2 August

The long weekend started in the rain (but it is rainy season!) we caught the boat out to Koh Phi Phi the vessel featured a tour guide with princess leia hair buns, and they looked extremely odd on him, but he didn't seem to notice and I failed in my attempts to photograph him so your just going to have to take my word for it till the next time I go to Phi Phi.

Any way the weather cleared as we approached Phi Phi Don, we quickly found ourselves a beach bungalow (with swimming pool) and headed out to explore the surrounds. The town was bigger than I expected and totally orientated to tourism, in fact it seems hard to imagine there is employment of any other sort on the Island.

The weekend was fabulous, I got in that sea kayaking, took on a wild monkey (he wanted my cinnamon swirl and I wasn't prepared to give it up) I was armed with a kayak paddle, he was merely armed, (I guess that's why they call it an arms race).

There was lots of swimming, the food and cocktails on the beach at sunset were fabulous, the midnight banana and chocolate pancakes were great.

We went to the viking cave where there are rock paintings of viking ships (reported to be only 100 years old mind you, I wonder if people in a centuries time will go to visit my graffitii if I did it with ochre on a cave wall.

We went to visit Maya bay, made famous as the set for the hollywood movie "the beach" it is swarming with tourists (and this is low season!).

Even had time for my first rock climb since Australia, all good, but got back to school knackered. Just in time for a class field trip to the zoo, tried to feed some students to the crocodile but they simply weren't interested (too well fed) curses maybe next time.

Well it's the middle of the night (again) time to catch some zzz's promise to post some photos on the weekend.
Love N.J.