Phi-Phi Islands, Thailand

Oct 22nd to 25th Oct

An hour and half of ferry time from Krabi took us to Phi-Phi. It has two main islands - Phi-Phi Don, the bigger one which has plenty of accommodation and Phi-Phi Leh, the magnificent one. Leh doesn't have any accommodation except for the night camp in Maya bay organized by a single operator. It also only allows limited number of people.


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On the day we reached Phi-Phi Don, the weather was clear and we decided to camp at Maya bay. The trip started in the evening with 20 of us in a big motor boat. En route to Leh was beautiful with small fine sand beaches. If you can kayak to them, you can have those amazing beaches for yourself! On the way, we stopped at a couple of places for snorkeling. It was wonderful to be in such clear blue waters! However, I didn't find the marine life to be too exciting. Later, I heard from other travelers that places near Bamboo island are better suited for snorkeling.


'Viking cave' on Phi-Phi Leh is one of the attractions. We saw the place from the boat and didn't make any attempt to explore this place! Our tour guide also seemed least interested, however, he mentioned that the cave is filled with bird's nest and the nest soup is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine.

Just before sunset, we reached Maya bay. It was a back door entry and had to swim for a small distance to get to the shore. We then walked for about couple of minutes before the beach could unveil in front of us. With gleam of light on the beach, Maya bay was stunning, breathtaking and it felt like a heaven on earth. It is truly an other-world experience. I was floating in the water viewing the sunset and I would cherish this memory forever.


In the evening, we were served with delicious supper and bucket of alcohol. Me and Jomy donated the bucket to an American who later showered us with blessings! Later in the night, we set our sleeping mats on the fine sand beach and laid watching countless stars on clear dark sky. It felt like paradise and we slept peacefully on the beach. In the morning, we woke up to the fine misty tropical rain and headed to Phi-Phi Don after the breakfast.

Trivia : The movie "The beach" was shot in Maya bay.
hi-Phi Don
For the next two days, we rambled around the island hoping from one beach to the other. We tried out the local cuisine in different restaurants and it was delectable every time. Papaya is one of the popular local restaurant serving good and cheap food and we liked it too. One of our favorite snack was the thai pancakes sold at the road side food stands. We tried it with different fruits, but banana turned out the best. They can also be topped up with some chocolate syrup for the extra yum-yum!

This island is overly developed with every inch converted to shops, resorts and restaurants. The place was more crowded than I had imagined. Also, some of the beaches were totally covered with the long tail boats! But, our resort was at the far end of the beach and it attracted very less crowd. Good for us! Among all the beaches on this island, I liked Long beach with very less crowd and very few resorts around.

In the nights, the island was very lively with loud music and parties going on in many places. But, we kept ourselves away from all the urban rituals and chose to enjoy the nature and watch the clear skies on both the nights.

Phi-Phi would always hold a special place in my heart for we celebrating our 5th marriage anniversary with a beautiful beach side dinner.

South East Asia : Krabi, Thailand

19th to 21st Oct 2009

More photos of Krabi @ My-Facebook-Album

From Langkawi, we took a ferry to reach Satun, Thailand. After getting our passports stamped at the port, we headed to Krabi by a pink double decker bus. Good roads, beautiful paddy fields view along the roadside, entertaining Thai comedy video played in the bus and a little nap in between helped me pass the time. It took us about 4 1/2 hrs to reach Krabi and it was about sunset.

Krabi has two very popular and beautiful beach areas. One is Ao Nang, a hustle bustle place with long beach and the other is Railay, a calm and more scenic beach. We choose to stay put at Railay first.

Railay beach


Railay beach is surrounded by huge limestone cliffs and is cutoff from the mainland. It is accessible only by sea and we took a long tail boat to reach here. It was already dark when we reached this place and had traveled the whole day. After relaxing for a while in the resort, we went for a brief walk along the dimly lit narrow path. The entire East Railay beach is only about a Km long and the interesting part about this path is that we need to walk through many restaurants and cafe. This place was very relaxed and less crowded, though every inch of the place is developed. It felt like we were in a small island.


The next morning, we went to Railay west to take our long tail boat for the day tour to near-by four islands. The west beach was stunning with huge cliffs on either side, calm clear blue water and fine white sand. It deserves all the praise given by the fellow travelers on other blogs. The four islands tour included Phra-Nang beach, Poda island, Chicken island and Tub island. Phra-Nang and Poda were breathtaking and I went crazy looking at the beauty. We went snorkeling near the other two islands and found variety of fishes. We had enough time to explore the under water life and go behind some fishes! Coral life wasn't exciting enough as many of them were dead and the live ones were not colorful.


In the evening, we sat along the west beach side restaurant and watched the sun set while sipping the hot Cappuccino. The color change in the sky and its reflection on the water was brilliant. We kept watching till the place went dark.

The huge cliffs in Railay makes it the one of the best destination for rock climbing. We initially planned to take a day for rock climbing. But, Jomy had twisted his leg the previous day and he couldn't do it. I for some reason decided to drop it as well (Shame on me!) and ended up watching experts climbing the rocks!!

Ao Nang beach

The next day we spent our time in Ao Nang beach. The place was bustling with people, numerous resorts and other shopping centers. The beach coastline was very long, clean and very good for swimming.

At night, with scores of bars and restaurant, Ao Nang was a party scene. But, we peacefully sat along the beach side benches and munched chicken satay bought from the late night street food shop. Ao Nang was different from Railay and I enjoyed the experience in both the places.

South East Asia : Pulau Langkawi

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On 17th day of Oct, while rest of my family & friends were celebrating Diwali in India, Me & Jomy set out to enjoy the beaches of Malaysia & Thailand. We reached KualaLumpur in the evening and flew to Langkawi after couple of hours wait.

Langkawi, one of the most popular Malaysian islands is said to have many good beaches like Cenang, Kok, Datai bay, Tengah. Without really doing much pre-work on things to do in this island, we had planned to spend only a day & 2 nights here. Only after reaching here, we found that a day was just too little to explore this island. But, I think it gave us enough time to get a feel for this place and people!

The nights were very lively with rich lights along the clean streets. Many restaurants displayed variety of fresh sea food waiting to be cooked in the style we prefer. On both the nights, we tried Malay cuisine and thoroughly enjoyed it. I found that Malay food generously uses coconut milk and is spicy with good flavours. The culinary style here has very good influence from India & China.

In the day, we went around the island on a motorbike. Motorbike & car are available for daily rental and is the most common way of going around the island. With intermittent rain and clean roads, it was pleasure driving along the coast lined up with dense trees.

We were staying in Cenang area, one of the bustling places in Langkawi. It has many good resorts and restaurants lined up along the beach side. It also offers plenty of budgeted stays for the backpackers. We started our day trip from Cenang towards Kok beach holding a detailed Langkawi map in our hand. On our way from Cenang to Kok, we stepped into the tropical forest which didn't have any proper route. While wandering here, we caught a glimpse of monitor lizard, which quickly slipped into the dense forest sensing our movements. This lizard is not as big as Komodo dragon, but it was big! Also, unexpectedly we found access to a very small beach. On this isolated beach, we met a small group of Malaysians from mainland who were camping here for few days. After chit-chatting with them for sometime, we continued our drive towards Kok.


As mentioned in many travel sites, Kok was certainly more beautiful with pristine beach and very few people. After spending some time here, we proceeded to Datai Bay in the north west corner of the island. It took nearly 30mins of bike ride to reach this place and once we reached, we found that we need to pass through a private resort to access the bay. As expected, the resort doesn't allow outsiders to stroll on their own in their premises. But, we managed to talk with the resort folks and they agreed to take us to the beach by their mini electric car. They also gave a tour of their resort! The resort is "Datai Bay" and is filthy luxurious. The cottages are build in the unspoilt natural tropical forest aging 50 million years, with clean river flowing in its backyard. They looked Superbb! The resort also has two swimming pools with one being on the beach side! And above all, the beach was an absolute beauty. I totally believe this is one of the must stay place in Langkawi, if you don't mind the pinch in your pocket.

Later in the evening, we took a cable car ride over the Machincang moutain range. The view enroute was breathtaking. With clear sky, one is expected to see a 360-degree view of the islands around. But, the time we took the ride, the sky was filled with clouds and we couldn't see the 360 degree panaromic view. But, surely the ride itself was enthralling when it glided above the virgin tropical forest and it was a unique experience.

After sunset, we decided to visit Kuah town without any plans in mind. We just ended up driving up to this place and returned doing nothing. The duty free shopping malls had closed by then and we couldn't shop!:(


In the next morning, before leaving Langkawi, we went for a early morning walk along the Cenang beach. I was totally flattered at the first sight of the beach; it was vast, fresh and clean as if new. I felt very peaceful and calm while I inhaled the pollution free clean air.

Then the time came for us to leave Langkawi and head towards Satun, Thailand.

End of Langkawi.