First Day on Phi Phi - Feb 22, 2010

Hi All,

Yesterday was quite the day of traveling - took a cab to the airport (45mins), then the flight across thailand (1hr), bus to the ferry from the airport (1hr), then the ferry out to the island (2hrs). We finally got here and settled into our bungalow about 5pm. The hotel is great - everything on the island seems to be fairly new since the 2004 tsunami totally devastated the island. They have rebuilt quite a lot though now and hard to tell it was all wiped away except that everything looks pretty nice. The other great thing is that there are no roads on the island, only walking paths, so all the bustling and honking is gone for now!! Yay!!

Last night we walked the ~50 ft from our hotel out to the beach and ate at one of the waterfront restaurants for dinner. Things here are much more expensive than any of the other places, beers are ~$4 and cocktails ~$6, but for a secluded beach island, not too bad still. Then last night we went exploring around the island to check out the other restaurants and happened upon one that was having a beach-front fire dancing show, all you had to do was buy your drinks. So, we bought a few drinks and watched the show, amazing, I even took some videos with my camera so you guys could see.

Today was a totally lazy day. Woke up at 9:30am only because free breakfast at the hotel only goes till 10am. It was great - short order eggs, and a full buffet of other stuff, anything you could want. Then we spent a few hours reading on the beach until we got too hot (rented an umbrella and beach chairs for 100baht/$3) then went to lunch and booked a sharks swimming/snorkeling tour for tomorrow morning. Then laid about the pool reading. I've finished three books so far and working on my 4th - now reading 'The Blind Assasin' chose it b/c M had heard good things and it's 700 pages long, so hopefully this one lasts me the beach and the plane ride home :)

As I mentioned, we are going on a snorkeling tour about a kilometer off shore tomorrow morning at the bright and early hour of 6:15am, because we get to swim with sharks! That's right, no cages, just reef sharks swimming around with us and the guide... hopefully this goes well!!

A