Friends

Nai, Jimmy and Toon... 3 good friends...amazingly talented and super
fun...

Workout

Went for a workout at the Gym today, it's basically a few weights and
a universal machine right out of the late 80's inside the local Muay
Thai Boxing ring. We went with Nai (one of the fireshow guys) and Om
(a dj for the fireshow)... Jason and i took the time and showed them a
lot of different workouts they could do with the equipment they had,
it was a good time, and nice to actually get a small workout in.

On the way back to our place we were talking with Om who had been here when the Tsunami hit in 2004, he said he was sleeping up on the hills when he heard everyone screaming and yelling, he thought there was fighting so he came out of his hut to see people running up the hill and the entire town flooded, he hadn't seen the wave, just the flooded aftermath, so he didn't know how bad it was right away...he said his best friend had left their huts an hour before the wave stuck the island, they found his body a month later... he said houses and palm trees were completely gone from parts of the island, many people died... he said he was scared for a year after..... Om told us about a friend of his who moved to Bangkok after the Tsunami from the fear of living on Phi Phi...he was in bed one day and heard construction rumbling next door, he freaked out and jumped out his apartment window to his death...

Pretty chilling stories from someone who was directly affected by such
a tragedy...

A lot of Nothing

It's been sunny for the last few days for the most part, so we've been
down at the beach playing frisbee and really soaking up the relaxing
atmosphere here. I'd love to tell you about some amazing adventure,
but we've just been lazing around doing a whole lot of nothing...and
it's been wonderful...

Loy Krathong Pictures

So here is my terrible showing for what's suppose to be a spectacle of
lights...the torrential down pour made me take my camera home..so this
literally is all i have...no one had even put their floating banana
leaf boats in the ocean yet...the last picture is a couple of our
local friends, Jimmy and Toon......

Back From Malaysia

We spent 3 minutes in Malaysia...literally...but since we did the visa
run we've now got until Dec 7th to leave Thailand... so we're back on
Phi Phi Island until probably around the 4th before heading back to
Bangkok and onwards to Cambodia...

Since I took 1200 pictures or so on our Maya Bay adventure last week,
i've had a chance to look through them more, and here are 4 more...

Lightning and Thunder

Staying in for 2 reasons tonight, one is because we're going to do a visa extension run to the border of Malaysia (to get 15 more days in Thailand) and we're up at 7am tomorrow... and the other is because it's raining like last night as well as thunder and lightning that put last nights display to shame...

Last Night

We were out and about for free bbq's, drinks, and a seemingly good
time last night for Loy Krathong when i felt a few rain drops...i had
my camera with me so i decided not to risk it and take it back
home....good call on my part because as soon as i got back to our
place the sky's opened up and rained harder than at any point during
this trip so far....thunder shook the buildings and lighting streaked
across the sky....i went back to where Jason and Eric were to see if
we could wait it out...the rain won and we came back before
midnight....i got a few pictures of some floating lanterns before it
started to rain, but the magic of seeing hundreds in the water later
at night would have been something amazing to see...i'll post what i
did take later today...

Loy Krathong :: Full Moon

Festival of lights happens tonight on the Full Moon. Every local and
shop owner around the island has made something to float into the sea
made out of banana leaves with a candle inside to pay respect to the
god of water. There is also a Miss Phi Phi Island competition tonight
and......a ladyboy singing competition....

On the 23rd we head south to the Malaysian border, cross over into
Malaysia and then directly back over into Thailand to get an
additional 15 days inside the country, we'll return to Phi Phi island
for an additional 10 days before heading back north to Bangkok and
then onwards to Cambodia.

A Letter Home

and uh, and uh.....Enjoy

Sunset After Maya Bay

Went Snorkeling for the second time as the sun was setting with some
small sharks around, i only saw one of them, Jay and Eric saw more
than me...on our way back we stopped of at a cliff diving spot and
Eric's was the only one with the guts to jump....good day all around!

Maya Bay

Well after a few days of laziness and bad weather i apologize, this
blog hasn't seen a decent update in a while, mostly because we're in a
bit of a lull in the adventure section of our trip, still having a
wonderful time, but just a lull when it comes to exciting things to
see and share with you. Today we went out on a snorkeling, beach and
sunset tour out to Maya Bay (The beach made famous by the movie "The
Beach".

First we had a stop off at monkey beach, guess what...there's monkey's
there...and when you try to get out of the crowd of people to walk
around they like to chase you...well i didn't know that so i went off
to take a picture of the beach, and subsequently was chased by 8 or 10
of the little guys....i got away...

Next we we stopped at a shallow lagoon for a bit of swim time and
relaxation (yeah i guess this whole tour was relaxing)...after we
hoped back on board and went to our first snorkel destination just
outside Maya Bay, we had about 20 minutes to look around and i used my
underwater bag for my camera to shoot some video...worked great...

Back on the boat again we continued to Maya Bay, It was...beautiful as
you can see from the pictures...nothing else to say there really...

Update

The weather continues to be an issue here, but seems to be a little
more sunshine periodically throughout the day with down pours
occurring less often, so hope for the coming days to get some good
beach time. Our little fishing trip has been postponed to a later
date, but something i'll be looking forward to. We've also got to
leave Phi Phi for a night or 2 to get our Visa extension so we can
stay in Thailand, failure to do that would result in us having to
leave the country (to Malaysia by bus), and then flying back in to
Thailand to receive an addition 30 days stay here. So hopefully the
process of a simple extension works out. Weather permitting i'll be
getting out in the next couple of days to shoot some video and will be
compiling another bigger video to share...this one will be a little
different that the last few...

Internet Issues

Updating this from an internet cafe as our internet at the hotel has been down for a day. Had a wonderful morning of sunshine today and made full use of it at the beach. The guys from the fireshow invited us tomorrow to go do some fishing for Swordfish. I'll take my camera and shoot some pictures and video to share when the internet gets back up and running.

Ko Phi Phi Lookout

With no rain pouring down Jason and myself decided today might be the
only chance to go check out the island lookout rain free. Not the
biggest hike we've done this trip, but after being on the road for so
long now and not having the best cardio, coupled with the humidity and
temperature, it was less than pleasant...but rewarding...

We're thinking of heading back to Ao-nang (and subsequently Krabi) to
sort out our Visa extension on the 17th, and after that sorted out be
heading to Ko Pha-ngan for the full moon on the 21st of November...and
then onwards to Ko Tao...

We have enjoyed Phi Phi Island so much that we are thinking of coming
back after our time on the eastern side of Thailand, and maybe
spending another couple of weeks here before heading to Cambodia.

Monsoon Rains, DJ'ing and Girl Fights

Enjoy the video of the rain today, needless to say it's like this over
most of Thailand, what terrible luck we have...went to visit our Thai
friends where they do their fire show on the beach, ended up DJ'ing
for an hour just for the staff and a few brave soles who thought the
rain might eventually subside...they said come back tomorrow and we
can do it again, so hopefully no rain and more people...finding
shelter from the rain but still heading out to do something we headed
to check out some Thai boxing at the local ring, anyone can fight and
they receive a free bucket of whatever drink they want...needless to
say it's very interesting to watch 2 twenty-something women hit each
other, but entertaining none the less...

Remembering...

Looking back today to our time in northern France (Juno Beach) a few
months ago, this Remembrance Day is the only one so far in my life
where i feel like can really appreciate the sacrifice that my fellow
countrymen made over 65 years ago. They went and died to save their
families and fight for freedom and my future, and because of that we
all are free....

Losing Track of Days

Unless i had my computer with me i wouldn't be able to tell you what
day of the week it was, which is kind of a nice feeling. The weather
forecast continues to be a bit of an issue here in paradise, Thunder,
Lightning and Rain all for the next week. Last night from the beach
you could see the lighting way off in the distance, and it missed the
island, but the rain didn't, with it sprinkling down a bit. I'm hoping
to be able to get one sunny evening to head up the island outlook
point and take some picture of the island (all the fancy postcards
here feature that view, and it's magnificent), and catch the sunset
from up there...

We've got another week or so left here on Phi Phi Island, and it's
been nice to spend an extended time here. Most tourist stay only a
handful of days, so being here for a long time has given us a chance
to befriend the locals and feel really welcome. We had an extremely
lazy day a couple of days ago and were able to catch up on the
Celebrity Apprentice and Survivor episodes, so we didn't head to the
fire show we usually go to. So last night when we went down to watch
them they all said they were looking for us to hang out with and
were worried we'd left.

Small World and Jungle Juice

Spent last night having a few beers and ended up sitting next to these
4 people at the fire show on the beach, once we started talking to
them we found out they were from Victoria, and one of them was good
friends with my cousin (Rebecca), and knew my aunt, uncle and had
driven to Osoyoos with my Granny and Rebecca in years past...strange
to meet them to say the least...

Later at night Jason and i were leaving to get something to eat and
head to bed, the same Thai guys that we had hung out with having a
beer up at their huts nights previous asked us what we were up to,
they said come with them to get some food, so off we went to get some
yellow curry rice and chicken from some back road kitchen...they also
had chicken feet soup....we didn't try that though...then back up to
their huts to have some strange local drink made from some weird
leaves boiled down and mixed with cough syrup and coca-cola, then
cooled with ice, shared in one bowl and passed around..it's suppose to
make you sleep well, and after 12 hours of sleep i can attest to it
working well..i'm still groggy...

Fire Show Video

Fire Show Pictures

Every night there's a fire show on the beach, every different bar has
their own so i guess really there's 6 or 7 fire shows going on at
once. We've befriended the guys shown here in the pictures, and the
one in the picture at the top (Tun is his name) took us up to show us
his hut in the hills the other night and have a drink, such a simple
life and these guys are as happy as anyone. The talent of these guys
is amazing, and they do this every night during high season...

Walking Around

We did some walking around today, somewhat of a small island
exploration i guess, didn't venture out of the main town too far, but
walked around the waters edge with my camera and took some pictures.
In the coming days i'm going to head inland and up to the top of some
of those hills. As for the overnight trip to Maya bay we're not going
to do it as the price has increased from 800baht to 2000baht since
Jason was here last, so we're going to head out on a day trip and do
some snorkeling sometime while we're here...

Maze

No Cars, No Motorbikes, No pollution, just a maze of winding walking
streets and back alley's, that's Phi Phi Island. Moved into our new
hotel here, only the next street over from the last but worlds away
from the noise of the thai boxing ring...

As with all beautiful places we've been to where the beach and sun
rule the day, the pulsating beats and flashy lights of the nightlife
take over after the sun goes down, a really healthy and energetic
feeling to this island. Thailand is well known for it's friendly
people, and the residents of Ko Phi Phi are no different, smiles
offered at every corner and you really feel a huge sense of being
welcome here. We had a little bit of rain this morning and it's really
muggy. Today we're going to book a trip out to Maya Bay for an
overnight sleep on the beach (this island was made famous by the movie
the beach), you have to book in advance so we'll see when the earliest
day we can go is, probably not for a few.

iPhone Photo

Our hotel, although decent, is right beside a thai kickboxing ring and
bar..... So on our walkabout to find somewhere else to stay for
tomorrow night and onward I took this picture with my iPhone. I'll let
you know tomorrow morning how loud this place was, I'm suspecting
very....

Phi Phi Island

Arrived safe and sound, you can definately see how this island would
have been demolished in the tsunami, the wave was funneled right
through the town. It's a beautiul place and I will post pictures when
I'm not typing from my iPhone. It's going to be a relaxing 12 days.

Sent from my iPhone

Ao-nang Sunset

After spending another few hours on the beach today we looked out our
window in our hotel when we got back to see this, the colors in the
sky went purple and pink behind us and faded into the looming black
clouds that were encroaching upon us. Not a bad way to end our time
here...if only the first 5 days weather cooperated like the last 2. We
leave for Phi Phi Island at 11am tomorrow.

Moving On

Well after 6 days in Ao-nang we're finally moving on to Ko Phi Phi
tomorrow, the sun did come out for a few hours in the afternoon
yesterday and we took full advantage of it and headed down to the
beach. No pictures to share since we were so excited to get out in the
sun...