Phi Phi? Who names an island "Pee-pee"?

Ready for another huge blogging session? We are!! Well, we had an adventure on the way to Koh Phi Phi, where we planned to stay for our last two nights (and we did). This is us leaving Phuket, where the water was still pea-green...

As you can see in the picture, a storm was a-brewin'. The water began to turn black as well, foreshadowing the tumult that was to come. We were hardy sailors however, and remained in the top middle section of the boat, where the 4-foot-or-so waves still managed to splash us and the rain beat sideways upon us (we were covered by a canvas roof that threated itself to come off), drenching our bags (and, of course, little old us). 'Twas a bit of a tough ride, but we got through it, and as it turned out, it was worth the adventure.

(Us, post-storm.)

And now for our destination...

Phi Phi was a beautiful harbour that revealed a long stretch of beach, which is actually flanked on both sides by ocean. It was one of the unfortunate areas that was destroyed almost entirely by the tsunami of 2004. Before that point, there had been only one hotel on the beach, which was decimated, along with most of the trees in the area. Anyhoo, there are no cars or roads for cars on the island, so you have to take longtail boat taxis everywhere unless you want to walk (it's a rather small island, so we usually did that). These two happened to be our first cabbies.

My look for the occasion had been completely ruined by our ferry trip over, then I realized the futility of wearing a long skirt and fancy little sandals for loading our luggage and ourselves onto the unbeached boats. Then there was the 15-minute, mostly uphill hike to our bungalows with all of our quickly accumulating luggage. Beautiful though it definitely was!

Little Thai kids said "Hello" to us and darn near tickled us pink! The immensity of the resort was surprising. The landscaping was sprawling and jumbles of plants and dirt showed up everywhere around the walkway. Our bungalow was on the furthest edge of the place. It was really nice, but a little rustic, considering the door didn't close all the way, and we actually had little salamander-type lizards on the walls that chirped like birdies! Kinda didn't take any pics of the interior though. Oh yeah- and the tap in the bathroom said "Watersaver" on it... yep, saltwater was the name of the game from there on when it came to washing.

Us and roosters. (???) We dinnered it up the first eve with corn, BBQ chicken and baked potatoes. Ahh home goodness!

Little huts were villaged outside the main beachfront shopping area, which we later discovered.

So the next thing we did that evening was to explore the town along the long beach. We also got to sample some awesomely fine "Thai pancake" crepes from Thai lady above. It was a hippie exposee. All the beachy things we looked for in Phuket could not compare to the plethora of sweetness found in this place, in which all you could practically see was white people who happened to be the Bob Marley hippie sort, and the beach was crammed full of bars with names like "Hippie Bar" or "Hippie Beach Bar" and most of them were playing either Jack Johnson, Marley, or Abba of all things. We felt strangely at home. Is that sad?

What could be a more Thai way to cap off the night with a Singha and a cigar? Apparently Kent disagrees about the beer, but to Adrian anything's better than Cass or Hite, Korea's specialty brews. I couldn't care less, I hate beer. Ha ha!

As Adrian puffed away, I don't think he (nor I) could fully picture what we were to experience the next day.

!! In the morning, we stepped out our door to see in the distance our destination: Phi Phi Lei. We decided to head out for the sunset tour that started in the afternoon.

But first, we had to do some wicked cool diving - well, diving in our terms, that is: in the form of snorkelling!! We are truly geeky in our glory, but then it is still glory nonetheless, non?

After this stellar adventure, the place of which we got to by climbing over many a rocky shoreline,

ahhhh it was so gorgeous. Si bonne. Tres belleuse, if that's a word.

Off our prime snorkelling spot just a ways, we discovered what looked like an abandoned resort, with a nice beach out front, and a few native-looking huts nearby.

After our hikedelicness we stopped for some goood seafood. I miss and love Thai food, or at least the few popular dishes that I know. Hot'n spicy glass noodles with prawns and cashews in a pineapple was my afternoon delight.

Meanwhile Adrian was more enticed by steamed lobster with garlic and butter, something we haven't tried since attempting to cook our own 4 years ago whilst listening to them die with this awful shrieking sound escaping their writhing bodies in the pot. Oh, the pain! I've recovered myself enough to eat lobster again, however, albeit a few nibbles of Adrian's.

And now for some monkeys!!! Our first stop on our little cruise to Phi Phi Lei was Monkey Beach, which happened to be on the island we were staying on. We threw them some pineapple.


The trip started out pretty stormy and we saw some dolphins, but things cleared up a bit, note the dark water below...

We passed by Viking Cave while skirting around the island, a place that's been closed down due to excessive tourism that has allowed for quite a detrimental impact on the interior. And voila el corridor of rapture below.

And the famous beach from the movie "The Beach".

And the region around that area. Those words there mean the same thing. Ooohh, I'm needing some sleep.

It was a glorious trip indeed. Just what we needed before heading back to Phuket and then home to Seoul the next day.

So we took a tuk-tuk thing on the way back from our bungalow to our resort's main check-in area, and prepared for our departure. Ah, cest la vie I guess, all good things must come to an end. But hey, now we're down to one lone week left in Seoul. Sad, and good.