Patong
So the bus from Chiang Mai turned out to be dreadful! The first bus got in early to Bangkok and the bus to Phuket did not leave until the evening so we had to majority of the day to kill which we did by sitting about doing nothing as we had done a lot of walking in Chiang Mai and didn't feel like the hassles of travelling around Bangkok again! Our bus to Phuket was hilarious; it had disco lights inside and played drum n bass music when it stopped! It was just like a party bus we had seen the previous day only everyone on our bus was thoroughly pissed off with it after having to wait about all day! We finally got to Phuket the next day and went to Patong which is on the west coast and is just full of restaurants, bars and clubs and not lot else. It had a nice beach but that was about it, we had one night out and went to a big club which had several rock tribute bands playing which was a good laugh. However, I did my camera stolen at some point from leaving this place to being home which was frustrating but luckily I had backed all the pictures up except for the ones I had taken that night so not the end of the world. The next day we spent at the beach and sorted a day trip to the island of Phi Phi for the following day.
Phi Phi
We got picked up from our hotel bright and early and transferred to the marina where we were first to leave by speedboat. There were many groups doing similar trips but it was really fortunate we headed out first as it meant we got to everything before everyone else! It was absolutely scorching hot and not a cloud in sight so we were really happy as the previous couple of days had been a bit cloudy and dull. The boat travelled really quickly and as we had sat at the front we literally came flying out of our seats with every jolt! Still it was a good laugh and we reached our first stop in about an hour which was the famous beach from film 'The Beach'. It was deserted when we arrived, I had a quick swim then Jacqueline and I went for a walk away from the beach to see what else was about. When we came back you literally couldn’t walk on the beach it was so crowded and about another 10 boats had came! It was crazy and completely ruined the atmosphere. I guess it is such a popular place to visit it was always going to be like that, it was nice we got to be there first though and we then headed off to do some snorkeling. After the snorkeling we went to Phi Phi Don for lunch which was devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004. It has been redeveloped quickly though and much has been restored. After lunch we headed over to Monkey Island, which funnily enough is inhabited with hundreds of monkeys. Unfortunately it was high tide but we went right up to the shore and several monkeys jumped onto the boat to eat some watermelon before leaping back to the overhanging tree branches! We then did some more snorkeling nearby and there were lots of fishes at this site so it was good. Our last stop before heading back to mainland was at the island of Koh Kai (nick named egg island because of its shape). The island was tiny and beautiful but packed full of sun loungers. We just lied on the beach and soaked up some rays for an hour or two before jumping back on the speedboat and heading back to Patong. We had a bus and ferry booked for the morning to take us to the island of Samui.
