Thursday 1st to Friday 2nd March - transferring from Phi Phi to Koh Ngai

Thursday - a 6am alarm again… I thought we were supposed to be relaxing?! We needed to check out at 630am to have time to grab some breakfast, which just happened to be in front of a stunning sunrise, before catching our 7am ferry to Phi Phi pier.

Look... it's so easy to catch a daily transfer to any of these destinations (just not where we wanted to go!)

 

A statue on Phi Phi pier

We had booked tickets online with Tigerline who offered a speedboat service to our next location, Koh Ngai.  Sounds simple, right? We arrived at the pier in plenty of time to have a coffee and even write several postcards.  We checked in with Tigerline and eventually a speedboat appeared at the dock.

Rows of longtail boats awaiting tourists at Phi Phi pier

Having ejected some passengers at Phi Phi there was just enough space on board for the rest of us AND the massive stack of luggage in the bow. All passengers had been given a sticker with letters denoting their final destination, ours said NG for example.  The speedboat may have been much faster than the ferry we had caught from Phuket, but the view was non-existent:

View forward (above) and view backwards (below)

As was the air-conditioning, which wasn’t helped by a strong exhaust smell from the three massive engines.  Maybe I’d go for the slow and scenic ferry over the rammed and smelly speedboat next time?! 

 

But within half an hour or so we’d reached Koh Lanta. Most people on our boat were wearing stickers with LP on, meaning that they were heading to Koh Lipe, in the far south.  They all had to get off, along with their luggage, to transfer to another speedboat.  We watched like hawks to ensure that our two bags weren’t being taken on another boat without us.  I know these guys do this job every day, but there seemed very little organisation for them to keep track of where anyone’s luggage was going!

Having thought that we were happily staying put on our original boat, suddenly the crew decided that we all had to transfer onto another one.  Off we dutifully went, clearly pointing at our bags, which were loaded onto the new boat before being buried beneath a mountain of everyone from Koh Lanta’s luggage.  I hoped my laptop was ok in there…?!  As we were one of the first on board we headed to the stern of the boat which afforded us some view out of the back and some fresh air whilst the boat was stationary.  We wound down a river between Koh Lanta and its neighbour before heading into the open ocean again.  

Home for sale.... anyone?

Luckily, Koh Ngai was the first destination for this boat. I have no idea where the other people were heading to! As we pulled into the pier I thought to myself, ‘if we are staying here, then I’ll be happy’ and we WERE!  

 

Koh Ngai pier

Bags stacked high on our transfer to paradise

Happy to be somewhere too small for google maps to find!

Despite the Koh Hai Fantasy resort being visible from the pier, it was only accessible by boat.  A very short transfer later and we were there…. In paradise!  And another thing that made me happy?  Google maps didn’t even know where we were…. The island is so small it just placed us in the middle of the Straits of Malacca (right)!

Once checked in, we had a very important appointment with the PADI dive centre on site.  Simon had managed to get hold of the manager on the phone from Phi Phi to explain our intentions to go to a very specific dive site whilst we are here.  It’s my fault. I researched the top dive sites in Thailand and that is why we have come here – it’s the nearest island you can stay on where you can reach Hin Daeng and Hin Maeng.  These are twin dive sites where they state that you are likely to see whale sharks and manta rays.  We have yet to see these creatures on a dive so for us it is worth the extra distance and money to attempt the dives.  The only problem is it is still a 3-hour boat ride from here and only advanced divers can do it, so they need a minimum of six divers to make it financially viable.  At the moment they are short, but they are keen to try and get the numbers up. So, we have measured up for all the necessary equipment and we are leaving it until Saturday to see if they can get sufficient numbers.  We crossed our fingers…

Until then, the snorkelling around the island here is good enough to keep us busy.  After lunch, we coated ourselves in factor 30 and took the mask and snorkels out.  We must have been paddling for a good two hours, there was so much to see! Shame I’d left the GoPro in the safe in our room…

Something different... a moonset!

We went for dinner at our new resort.  It was lacking compared to Phi Phi.  The service was terrible.  We had to almost trip the waiters up to get their attention and Simon was given the wrong meal but ate it anyway. We may venture to one of the neighbouring resorts for the next couple of nights.

Friday – After the last couple of early days, we had a much-needed lie in and just about made it to breakfast, again the selection was nowhere near as good as that which we had become accustomed to on Phi Phi!  We popped into the dive centre on the way past…. Still not enough people signed up for tomorrow.  We were starting to worry that this wasn’t going to happen.  The dive guide had tipped us off about another good snorkelling location – just walk 30 minutes north, past all the other resorts and away from the boat traffic. We went.  And there was nothing to see apart from sand and a few weeds.  I hope his knowledge on finding our dive sites on Saturday is better than that!

We returned to the hotel, exhausted and having spent a solid couple of hours in the sun.  We headed for the coffee bar for a frappe recharge and to do some planning on the Wi-Fi.  In fact, we spent a couple of hours booking some deals for the rest of our island-hopping exploits.  I won’t spoil the next few blogs by telling you where we’re going yet…

We then repeated yesterday’s snorkelling excursion on the house reef, this time with GoPro to catch some hopefully awesome pictures and even some videos of us being cleaned by wrasse and being attacked by highly defensive fish.  

water-level view of the surrounding islands

According to these wrasse, Simon's leg required a good cleaning!

 

My first wild toucan

Back at the dive centre, finally it was good news!  We have the six divers we need for tomorrow – it was on!  And a 7am start to make the journey.

You can't get much fresher than that

We took a stroll along the beach to choose an alternate dining destination and found a food shack where I could select some shrimps to be cooked on the BBQ for me and Simon could enjoy a cocktail or two. Bliss.