Friday, January 27, 2012

Got up early and had the showers to myself. Walked to the travel agency where I’d booked the boat tour and bought some bananas on the way. Was led to the boat tour company office, then to the pier, then to the boat itself and boarded. The tour wasn’t organized as well as the Angthong Marine Park one, so we didn’t really know where the next stop was, or how they would signal us that the boat was leaving when everyone was snorkeling. And no free Cokes. They did take us to all the places they promised, and it was all beautiful, and we had great weather. I saw Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Leh, better known as the beach from the movie The Beach. It was literally overrun with bodies, just totally ruined. It might be worth it to camp there overnight just so you can get the beach mostly to yourself. Actually, in the movie it looks much more secluded because they used graphics or something to make the bay opening look much narrower than it actually is. We went to Monkey Beach and I saw several tiny monkeys eating sugar packets and small fruits and attacking unwitting girls that weren’t paying attention. They were really cute and funny (because I wasn’t attacked). I ended up getting burned a little on my upper back and shoulders despite heaps of sunscreen because I switched from SPF 50 to 20 that day. The burns felt hot for several days after, but it wasn’t too bad. I met a Scottish girl about my age who was also going it alone and a nice couple from Austin. I can’t remember the names of all the beaches we saw, but there were about seven or eight of them. By the end, I could feel the burn on my back, and didn’t go out into the sun anymore. We returned to the Ko Phi Phi Don pier, and I showered, ate, bought a ferry ticket to Krabi, and then bought a beer and walked the beach a little, but there weren’t any fire dancers at the time, so I called it an early night again.