Thursday 6th May - Phuket Island - Kho Phi Phi Island

Arrive in Phuket Town at 6 .30am. Dropped off in the middle of nowhere so head off in search of life. Nothing open yet but we eventually find a travel agent open who were not very informative but at least it was somewhere to leave the back packs while we went off in search of breakfast. As we ate the heavens opened (again! It's rainy season in Thailand) so we stayed for a while before heading off to another travel agent. He was very helpful and suggested a few places that might fit our requirements (nice beach, not too many people, reasonably priced etc) and took us off to view in his taxi. As we thought everywhere was too expensive (and not the paradise we were expecting to be honest) he suggested we get the ferry to Kho Phi Phi,as he put it 'the jewel in the crown and must see of Thailand' from where we could move on to Krabi on the mainland and then onto the Malaysian border where we were heading after our relaxing few days on the beach. Sounds like a good idea so we catch the 1.30pm ferry to Phi Phi Island. 2 hours later we arrive to the biggest disappointment of our trip . The place is awful. The sea's out so the bay doesn't look particularly picturesque (more like Weston-Super-Mare), the place is crawling with 18 year olds on their first holiday on their own, the accomadation is awful and very overpriced! Once you head inland the place becomes a demolition site with old toilets etc littering the place. 2 1/2 hours of trapsing around in the heat with our packs we finally find some half decent bungalows at the end of the beach so take one of these. If we could have got off of the island today we would have. As it was we had to wait for the 9am ferry the next morning. It's a shame that this small island has been overcrowded with poor accomodation and restaurants.

Friday 7th May - Phuket to Krabi to Sungai Kolok (on the Thai/Malaysian border)

The tide is in this morning which makes Kho Phi Phi look far nicer but this doesn't entice us to stay we boared the 9am ferry to Krabi on the mainland. We thought we might end up waiting around here for a while but there was a mini bus heading for the boarder which was just about to depart. After 1 1/2 hours wait at a town called Hat Yoi (where we changed buses) the new mini bus arrived and after a total of 10 hours we arrive at the border. (We were told it would take 6.5 hours!). As you may have read there has been a bit of unrest in this area 130 people were killed the week before we arrived, so we just checked into a hotel and didn't venture far that night. We had to go through numerous army/police check points on the way. Torches being shone into the minibus by men with big guns which was a bit intimidating but we were allowed on our way without any hastle. Loads of storms today, visibility was nil whilst driving but this didn't slow the driver down any! When it rains, it rains - very hard. Just when you think it can't rain any harder it does.