After probably our best night-bus experience yet (public Thai bus, taken from Bangkok southern bus terminal, highly recommended), we arrived in Phuket. Despite its fame, we decided not to stop and to take a boat to our first destination in the Thai Islands: Koh Phi Phi. We had no idea what was waiting for us…

Koh Phi Phi (“KPP”) is composed of two larger islands, Koh Phi Phi Don and Koh Phi Phi Leh. KPP Don hosts all of the accommodation, restaurants, and bars, while KPP Leh hosts the famous Maya Bay, which can only be visited during the daytime. The reason for this brief introduction, despite most likely it being of no interest to you, is that they are VERY different.

Upon only stepping foot on dirty, smelly and chaotic KPP Don (wait a minute, wasn’t it supposed to be a pristine island!?), we were ready to leave. It is such a shame, because what is a very impressive island formation is completely commercialized and destroyed. The most well-known part of KPP Don where the majority of accommodation is has sort of a sandglass shape. There are two giant limestone mountains united by a long and thin strip of land. On the thin strip of land is where everything is located, and to say the least, it let us down greatly.

The infrastructures seem to be built or put together without any plan whatsoever. The small paths throughout the village are zig-zagged, dirty, smell of sewage, the hotels are one on top of another, an army of umbrellas invade the beach, and heavy and noisy construction machinery with the respective noise and dust that comes with it are everywhere. It is simply unpleasant. To top this off, since it is a party-haven, tons of young partiers were walking around with “buckets” of alcohol which would be thrown away as soon as they are ready for the next one. The party lasted until 5 am, literally shaking the island with crazy loud music, there was simply no way to stay away from it. For those who know, it seemed as if we were in Salou or Lloret de Mar… Given that this was not exactly what we were looking for, we only spent one night there and left the next day keeping one question in mind. How exactly do you turn a beautiful island into such a mess? This is of course our personal opinion, but is also fair to mention that the recognized travel guide “The Rough Guide” describes KPP Don as “an ugly tourist village”. Senoria, si mi delito es decir la verdad…., lleveme preso!!

Moving on to KPP Leh… we immediately knew how a BEAUTIFUL island looked like. In fact, it has probably been the most beautiful island we have seen so far. Maya Bay is the main visited location, a breathtaking white sugar sand bay closed in by limestones. This bay is famous as it is where the movie The Beach starring Leo di Caprio was filmed, and is not to be skipped (apart from Leo, everything else was there). Yes, it is highly touristic, however for a very good reason. We also enjoyed the most spectacular snorkeling in Bailey Bay, where the water was crystal blue and transparent, filled with an abundance of wonderful tropical fish, and all of this surrounded by the bright green vegetation on the limestones. Finally we visited Monkey Beach which was funny to see the monkeys running around and eager for food to be given to them. What a wonderful journey.

The day after a two hour boat trip took us to Koh Lanta, a much larger island than the Phi Phi brothers, with a much quieter and relaxing admosphere. In order to explore the beaches and snorkeling options that the island had to offer, we rented a motorbike for a few days. We also did a tour in the islands south of Koh Lanta in which we did some wonderful snorkeling as well as swam through a cave that lead to a secluded hidden beach within the island surrounded again by large limestones. One of our favorite stops was Koh Ngai, which has so far been undoubtedly one of the most exotic islands we have seen. The crystal blue water, tropical fish, white sand, and abundant palm trees throughout made it feel very much like a paradise island. The best part of the tour was meeting Ria, a lovely Indonesian girl from Jakarta who was also on vacation in Koh Lanta. We look forward to seeing Ria again in June in her home country!

When staying at our guesthouse, we also had a very nice chat with an Argentinian couple who inspired us to discover the underwater world. In the past weeks our fascination about it had grown considerably because of our snorkeling activities. However, we had conveniently never considered to scuba dive as, we must admit, we were afraid of it. That being said, after two hours hearing the wonderful stories of that couple, and being recommended by them a scuba school in Koh Tao (island in the Gulf of Thailand) which was apparently the cheapest place in the world to do the PADI Openwater Course, we were convinced…

Two days after we headed to our new destination, which would introduce us to a new and slightly intimidating (to us) underwater world.