Expatted Excuses and Kho Phi Phi...

Hi all,

It seems the main challenge of any blogger is to find those few minutes in between working life to work on his/her posts and leave Facebook alone - I've failed at that. Once you live somewhere for a couple years (our 2 year expat anniversary is coming up this July) a blog could simply turn into a dull diary. For example:

Woke up at 6am.
Made a lesson plan.
Swept up the Frangipani leaves outside our house.
Got on bus, ate noodles.
Taught lesson.
Yawn.

Since I last wrote we went to Koh Phi Phi (which this post covers) and Cambodia (which I will write about  as soon as poss). We've moved into a sweet house so we can finally have BBQ's and listen to loud music, my mum's visited and we've had our friends Pedr and Lou who have been trekking across Asia and New Zealand, I completed my first year's English Lit exams and we've pretty much decided to stay here for a few more years. It's a good life! We're looking forward to having Erika's parents visiting us for July and we can't wait to see Thailand through new eyes again...

...in the meantime, here's some photos of our trip to Koh Phi Phi with my mum back in February. Erika accidentally deleted her pictures, so these are the ones we salvaged from the Blackberry and mum's digital camera. Believe it or not, Koh Phi Phi still has some pretty quite, sandy beaches, much like the resort we stayed at called Tokho Beach Resort. It's a great place with reasonable coral off the beach, quiet and not too far from Bamboo Island and Maya Beach which can be visited within 45 minutes on a long tail boat. The only gripe we had about Tokho Beach Resort were the flies that infested some of the tables near the kitchen - although a sea-breeze generally got rid of them. Also, the main pier on the island and it's surrounding area is busy, congested and full of kids trying to relive the movie that made Phi Phi famous (The Beach). I almost punched a bloke in the face for stuffing a flyer into the sand next to our towels which read 'All day drinking session on speedboat, today, 5:30 pm'. Firstly for putting a flyer into the sand, secondly for throwing his cigarette into the sea and thirdly because, well, he just had a punchable face and encapsulates everything that miserable b*stards like me hate about some tourists in these parts. But I digress - Phi Phi is still beautiful and has it's old charm if you look for it through the overpriced shops that line the walkways. I was lucky enough to go there as a kid in the 1980's and one of my first memories of experiencing pure joy was juxtaposed with experiencing pure fear as I firstly witnessed the (now dead and gone) rainbow coral of Maya Bay and secondly floated out into the deep ocean before witnessing a large, white shape move under me. Seriously though, anyone reading this blessed enough to have witnessed the little bit of kaleidoscope heaven that was Maya Bay in the 1980's or before would remember it for life. Fragile, otherworldly and hopefully not gone forever...

 Me mum...

If your thinking of walking from Tokho Beach to Koh Phi Phi...don't. Unless you're not afraid of spiders and snakes...

THE view. So I suppose it was worth the 30 minute hike in 80% humidity.

Maya Bay, still stunning...

A little reminder of the devastation 7 years ago. R.I.P.

What urinals look like in paradise.

The view from our beach at Tokho Resort - 20 quid a night for a fan room. Not cheap for Thailand but you get what you pay for.

Tune in next time for our post on Cambodia, which has just tipped Laos into pole position for our favourite country we've visited so far (apart from Thailand, of course).

Rich and Erika xxx