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Phi Phi is beautiful!!!! Off the boat very happy and on the hunt for accommodation – ended up somewhere on the hill, (surprisingly called – ‘on the hill’!) with a concrete mattress, sloping floor and little else! Hey ho only one night though as we planned to look for the classic idyllic beach front bungalow the next day :D

Headed straight out to the beach – to find some new accommodation for the next day while checking out the beach, the sea, the sun!! Ahh the sun was soo good and the beach was absolutely stunning!! We got some chicken, pineapple, chili and onion on a skewer covered in some tasty sauce and plonked ourselves on the beach, absolutely stunning. The tide was really far out, as in REALLY far out!! Just like Bantham on a super vening we ate in a great cheap place up a tree, like being in a tree house, above the rock accommodation, a great super cheap place to stay. Clare spoke to her folks on skype after dinner! Which was super good :) In my journal for that day I wrote “James is so red/white its such a shame he wont let me take a picture” haha so unfortunately no photographic proof you’ll just have to take our word, it was soooo funny hehe

Next day we got up and made the most of our included breakfast! Very nice haha then straight to the beach via the bookshop that looked like what a mini waterstones would look like if dropped on a tropical island! In Hunt for the book after twilight…. no luck :( Sat on beach, through the drizzling rain (the things that live on from devon trips! Could picture dad saying to us “you can still tan through the cloud!!”) So we were productive, chucked all our stuff in a waterproof bag and hired a kayak! We kayaked all the way out the inlet bit and round the corner to monkey beach! This was soooo much fun, got completely distracted from the rain and had a great afternoon! Beach was beautiful white sand, soooo so so soft! And wild monkeys right on the beach! We had ages to spare on our kayak time so determined to make the most of every penny we kayaked around the sea looking for fish! Got back to the beach and had another good old chicken skewer! Went back and found a really good local thai food place and had one of the best thai curries we’ve both had, very yum! Journal says “I’m def a green person now!!” Curry that is! Though that wouldn’t last long….! Booked a snorkling trip for the next day, including Maya beach – the beach! And bamboo island, Whoo!!

Today James got ill. Got up early, had our included breakfast! James stuck to toast… Snorkeling trip was on a longtail boat round the beaches, islands and good snorkeling spots! Snorkeled first, I tried without a lifejacket which made it double as hard to stay afloat while emptying a full mask/snorkel! Was really good, James saw tons of fish and loved it. We went to monkey beach again where we snorkeled and saw tons of amazing fish that we’d seen from our kayak the day before! Then bamboo island which was absolutely beautiful, it curved around, look it up! Stunning. James was sick on the beach. Not the best bit of his day! Seriously speedy and fun boat trip after, took us round some great rock formations and through little gaps where you were in crystal clear water (like glass it was so clear) (Phi Phi Leh) and surrounded by really tall rocks. Snorkeled at Maya beach and this was the best snorkeling so far – both really had the hang of it by now and saw so many fish it was great. Then we sat down at Maya beach – breathtaking absolutely amazing, very surreal…..

Back home James was pretty ill and so chilled out for a while… tried to make a plan for life after phi phi! due to monsoon season and the current bad weather system we started to realise that we were going to have to make lots of new plans to make the most of our time here as old ones weren’t possible. (As old ones – perhentian islands werent possible, we found others such as Koh Lanta) Got out in time for food – James was feeling a lot better, had dinner which went down really well for james, but not so well for me… Think I jinxed it by saying “I bet green curry would be a really bad thing to bring back up.” Just so you know, it is, and that was the last green curry Im having for a REALLY long time! So that night I obvisually wasn’t well, and like most things, I did being ill better than James and was ill all night and come the morning we were supposed to leave was not in a good way! Hey ho there was a boat to catch so off we went!

Bamboo Island – beautiful!! Sand curves all the way around, white and turquoise in perfect combination! As you can see the changeable weather setting in here….

Looking out from Monkey Island