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?!
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| For once, that's us catching the sun RISE! |
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.
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| 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:
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| 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’!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| There was even a Mum and a baby... ahhhh. |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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