Goa to Koh Phi Phi

Ok so, you all know that Christmas was rub out as Craig was sick all the way through. Well he recovered by the 28th, enough to fly. We left our hut and went down to the road to hail a cab to the airport, for the first time ever we flagged one down straight away. He drove us about 500m and then jumped out and another guy jumped in, change drivers he said. We carried on and after about 25 mins (probably about a 3rd of the way to the airport), we became aware of a motorbike right up behind us revving his engine but not overtaking. So our taxi driver jumps out and goes off the on the bike, the bike man jumped in the cab and said new driver again - Only in India.

When we got to the airport it was totally heaving, we had to stand in queue outside for about 30 minutes. I hadn't felt well all day, but without going into too much detail, i nearly passed out in the queue and was really quite ill. Eventually we made it inside and through to the plane with various stops for me to dash to the toilet to be sick (nice!).

By this point i was not a happy camper and really not in great state to be flying but, the implications of not were too much to contemplate. We boarded and our pilot informed us that this was not a direct flight and we would be stopping after 45 minutes in Mumbai, for 2 hours! So we stopped we got off and then we got back on again. It was then 4 hours to Bangkok, which was also totally rammed. I had spent the previous 4 hours being sick and worrying about the Thai visa, in that we didn't have one and i had been told that you had to provide a lot of documentation to get the visa on arrival. Anyway after all that panicking, we were told we didn't need a visa and were waved through, interesting. It was then a five hour lay over where we had to collect our bags and re check in with a different airline. There are worse places to spend 5 hours as Bangkok airport really is an amazing sight, from the design, the size and the sights you see. We then boarded for the last time, i had by this point kind off lost the will to live! It was then 1 hour to Phuket, on arrival we had every intention of taking the bus to the hostel, but i just couldnt face it so we took a cab, which still took over and hour.

The hostel in Phuket was really nice, but the parts of Phuket we saw were not so nice. The hostel was quite close to the ferry as we had an early boat to catch but not near much else. The following morning we caught the boat from Rassada Pier at 8.30am, we left late at about 9am and it started to rain straight away. Within 10 minutes everyone was soaked, so we spent a very wet, but warm and nastily sticky 1 and half hours crossing to Koh Phi Phi. As it was quite overcast you could not see much, which was a shame. Despite that pulling into the bay of Koh Phi Phi was a breathtaking experience, there are massive cliffs rising up on either side, and then a bay linking the two sides together. There are two islands Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh. Phi Phi Leh is where the beach is filmed and is only inhabited by a group of rangers. Phi Phi Don is where everything happens.

We eventually found the man that was to take us to the shack and he had a big metal barrow type thing to put the bags in which was a relief as everyone knows how much i dislike having to carry my own bag! We are based on the opposite bay to the ferry right up at the side of the bay. We booked the shack before we came away and it was expensive at £36pn, but thats New Years prices. The shack is really nice, with a really big tiled bathroom, and a view of the bay. Although on closer inspection there was some sort of rodent poo in the bed, large cockroach living in the bathroom, and the whole place is teeming with mossies, but on the plus side we do have a resident gecko and the view form the room is pretty spectacular!