Getting to know Phi Phi Island

I know that some of you will think the pictures I'm going to show you over the course of the next few days are soooo beautiful and stunning that you must go there for yourself. Where is this island paradise, you may ask. Let me show you.

While the Phi Phi Islands are not marked on this map, they would be in Southern Thailand right between the red dots for Phuket and Krabi. You can see that just below Thailand is Malaysia. The island my sister and her family live on is just underneath where this map ends. Ok, got your bearings? On we go.

This first aerial view is very small, but I wanted to show you the whole island. It's not very big at all. We were there for 6 days, and I only saw the strip of sand (an isthmus, if you will) that connects the two mountainous regions (or two long, tall limestone ridges as Wikipedia calls them). There are no motor vehicles on the island. You get around by foot and some of the locals have pedal bikes.

These pictures show how narrow this piece of land is, yet somehow, there are umpteen amounts of shops, restaurants, hotels, scuba/snorkeling outfits, Internet cafes etc on this strip of land.

I believe this picture above was taken before the tsunami. The strip was still lush with vegetation at the time. As far as I have heard/read/been told, the tsunami came from both sides. From the right it was 10 feet high and from the left it was 18 feet high. Wikipedia states that the total number of fatalities is unlikely to be known, however, local tour guides cite the figure of 4,000. Very sad. I would never have known that there had been such destruction there only a few short years ago. I am happy that they have been able to rebuild and survive such tragedy. Although I did think about it while I was there, I never felt afraid for my life. There were signs posted for tsunami evacuation and I think now that the signs of a tsunami are more widely known, people would be able to reach safety faster and actually know that they would need to head for higher ground.

We arrived at around 3:00 pm and settled into our hotel. After changing and soaking it in, we headed off for supper. Like I mentioned before, there are many choices of restaurants on the island. We ended up eating at this Italian restaurant many times. They had great pizza. The owner was a gentleman from France who said he had travelled there 20 years ago and never left. He married a Thai woman and was awaiting his first grandchild any day. Don't you love hearing people's stories?

While at the restaurant we saw our first gecko (or chee-chuk as Sydney called it). Isn't he cute?

We also experienced our first gorgeous sunset of the week.

The island is jam packed with alley ways full of shopping kiosks, Internet cafes, hotels (as I mentioned before) and, oh yeah, 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven in Asia is like Starbucks in North America. Pretty much on every street corner (even on remote islands).

The next morning, we hit the beach. If you go back up to the aerial pictures of the island, you arrive by ferry on the south (or left hand side on the last 3 pictures) side, but the sun tanning is done on the north (or right hand) side. Are you ready to see beauty?

The tide is out so far in the morning that you can walk and walk and walk out into the bay. I don't even know how far you can walk because I turned around and came back and the water was only waist deep. For those of you who know, I have a bit of a fear of water, so that was really good for me to walk out that far. There's fish in them there parts, don't cha know?

Here's my sister's clan going for a walk. Even Jackson can still stand and it's only up to his mid-chest.

Doesn't every little kid want to be completely covered by sand? Here we go!

Hey Jack! How you doing? Only the arms to go!

Thanks Dad!

As much as I love the beach, I don't love having sand in every crevice of my body. He did not care one little bit. I love the feeling between my toes, but not between my ... well, you get the picture.

My sister and her family have been here a few times before, but more during low season. Jode said this was 10 times the amount of people that they had ever seen here before. I didn't care. I was just happy to be there (but a good mental note for next time.) :)

We rented 2 chairs each day (I think they were like $2 a day or something). Sydney LOVES to read. No, read that again. I've never met a kid who LOOOOOVES to read as much as her. She was reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy when she was like, 12 or something. I love to read as well, but I only read those when the movies came out ... I was in my late 20s and some of it was over my head. Craig loves to read as well, so they often read the same book and then talk about it afterwards. Pretty cool.

Jode bought a hat right off the bat to protect the pink hair. :)

As much as I wanted to lay in the sun all day, I was good and took a break so that I wouldn't be burnt too badly on the first day. Have you ever done that? Kinda wrecks the rest of your vacation. I've learned to take it slowly. That way I actually get a better tan and it'll last longer. Only took me 35 years to figure that out ... no, I learned that about 10 years ago when I went on my Indonesia/Australia trip. Worked like a charm.

We invested in some paddles and balls to keep us entertained, but most of all we just lazed around and did a lot of nothing. It was WONDERFUL!

This last shot was the best shot I think I got of the beach. It captures Ashtyn doing what she did best ... drinking a "shake," floating in the water and people watching. It also shows the beautiful clear water (isn't that stunning?), shows that the water isn't too crowded with people and just brings me a sense of calm and peace that comes with relaxing.

Let's say it together ... aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.