Blissfully recovering from Bangkok on Ko Phi Phi

We landed at midnight in Phuket and after Rick's wallet fiasco, a day full of tourist police, long flight delays, and crazed bus rides to Phuket town we decided to venture on to the beautiful island of Ko Phi Phi, a few hour boatride past the crazed hoards of sunburnt Germans and all night girly bars of Phuket. The island itself is absolutely gorgeous, limestone cliffs and thick vegetation plunging into crystal green waters. This makes it THE most popular island for tourists to visit, and as such the main town is laid out like this: dive shop, hotel, restaurant, dive shop, bar, hotel, bar, diveshop, etc. Luckily we had a recommendation to head to an unheard-of set of bungalows on the opposite side of the island. Of course, being the cheap asses that we are, opted to take the hour long trek through the jungle and over the hills instead of hiring a longboat water taxi. Of course every Thai that we asked the way to the trail laughed at us, shook their heads and stared at our packs. In fact it is almost unheard of to walk anywhere longer than a few meters, everyone here takes motorbikes or tuk-tuks. About half-way through our trek the sun went down, I imagine we must have been quite a site on arrival, drenched in sweat, looking around wide eyed after our narrow escape from the wilderness. Pom, who owns the guesthouse, had a giant smile for us, but was concerned because the resort was close to running out of water. Ah, who needs it when you have a stretch of deserted sand, a nice little bungalow, and plenty of beautiful reef to snorkel on. Surprisingly the reef looks healthy here, tons of diverse corals, fish and even a spotted eel. We don't want to leave To Koh beach, it seems this place attracts a certain type of traveller and we've made friends with several groups of people. Between snorkeling, beach volleyball, kick ass meals and a tiny bar run by a 24 year old ex-pat hippy from Missouri, we've landed in an elusive paradise. (And Cory....Ben the bartender went to Waukarusa 4 years in a row, small world after all) We will be moving on soon, we need a bit more reality and a bit less holiday, at it seems the only jobs here are in the myriad of dive operations and beach bars........
oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENEVA!!!!