Koh Phi Phi

Blogger is finally back up and running!  They were doing some site maintenance so I couldn't post about our trip from Railay to Koh Phi Phi- more amazing travel luck for Sam.  We paid 450 baht per person in Ao Nang which included a 30 minute taxi ride and the cost of the ferry tickets from Krabi to Koh Phi Phi.  At the port, we found out the tickets for the boat alone cost basically what we paid so our taxi ride was essentially free.  Nice!

Koh Phi Phi Viewpoint, before sunset

We didn't get on the boat early enough to be on the top deck, so we were stuck in the bottom.  It was close to 2 hours of near asphyxiation by gasoline fumes.  I am so not looking forward to making the return trip today.  :-(

Upon arriving at the island, we were greeted by a porter from our hotel- pretty swank?  Well no, actually.  In the time since our Lonely Planet book was published (they named this their preferred place accommodations) things must have changed here at the Chunut House.  The man at the front desk informed Sam and I we needed to pay in cash up front rather than by credit card at the end of our stay.  This wouldn't have been such a big deal if the reservation confirmation hadn't told me that I could pay by card, or if we hadn't depleted our baht during our travels to Koh Phi Phi, or if we hadn't just disembarked from the boat ride of deathly fumes.  We finally got into our room to find the safe nonfunctional, the bathroom consisting of a concrete annex to the bungalow and a million degrees, and tiny mosquitos everywhere with no bug nets. Great.  Sam pointed out to me that this place is roughly 1/3 of the cost of our beautiful room on Railay- you get what you pay for in Thailand!  

One other funny note, our hotels in Khao Lak and Railay both had king size beds which feel huge to Sam and I because we've got a queen size bed at home.  Well here, at Chunut house, we've got a double, and as I write this, Sam (asleep) is rolling all over the place and continues to crash into me.  This has not been the best sleep of the trip between the fear of the mosquitos and Sam's thrashing.  :-)

Disappointing accommodations aside, Sam and I have enjoyed Koh Phi Phi.  Yesterday we went SCUBA diving again.  This time we booked with a legitimate dive company, Island Divers, and had a fellow American dive instructor, Mckenna, who went to CSULB and lived in LA for 5 years before moving to Thailand 15 months ago.  She was awesome!  She highly recommended that Sam and I check out the wrecked boat off the coast of San Diego from WWII, she said it is really neat.  (Certified friends reading this blog, please consider that an invitation if you'd like to come along!)

Our first dive was at the King Cruiser Wreck, a passenger ferry that ran aground on Anemone Reef and sank on May 4th, 1997.  It was very cool to dive a wreck- I think when we get back to the states I might pursue wreck specialty certification.  We got to swim through short hallway and into part of the ferry.  There were lion fish, some very neat rock fish, and also some pretty awesome schools of brightly colored fish.  Unfortunately I was sucking my air pretty heavily so it was a shorter dive than anticipated.

Our second dive was at Anemone Reef, and it was my favorite dive in Thailand.  There were lion fish everywhere, some porcupine fish, puffer fish, and we saw 3 kinds of eels.  Very neat!  Sam and I were diving with Rachel from England who had just finished her certification courses the day before, and Jos from Holland who had been diving since he was 14 but didn't seem to have a very good handle on his buoyancy.  They were very much following Mckenna around the whole time we were underwater, so Sam and I had to hang back a bit.  Well 40 minutes into this dive, Rachel was low on air so she and Jos went up to the surface and McKenna took Sam and I on to another part of the reef were we got to see some baby eels and a school of smaller barracuda before we had to surface.  It was really beautiful, even with only 10m of visibility, so I can't imagine what it would be like in peak season with up to twice that.

Sam's photo of the sunset from the viewpoint

The last dive was at shark point and I'm sad to say there were no sharks, or at least none that we saw.  There was one lone large barracuda circling the joint and a bunch of really colorful schooling fish.  We missed out on the stingray but I think Rachel and Jos got to see it.  

When we got back to the island, I couldn't resist buying a t-shirt from the dive shop.  I have a Dive Cancun shirt from my first diving experience in 2007, and I figure since I am doing so much diving out of the US I should at least pick up a shirt from each country if not each shop.  Worst case scenario, I could always have them made into a quilt like some of my friends have done with their old swim and softball t-shirts.  Sam took a hike up to the viewpoint while I rested and he took some great photos of the sunset.

Sitting in our fridge because I couldn't eat it :-(

Last night we watched the Manchester United v. Blackburn futball match live from one of the pubs.  I think Sam cannot get over that the soccer games are shown live during primetime hours here because he always seems to be able to find one on TV for us to watch.  Dan Colby- Sam really wanted to text you during the game.  We then went to Papaya Restaurant, where we had eaten an amazing Pad Thai snack after diving, and I ordered Phanaeng curry that was supposedly only 15% spicy but that I couldn't eat it was searing my lips with heat.  I guess that's one way to diet- order things you can't possibly ingest!  LOL

Now we're off to catch the hopefully-less-smelly ferry over to Phuket for our last night in Thailand  It's amazing to me that we've already finished this portion of the vacation but also that we still have over 2 weeks left abroad!  We miss you all and hope you're doing well!