photos and other things…
Phi Phi Island was the most ‘island scenic’ of our time in Thailand, but all good things have to end some time (especially when its a holiday and you need money to continue on!). Here’s a series of final shots for now from Phi Phi. Tomorrow its the final destination of Thailand.
Not many words today – just a series of images from a walk around the more rural Phi Phi area.
Three quick snaps from our first venture outside of the Phi Phi resort area.
Nothing like the big cities, but bikes still played a massive role in the local communities.
A very cool, but massively out or proportion map.
Landing at the resort, the view was stunning. Clear aqua ocean, white sand, palm trees. We were warmly greeted, and as with all the other places we stayed, welcomed with a cool sweet beverage. Being at the flash end of the holiday, we took on an upgrading offer and temporarily made the beach front bungalow our home for the next four nights.
More tomorrow!
Leaving Krabi, we hopped on a ferry destined for the beautiful Phi Phi Islands. Hot as usual, I struggled sitting on the reflective white deck for 40min’s before we took off, but once we started moving, the cool breeze was great!
The ride was somewhere around 2 hours, with cheap Singer’s being sold in the hot sun along the journey. Arriving at Phi Phi we were greeted with the 20 baht per person, keep the island clean fee (i’ll comment another day), and as soon as we got there, a long boat was called to escort us to our resort (We were now at the flash stage of the holiday).
Do the shopping cart???
For one of our days staying in Krabi, we booked a day trip out to some of the smaller islands. Heading out via longboat, we had three main stops – one for snorkling, one for lunch and one for a few hours swimming.
One thing that became apparent in Thailand, starting with this trip, was the struggle the country appears to have with litter/rubbish, and dealing with it.
Each of the stops was beautiful, and away from the mainland, relatively free of rubbish. However, stopping at the lunch spot, walking on the beach, I could smell the familiar scent of ash/burnt goods. At the back of the small beach area, it was clear that all rubbish on the island just gets piled up and burnt. Relatively small stuff, but I’ll touch on it again in future posts where the issue was more obvious.
Anyway… Landing at the final beach and being left for the rest of the afternoon I went for a bit of a stroll. Thailand was hit by a nasty tsunami in 2004. This beach paradise, like many other places was hit, with old wreckage sitting in the bush as a reminder.
With the Thai authorities estimating that at least 8,150 are likely to have died, the bits of boats and other things around the coastal areas serve as a reminder, and sorts of shrines to remind us of the loss.
From Krabi and back on a boat tomorrow!
Up to this point of the holiday I had not seen any ‘in the wild’ monkeys. I did see a number of pet/trick/show monkeys both in Bangkok and Chiang Mai – but I don’t overly like seeing them chained or roped up as they were in these areas.
Walking around the township I came across this statue:
A fairly good clue that there might be monkeys around. After talking to one of our hosts, they also recommended we visit ‘the end of the beach’ around lunch or sundown time – the monkeys get fed during those times, no doubt for tourism. We can look at that in two lights – one, its teaching them to eat bad food, and get poor behaviours (more about that in a moment). I guess on the other hand, the monkeys are being opportunistic – good on them…
Walking to the end of the beach, several families appeared.
Watching with amusement, I went and grabbed the other half so she could see them also. No sooner had we arrived back, and the monkeys came down to the beach. This is where the bad behaviour comes in. The opportunistic little monkeys, knowing people come to see them, and often feed them, will run and snatch bags looking for tasty treats. Suddenly one of the little ones ran up to us, grabbed our bag with locally made biscuits (I had wanted to see how they compare), threw away all the uninteresting food (including pineapple) and started snatching the cookies off each other (look closely at the first image for the cookie in mouth).
More tomorrow (but not awesome monkeys).
A lot of the rest of my time whilst up in Chiang Mai was spent wandering the streets,looking at ‘things’ – the buildings, the people, the tourists, the history.
Here’s a bit of a random pick of shots to view.
Tomorrow, its down south.
Tuk tuk?
Old temple. Northern Thailand.
Heading North, the Golden Triangle, we reached the edge of Thailand. Looking out across the narrow straight of water the two neighbouring countries of Myanmar and Laos could be seen. Off far away in the distant centre was also China. Laying on the waters edge of the other two were several very large Casinos. I’m told they are very popular, and people in China take a long all day boat trip to visit them. Boats raced up and down the straight. I wondered how they really police it from an immigration perspective.
Looking from a highpoint above, we saw a small centre island between the countries. Im sure it belongs to someone, but we were told how it was, long ago, a popular trading point for poppy’s (opium).
We then headed over to the road boarder to Myanmar (I think it was that way). The line to get across was massive. Stocks of mostly water came trundling in via bike – some quite comical the load and size. The one in the below image getting the shakes as it rode past. A popular market area for Thai I’m told. I did notice a markedly lower number of tourists.
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