Ko Phi Phi, The beach – Backpacking around the World

Ko Phi Phi, The beach

After a last walk on the beach of Ao Nang I went back to Krabi and took the ferry to Ko Phi Phi at 2:00 pm.
After my arrival on Ko Phi Phi I took a taxiboat to “Long Beach” . Not knowing what to do I decided to walk back to the main village. It took me about half an hour to get there (10 minutes if you take the boat.). It’s just a small path and you even have to do some “climbing” (sort of…). I stayed in the village for about 4 hours, had dinner and watched the movie “The Beach”. After that I had to walk back to Long Beach, which turned out to be a real adventure. I left my flashlight at the bungalow, and when I started to walk back it has already been dark. I was hardly able to find the road, and sometimes I just bumped into a tree or a stone. It took me nearly 1,5 hours to make my way back…>

18th of July
The 13th day of my trip, which I think was the best day so far (right 13 is my lucky number!!)

I decided to join a snorkelling group to Ko Phi Phi Le. Perhaps some of you know that parts of the movie “The Beach” were filmed at Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Le. (There are two islands: Ko Phi Phi Don, which is where all tourists stay, and Ko Phi Phi Le, which is a national park). Usually, all the tours start at 9:00 am, but I took the one which started at 12:00 am.
We where a small group of six persons and Andrew, our guide. Snorkelling around Ko Phi Phi Le is amazing: You see a lot of fishes and different corals. Usually Maya Bay is crowded with boats, but when we got there it was just us and “The Beach”. I was even able to see sharks for the first time in my life. A big female and a little baby. They are not dangerous at all (but they DO look dangerous).

Unfortunately Ko Phi Phi gets more and more crowded these days, and some of the tourists just don’t care about rubbish and pollution on the island. If you go to Ko Phi Phi you will understand what I’m talking about.

I think that’s really sad. But there are also people who care about the island. Like Andrew, our guide. He doesn’t use plastic bottles or plastic bags. I think that’s very important on an island, cause every plastic bottle, every plastic-bag, even every can has to be removed from an island. And that’s expensive and someone has to pay for it. The best thing is to AVOID rubbish. Use your own bottle and bring your own cotton-bag.

19th of July
My last day on Ko Phi Phi. I had to take the ferry at 1:30 pm back to Krabi, to get on a Bus to Bangkok. What’s next? I meet up with my travel-mate Martin in Bangkok and then we are going to Chang Mai!