Island Hopping in Southern Thailand Part 1

Our 10 day break from school came at the perfect time – why don’t schools in the US have the same thing?!

Directly after school on Friday, Spencer and I flew down to Krabi, which is on the southern peninsula of Thailand just west of Phuket. Ahhhh…let the holiday begin!

On Saturday morning we took a water taxi out to Koh Pi Pi – the islands you can see on the map located between Krabi and Phuket. Koh Pi Pi is actually 2 islands, Leh and Don. You can stay on Don, but only visit Leh. Both are beautiful islands with tall cliffs, lots of caves, good diving/snorkeling, and beautiful sandy beaches. Both islands were hit very hard in the Tsunami and there is lots of rebuilding still going on. We stayed on Don the first night in a ritzy high-class 25$/night bungalow down by the beach.




We went for a beautiful night dive – tons of coral, nudibranchs, fish, sea fans. We turned off our flashlights and waved our arms around – explosions of green glowing phosphloresence!








On Sunday we rented a kayak and paddled out to Pi Pi Leh. A very beautiful island with huge soaring cliffs, lots of caves, and two deep harbors with white sandy beaches.

We explored caves littered with ghetto-rigged scaffolding made out of bamboo and vines that local Thais use to harvest swiftlet nests. These bird nests, built from dried bird spit, are made into bird nest soup, a delicacy throughout Asia. One bowl goes for thousands of dollars.










People live in these caves permanently to harvest the nests, a very dangerous occupation and some die each year - We even saw people sleeping in their beds in the cave! Later, we learned that these nests are so highly prized, many are guarded by men with guns; others are booby trapped with LAND MINES! Woops.










We spent most of Sunday exploring Pi Pi Leh, kayaking into half-submerged caves, snorkeling, exploring beaches. The movie The Beach (Leonardo Decaprio) was filmed at one of the beaches here, and the cave part of the movie shot at another part. Very beautiful, but a bit exploited by tourism at this point.






















That night we stayed in a tiny rustic bungalow at the top of a hill, overlooking Pi Pi Leh. You could lounge in the hammock, eat snacks, and watch the longtail boats zoom back and forth…

On Monday Spencer and I took another water taxi over to Phuket – a big touristy island sort of like the Miami Beach of Thailand. Lots of development, hotels, retired Europeans sauntering around in banana hammocks. We found a little piece of solitude at Fantasy Hill Bungalows at the edge of Kata Beach (on the western side of Phuket). We were hoping for surf (what Kata is known for), but the water was perfectly calm. Instead, we swam out to the nearest island and snorkeled around it. Watched 2 octapi, saw lots of tropical fish and sea cucumbers, coral, sea fans…hiked up onto the island and found a clearing in the brush where it looked like someone had been growing things…left before we looked too closely. That night we sat at the edge of the beach swilling wine and orange juice and people watching. We ate at an Indian restaurant – the best naan and butter chicken and dahl ever! I have been craving a lot of Indian food since moving to Thailand – that and sushi. Almost more so than Thai food, which I eat every day.

Sunday was full of diving. Went out in a giant boat with so many divers we needed 3 diver masters! A 2 day dive – the first was at King Cruiser, a passenger ferry that ran aground (perhaps for insurance money?) halfway out to Koh Pi Pi. I am used to diving in the icy great lakes, so the amount of life, the visibility, and the warmth on this wreck seemed extraordinary. I was a little concerned about diving with so many other people, but it turned out to be great fun to see all of the bubbles rising to the surface as I waited at my decompression stop. The second dive was at Shark Point – the reef that King Cruiser hit when it sank. Very impressive diving – a chain of 7 mounds that you can explore, with a stiff current heading in one direction, so we could let ourselves float past all of the giant sea fans, fish, lobster…we saw a sleeping leapord shark!