My aerial view of the island

One afternoon I took off by myself to go up to the viewpoint. I left just before 4:30 and you would think it would have started cooling off by then ... nope. I have no idea what the temperature was at that point, but the sweat was still dripping down my back while I was walking through the streets, and then I saw these steps.

Oh yeah. I guess to get to a viewpoint, you need to do some climbing. Off I went. Luckily I had brought a bottle of water with me and since I was alone I could stop when I wanted and didn't have to worry about holding anyone up. The hike up to the first viewpoint probably only took 10 minutes from the bottom of the hill, but it was nice to stop and rest when I got there.

This is looking to the south of Ko Phi Phi Don. The island you see in the distance is Ko Phi Phi Leh. This is where the movie The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed. More pictures of that island to come.

It was quite hazy up there the day I did my hike, but as the sun started setting, it did clear up a bit.

Now that's one red face!

Close up of our area. The tall building on the left with the brown trim was right beside our hotel.

After I rested for a bit at the first viewpoint, I set off on about another 5 or 10 minute hike/walk up to the second viewpoint. I saw this beauty on my way up.

Lots of vegetation on the island.

Even though the name of the island is spelled Phi Phi, for some reason at the top of the viewpoint they wanted to be phonetic.

When I got home and took my bag off, I had a black streak across my shirt. Nice, hey? Mmmmm, sweaty!

Waiting for the sun to set.

This rim below is called Monkey Point. Can you see why?

No, neither can I. I just thought maybe you could see something I couldn't. :)

I believe my friend, Karen, got crapped on by a monkey here, so maybe that's why it's called Monkey Point. Sorry to bring back those memories, Karen. I know when I got crapped on by a bat, everyone told me it was good luck, so maybe it's the same with monkeys. How can being crapped on be good luck? Wait a second, I have won quite a few things in the last 10 years. Hmmm, maybe there's some truth to it after all. Ha ha, just kidding.

I've been up here now for about an hour and yet my face hasn't gone back to normal colour yet.

I wasn't the only one who had the idea to go up and watch the sunset.

Finally it's less hazy. The sky didn't turn amazing shades of red or orange, but I was still glad I went. Reveling in God's creation can be a very calming experience.

More of God's beauty.

Going down was much easier than going up, that's for sure.

After I showered, I met up with the family and off we went for supper.

I would stop on the way home and send a few emails. It's nice to know you still have some contact with the outside world. Internet cost 2 Baht (Thai currency) per minute, which was about 30 cents Canadian.

Time for bed! Craig, Jode and Jackson shared a room.

Just across the hall I was sharing a room with Syd and Ash. It was so much fun to hang with these girls and really get to know them. We will have memories to last us a lifetime.

Off to sleep now because we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow (a day that ended up being my favorite day on the island).

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.

Forget Disneyland ... this is the happiest place on earth!

First, I'll address some of the comments on my last post. Sonya asked if it was weird to be pretty much the minority (especially when we were in line up to cross the border). The answer is yes, it is weird, but in a good way. I love experiencing new cultures ... yes, I have a problem experiencing their cuisine and a lot of people can't understand how I survive, but somehow I do. I think the things I see, get to do and the people I meet out weight the food issue for me. I love pretty much every aspect of travel. Nancy also said that it looks like a culture shock experience, but fun at the same time. Again, I love it. I love seeing how other cultures do things and yes, some of them seem "weird," but I've learned that it's not weird, it's different.

As you can kind of see in the picture below, many backpackers are making their way to Phi Phi Island. As you get onto the boat, they grab your bags from you and start piling them up in a huge pile in the center of the deck on the boat. Sydney and I are leaning up against them here. Phi Phi Island attracts people from all over the world, but from what I could see, they were mostly backpackers.

The scenery on the hour and a half "cruise" was amazing.

It was such a relaxing ride. I watched the ocean for any sign of dolphins, seals or what not, but I only saw a few fish jumping. It was still beautiful. Jodi and Ashtyn sat inside as Jode has some anxiety when watching Jackson sit like this with his feet over the side. I didn't think of it until he was walking around trying to step over people who were laying on the deck. Watching him walk like a drunken sailor (the boat wasn't rocking too bad, but enough to make it a little uneasy for a 7 year old to walk), I could see why she didn't like to watch him.

The water was like glass. Someone totally could've been waterskiiing behind out wake.

It was fun to sit in the sun and just chat with Syd. I couldn't tell you now anything significant we chatted about, but it was just cool to chill and spend time with her (ok, we did check out some cute guys on the boat, but she's 15. What kind of Aunt would I be if I didn't do that with her?)

The fishing boats were beautiful.

My heart did skip a beat when I looked into the cabin where the captain was steering the boat and I saw 2 Thai men sleeping on the floor. I then saw someone sitting in the chair to the right of them. He was watching where we were going. Phewf!

My first sites of Phi Phi Island. The clump of rocks in the first 2 pictures below is called Shark Point. These will come into play when I do my snorkeling post.

I don't know if you can tell, but I really liked this boat. It looked so huge as we sailed into port and as we got closer and closer, I had to take a few pictures.

Here I come, Phi Phi Island!!! Our hotel was the roof you can see just to the left of the tall building in the picture below.

What a wonderful week we had ahead of us.

To be continued ...