Ibiza bar organised a foamparty which was pretty busy. Unfortunately we did get some rain whilst at the party, but thankfully in Thailand this takes only 10 minutes. Afterwards we hit the dancefloor again. On the dancefloor I met a Canadian girl called Brooke. We had a little chat and danced for most of the night. Meanwhile, Luc had wandered off somewhere else and I couldn’t find him anymore. I went back to our room, but he wasn’t there either. Around 7AM he was knocking the door loudly. He had been sleeping on the beach as he couldn’t find me anymore together with the other dutch guy, to who it happened the same. I let him in and went back to sleep.
Day 30
The next day we woke up around 11AM. I met up with the Canadian girl and her friend and had some breakfast. Afterwards Luc joined us and we went together to use the swimming pool in a luxury resort on the beach. We pretented we were staying at the resort and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon in this 4 star swimmingpool. By the end of the afternoon one of the Canadian girls found out here purse was stolen, which was right next to our bags. We searched for it in the resort but couldn’t find it. We then had to confess to the people at the resort we had been using their swimmingpool illegally. Afterwards the Canadian girls had to catch their ferry as they were headed for Phuket. But, as Murphy’s law kicked in, they missed their ferry too. They were forced to stay another night on Koh Phi Phi, so they had to go and look for accomodation again. I decided to help them find something and walked around the island looking for rooms. Finally they found a room and went to the police station to file a report. Meanwhile I went back to my room and had a little sleep.
Once awake again I had a shower and went to see how the Canadian girls were doing. They told me they had phoned the bank who told them someone had been withdrawing loads of money from their creditcard by buying tours and the likes on the island. We went to have some dinner on the seafront and went for a few drinks afterwards. We went to check out the beachparties again and danced for a while on the beach. It became another fun night out.
Day 31
The next day we woke up quite early. We had booked ourselves on snorkeling trip around the islands of Koh Phi Phi. We walked over to the tourist office where we booked our tour. We waited for a while for the tourguide to arrive we brought us to the snorkeling office. There we were given some fins. We got onto a boat which brought us to Maya Bay. We snorkeled around for a while and did some canoeing. The rest of the day was similar. We went to a lot of different bays and islands, which was nice, but not really really special. We did get a great tan thanks to sitting on the boat all day in the burning sun. Once back on the island we went back to our hotel where we had to catch some sleep. That night we met up with Jack and Emma, the couple we had been meeting throughout our trip. They had just arrived in Koh Phi Phi. We went for some good pizza together with them and had a few drinks together. We were all still tired from all the stuff we had been doing lately, so we decided to call it a night early. Besides, the next day we were planning on going back to Bangkok.
Day 32
We woke up early as we had to check out. I went out to look for a ticket to get ourselves to Bangkok. It turned out a trainticket had to be booked at least 2 – 3 days in advance, so those were all full. The only option was to go by airplane or by bus. The airplane option would cost us all in all about 5000 baht (100 euro), whilst the boat option would cost us about 850 baht (17 euro). We decided to not spend any more money and booked the busticket. Eventhough it was going to be a 14 hour bus journey. We met up with Jack and Emma and layed on the beach for the last hour of our stay on Phi Phi before leaving. We then said bye to Jack and Emma and got onto the ferry which was bringing us back to the mainland.
Once on the mainland we grabbed a bus from the pier which brought us to a tourist office in town (Krabi). There we waited for about an hour for the touringcar to arrive. Once the touringcar arrived we hopped onto the bus. Luc chose the only two seats in the bus that didn’t go backwards, so were forced to sleep upstraight for the rest of the night. Fortunately we kind of managed to that anyway and we arrived in Bangkok around 6 AM the next morning.
Stay tuned for our last two days in Bangkok. Tomorrow we’ll be going to the tiger temple where we’ll be able to pet real big cats. Afterwards we’ll make our way back to our beloved little country.
Aug 9th 2009 – Aug 16th 2009
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