Koh Phi Phi and byebye Thailand… :(

Leaving Koh Tao was hard, but it was even harder leaving Thailand..

We were going to take the nightboat to the mainland and then take a bus and another boat to get to the islands of Koh Phi Phi on the west coast of Thailand. We had heard that the nightboat was called the “nightmare-boat” by our hotel, so we were excited to see what this was about. The hotel dropped us by the boat quite early to help us get the best place to sleep,  because the boat would be crowded and hot they said. We knew that there were going to be mattresses on the floor, what we didn’t know was that we needed to share the tiny mattress. ugh, we didn’t like the thought of sharing the tiny space with someone else, so we were happy to discover we could sleep together.

 

Private king-size bed at the boat

The boattrip was wavy (thank you, travelsickness-pills), crowded and sweaty, thanks to the girls next to us who “just couldn’t sleep with the ticking noise of the fan”, but we made it! 🙂 When we arrived in Suratthani we were not so happy to discover that we were going to take a “taxi” with 6 other people and all of our backpacks on the back of a truck again. It is really scary to be on the back of a car like that, no safety… 

"The taxi"

We arrived at Koh Phi Phi in the morning and there were a lot of people on the boat. We walked around for a long time, because we tried to find accommodation to the price we paid in Koh Tao. This was not possible we discovered, Phi Phi has even higher prices than Tao in the high-season. So finally we decided to stay at P.P October Inn.  

Tsunami sign

We enjoyed a lot of days at the beach. The beach was more crowded here, but it was also nicer than Koh Tao. Blue-green water everywhere and “mountains” rising from the sea. 

Koh phi phi

The tide changed when we were there, you could walk forever in shallow water. 

shallow water

We decided to take a boat-trip that included seeing monkeys, kayaking, snorkling, seeing “The Beach” and finally enjoying the sunset from the boat. We didn’t get to see any monkey’s, but we saw people living in the Viking Cave collecting birdnest’s for the famous birdnest-soup. The price for these birdnests are ridiculously high and the price for the whole business of the Viking Cave was 35 million baht (8 mill. NOK)!!! 

We went kayaking and snorkling in a lagoon. Silje (brunette) saw a shark about 1-2 meters while snorkling and excitedly told the local’s on the boat. They were not impressed. “Yeah, if you go over on the other side you can spot 50 together, they are not dangerous, they are called blacktip-sharks or reef-sharks” So we went on the otherside. Silje saw another shark again, but not as many as 50. 

Kayaking at Phi Phi Ley Lagoon

After Phi Phi Ley Lagoon we finally went to see Maya Beach (“The Beach”). It was so beautiful. The clear water and the white beach. You could see the clear water for miles it seemed like. We swimmed to the shore from the boat. We didn’t think it was such a long  swim as it was, it was about 300-400 meters.. 

Underwater @ Maya Beach

When we got to Maya Beach the sun had disappeared, but it was still very pretty. 

Maya Beach = " The Beach"

As said the beach was very lovely, but we saw a lot of garbage there. They also have sleep-over trips at The Beach, and then there are a lot fewer people there we heard, but we decided that we wanted to see The Beach by day. It was really too crowded there, too many people, so it kind of ruined the illusion of being alone at The Beach.  

Too crowded at "The Beach"

 We were about an hour at Maya Beach before we went out on the ocean again to see the sunset.  We got a great dinner from the staff while we saw the sunset. The sunset was pretty, but could not compare to Koh Tao`s sunset at the beach. Nothing could really compare to Koh Tao, and everyone we met got sick of us talking about Koh Tao all the time.   

Sunset from the boat

We finally find our chillout-spot in Koh Phi Phi, and it was Banana rooftop bar. It wasn’t Fizz or Lotus bar, like Koh Tao, but kind of the same. 

Our favourite bar with the funny t-shirt

We went for a run a couple of days to exercise, and one of the days we ran to the viewpoint, and got to see the end of the sunset there and the Island. It was so beautiful.  

Viewpoint at Phi Phi by night

We didn’t realize how fast the days had gone by. We had to start figuring out how we were going to travel to Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur. We decided to go by bus, and it took 20 hours, so suddenly our last day had come, and we had our last nice Thai-dinner. The food here is just amazing… We love Thai food!! We are going to miss it so much! 

The last Thai-meal

The last night we went to the beach, we had been to the beach at night other days too.. But, because there was a shooting at a beach bar in late december, all the music stopped at 1 AM and most people went home at that time. But, this time we didn’t want to leave, knowing that it was our last night in Thailand we stayed too long..It was not the best decision considering we had to get up at 7 AM. 

Relaxing at the Stones Bar

Do you think we made it to the boat…? 

To be continued….

Silje x2