For the last week we have been island hopping along the western coast of Malaysia and after securing visas have now moved up into Thailand. We are currently in the truly spectacular island village of Ko Phi Phi and pretty much enjoying every second. We have met a bunch of guys from Scandinavia and have recently been spending a fair deal of time with them. One of them has even decided to travel with us for the next few days so Rory and I now have a new comrade, Jukka "The Fish". Jukka earned his nickname after demonstrating that, much like a fish, he could drink a vast amount of liquids over a considerable period of time. This demonstration turned out to be a rather painful one for all involved, especially Rory. So much so, that it confined the poor little feller to his bed for an entire day, leaving me to go out to sea on a boat alone.
In a way, I wish I had of been alone. I discovered, upon arriving at the port and having already paid, that my shipmates for the afternoon consisted of England's poshest couple (Charles and Kathleen), 2 female's from Essex with the combined body mass of the moon and a middle aged french man and his wife, who both sported swimwear that left very little to the imagination. After boarding the small wooden boat (Which was a story in itself, considering the physics involved with buoyancy and large female objects) we set sail for Ko Phi Phi's sister island which was about 3 miles offshore. En route we stopped to do some snorkelling and I got my second chance to try and spot sharks. I was pretty gutted as the previous day Rory and I had hired equipment and tried to hunt them down ourselves, but only Rory managed to see one. To add salt to my already seasick wounds, on the second occasion they still managed to evade me. I think it may have been because there were two life forms with considerable physical presence in the near vicinity which possibly intimidated them and made them keep their distance.
We then made our way to the second Island and entered a small cove which was slightly sheltered from the tide. This allowed for coral to grow in abundance on the seabed so out came the snorkels and in we jumped. The guide failed to mention that the fish bite until me and Pierre (I think that was his name) were in the water. Luckily it tickled more than hurt so I just carried on snorkelling with the weird sensation of being sucked by fish all over my body. Being underwater was like watching Finding Nemo with the sound turned off. There were thousands of tropical fish of various shapes & sizes and covering a magnitude of colours, all swimming around pecking at the coral, Pierre and myself. The pecking was enough to put the others off but it did mean that Kathleen was free to very kindly operate my camera while I was messing around. When I jumped back on board I discovered she was rather trigger happy and that she had taken around 500,000 pictures of me while I was swimming. My suspicions, that she was rather keen on me, were confirmed when she said "James dear, your looking a little on the red side, would you like me rub a dab lotion into you back?" I would have preferred it if she was a little younger as 70 year olds do very little for me. However, I was feeling a little burnt and she had done such a wonderful job with the camera, I decided to let her have her cheap thrill.
We then followed the coastline a little further and entered another bay carved out of the rock. This one had a small sandy embankment along one side and was the location where "The Beach" was filmed. Probably one of the most naturally beautiful places in the world, or as one of the girls said "Iz right bloody gorjus ere init? Iz like one of them things you write on the bak of". I'm guessing she meant a postcard, but she worded it so poetically I thought id pass it on in its natural, unaltered form. We sat here and watched the sun set a little before returning just before dark. The whole trip was amazing and well worth the money, I got to see so many interesting and beautiful things. When I got back to the hostel I showed Rory the photos. At first he wondered how I managed to take so many pictures of myself and then wondered how the vestal kept afloat with such weight aboard, but was genuinely gutted about missing the trip. I tried to make him feel better by saying "At least you have seen a shark", but in my head I was smugly thinking Rory 1 - James 5432.
