From the start I must say we are very fortunate to do what we have done. When you talk to people from other countries, you appreciate how lucky we are in Australia. A perfect example is Long Service Leave, which we couldn't have ever dreamed to do a trip like this without it.
We would like to thank those who have kept in touch during our travels via the blog, Facebook, Viber, sms, etc.
We have seen some woderful sights (still can't get the image of those goats in a tree out of my head) and met some wonderful people as well.
Just a quick blog, because we have had a very lazy day on Thursday and on Friday we checkout at midday to begin the final leg of our travels.
Thursday was to be a lazy day sitting by the pool and relaxing, after a little morning shopping, while having a couple quiet drinks and ordering lunch to eat on our balcony poolside. This was going to plan beautifully until about 2:30 pm when it started getting clouded over and began raining. It really only stopped the swimming and sunbaking!
In the evening, Kristin did some last minute shopping (well managed to do more on Friday morning too!) and then we had a massage at the Blue moon massage joint. Kristin went for the coconut oil massage and Andy the aromatherapy massage. We both thought it was the best massage by far.
Today we rose early for a day trip to Phi Phi Islands.
Phi Phi Islands consists of 2 major islands (Phi Phi Don & Phi Phi Ley) and several other smaller islands. It is about an hour fast speedboat ride from Phuket. On the speedboat there were about 40 people, us, a few English, a few Scots and a bus load of Chinese(who were quite rude, unfriendly and obnoxious - to the point they didn't tip the crew at the end of the day, even though they looked after us very well).
Our first stop was one of the little islands, Bamboo Island. Here we swam in very warm tropical waters and did a little bit of snorkeling off the beach. Next stop though was about 200m of the shore around the corner where we snorkeled over a coral reef, that contained a lot of fish of different varieties and colours. Quite good.
The third port of call was the main part of Phi Phi where we had a lunch (included) stop. The guide said today was only about 60% busy but looking out to the bay it was hard to see the view because of the number of tourist boats!
Next we had a quick stop at Monkey Bay, where monkies come to the water's edge to be fed.
Close by was the Swallow s Nest cave.
Next was the highlight of the day, Pileh Lagoon. Not only one of the most beautiful places in Thailand but also one if the locations used in the Leonardo Dicaprico's movie "The Beach". (It is the scene where they jump off the cliff). In the lagoon we dived off the boat into beautiful waters, which had a different hue of blue from the nearby islands, probably due to the limestone.
A 10 minute boat ride took us around to Maya Beach, also a highlight of the day. A beautiful cove surrounded by limestone cliffs and a white sandy beach. Also here you could walk to another inlet and take some spectacular photos (well at least I tried to).
Next was the trip back to Phuket, which was a lot rougher than the trip out, the wind had picked up and there was a bit of a swell, but after an hour of slamming down on waves we got back in one piece.
After a swim back at the hotel and a few drinks we headed out for dinner about 8:30 pm. We did a bit shopping (without buying anything - how does this make sense?) before we found a bar called the New Friends Bar. We stopped here because they had a live band playing mainly classics from the 70s and 80s.
After our meal we both had a head, neck & shoulder massage for half an hour.
Back to the hotel for a nightcap and mentally prepare ourselves for our last true day of our wonderful holiday before beginning the journey home Friday. (This means you won't have to read too many more of these blogs! )
