Tuesday 27th to Wednesday 28th February – Planning, relaxing and an exciting message

Tuesday - We lay in as late as that tends to be these days… about 8am and after breakfast we settled down for some admin.  

We’d heard from Nick in New Zealand.  How would Simon feel about a potential job on offer just south of Auckland?!  Talk about a surprise!  Basically, we would need to return to NZ as visitors so that Simon could attend an interview to find out the finer details. But it looked like there may be a job available which Simon would have to commit to for two years, but afterwards would mean that we could apply for residency.  What an opportunity! We would be able to visit all those places that we’d missed through forever being rushed over the last month. But we needed to take time to let the idea sink in and consider it seriously before making any quick decisions.

Having created our rough Thailand itinerary, we also needed to start booking planes, trains and even automobiles to make sure we stay on schedule.  We have secured two spots on a liveaboard dive boat from 15^th March so now we can book everything else around that.  I have seriously underestimated the size of Thailand.  It’s big.  I mean, really big. We had a couple of choices between extremely long days and nights on overnight trains, or purchasing the not-as-cheap-as-expected internal flights.  We’ve gone for a bit of each, especially as people have told us that the overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai is an experience not to be missed in itself. 

Supping on a beer whilst soaking up the view

We alternated a couple of hours on booking and admin with a couple of hours by the pool until we felt that we had done sufficient of both for one day.   

A teeny hermit crab visitor

We had dinner on the beach. I completed my Thai curry traffic light by opting for a red curry, but it reminded me that I am a wuss when it comes to chilies, so I may pass on the red curries in future.  I had to suck the ice cubes out of my drink to cool my mouth down!

Dinner on the beach with unexpected entertainment

Wednesday – We wandered along the beach to have breakfast and have a discussion about the idea of living in New Zealand for two years.  There were the considerations that everyone must face when considering moving to the other side of the planet – missing family and friends and probably some important events. But we both know that two years can pass relatively quickly and we may be able to offer an opportunity for people from the UK to come and explore NZ and have somewhere to stay. 

Excitement for the future and discussions about logistics began.  This is the kind of opportunity we had both hoped for when we broke away from our old lives.  We could always turn down the offer but as we continue to haemorrhage our remaining money enjoying ourselves, it will not be long until returning to work will have to be a reality.  So, will it be back to the Police in the UK or trying a completely different line of work in NZ, on our own, away from our support network in the UK?  We will have to decide soon as March 22^nd will come around quickly and we will need to know where we are heading on leaving Thailand.  Will we have to go back to the UK first to dig out all of the paperwork that we may need for job and visa applications?  That would cost a lot more than just heading back to New Zealand.  I’m not sure we can stretch to that as things stand.  But we’ll have to make a decision over the next week or so I guess.  

Underwater snorkel-selfie

It was also our last day on Phi Phi and we had decided to take a kayak out to sample some of the snorkelling just off our beach.  The tide was perfect this morning so we coated ourselves in sun cream, grabbed the GoPro and headed to the shore.  We took it in turns to either be on the kayak or snorkelling as this solved the worries about having someone looking out for passing boat traffic.  The paddler was responsible for having the snorkeler’s back! The visibility was amazing and there was a lot of fish life around just like there had been the other day. We sampled a couple of different areas of coral and a deeper drop-off section and got some photographs, finishing with some more anemone fish as a highlight.  

Colourful giant clams and a spiny sea urchin

Beautiful reef

Anemone fish

Despite being cautious with the sun lotion, we had both clearly had enough sun for one day after two hours out on the water so it was time to do some hard relaxing in the shade for the rest of the day.

Monday 26th February – Simon’s Birthday

A massive surprise.  Simon WANTED to get up at 530am on his Birthday to take a trip out to Phi Phi Ley, the home of the Beach beach, Maya Bay.  By that I mean the beach where they filmed The Beach in the 1990s.  The one with Leonard DiCaprio and the song by All Saints.  All clear?!

For once, that's us catching the sun RISE!

We had booked an authentic Thai long boat for our 4-hour trip to the islands and bays of our choice. Despite our guide suggesting we left at 7am, we were adamant we wanted to set off at 630am because we had heard how crowded it gets in Maya Bay.

We had met a friendly Canadian couple from Victoria (we are so jealous) at our hotel and invited them on the trip as well, so we could all benefit from a half price deal.  So, we rendezvoused at breakfast and found our guide getting his longboat ready by the shore. The weather had predicted a fine day, but it was only just starting to get light and a strong offshore breeze was making the sea very choppy. 

One drenched boat passenger

As the boat bookers we won prime position at the front.  Otherwise known as the wet seats!  Simon and I were soaked through by the time we rounded the northernmost point of Phi Phi where thankfully the sea calmed down due to the protection of the land.  We started to see some other long boats heading the same way as us… we definitely wouldn’t be alone on the beach, but we just hoped we’d missed the worst of the rush.  Things got choppy again as we crossed the section of open water between Phi Phi and one of its sister islands.  Within 45 minutes we rounded a corner of high rise limestone and there it was.  The view of the bay:

Arriving at Maya Bay - the sun as just peeking over the top of the mountains

There were probably about 100 other people there by that time, about 730am, but there was plenty of space for our boat to moor right on the sand.  We each had to pay 400 THB for national park fees, or as we liked to call it, our ‘Leonardo DiCaprio Tax’!  

Our Canadian companions - Margot and Marvin

We took it in turns to get good couple photos for each other before we went for a snorkel in an area protected from boats. 

The Birthday boy having a swim

It was pretty barren under there to be fair, but it was warmer in the sea than in the shade or the breeze on shore.  We couldn’t believe we were feeling cold in tropical Thailand! There was even a bride and groom on the beach, struggling to get some decent wedding photos in amongst the throngs of tourists.  By the time we’d had a swim the number of people there had quadrupled, and parking spots were at a premium.  It looks like you could book a speedboat tour all the way here from Phuket, along with 50 other people crammed on a boat!  We were glad we had our private longboat.

Without even having to ask, our guide took us into a rocky alcove that we had spotted on the outward journey.  The sheer limestone cliffs covered in foliage make for a jaw-dropping backdrop.

Our other chosen location to visit in our four hours was monkey beach.  Again, when we arrived there was hardly another boat there and we could see some monkeys on the beach on our way in.  We went to meet the lively primates and luckily got a couple of snaps before they were scared off into the jungle by the ever-increasing crowds.  We’d timed it just right again.

There was even a Mum and a baby... ahhhh.

Our driver awaits...

There was a larger cordoned off section here and the snorkelling was a vast improvement than that at Maya beach. Large sections of corals, inquisitive fish coming to visit us at the surface and even some anemone fish (Simon gets kudos for taking this pic).  

The only problem with here?  I started thinking that I must have got sunburnt as my skin was tingling in various places.  However, this continued and intensified to the point that I felt like I’d fallen into a patch of nettles.  We may not have been able to see them, but we were all floating through a cloud of tiny translucent jellyfish that were stinging us as we went.  It was too uncomfortable, so we admitted defeat.

Sgt Majors

Our pilot squeezed in another quick swim in a further idyllic bay with huge shoals of Sergeant Majors before we headed back to the Erawan palms.   

We were surrounded

Margot and Marvin were checking out today so they had to shoot off to get out of their room while we thanked our guide for a fantastic trip.

So much achieved, and it was still the morning!  We freshened up before having some pool time and a spot of lunch.  We had a pre-arranged phone chat with Simon’s parents so that they could embarrass him by singing happy birthday as loud as ever and then it was time for Birthday treat number two – a massage!  We had shied away from the full Thai massage option.  That just sounds like paying for torture.  But Simon had gotten a bad back from all of our randomly made-up beds in various campervans and, as luck would have it, I had my first headache today in ages.  So, a head, neck and shoulder massage was right on cue for both of us.  Well, someone needs to tell ‘my’ lady that my legs are nowhere near my neck, shoulders OR back last time I checked.  I think they just enjoy their jobs too much and she was punishing me for laughing at the lady in the next cubicle that had been squealing when being pulled in different directions!  I ended up with a small Thai lady walking up and down my legs and spine.  They seemed to know what they were doing but Simon’s massage looked a whole lot different to mine even though we had requested the same thing!  We both felt light-headed and sufficiently pulled about after our hour-long ordeal…. I mean treatment! I’d definitely forgotten about my headache.

Now fully relaxed, we enjoyed an evening of wining and dining… Simon even got to have steak as a Birthday treat.