Ao Lo Sa Ma

We got up early and headed out as it was a clear sunny morning. We went down to the beach to have a morning swim and take some photos. We wanted to go snorkeling but had too much stuff to leave on the beach, so decided to go for some breakfast and leave the rest of the stuff in the hostel. This was a great idea as breakfast was fantastic. Izzi had eggs, bacon and huge hunks of toast and Tom had eggy bread, maple Syrup and fruit. We then went and brought a couple of GoPro bits from a shop and then headed back to the beach to go for a snorkel. We found an area where some people were learning to scubadive and joined in, feeling great that we could use the same bit of sea and not have to pay a lot of money to do it. We'd bought snorkels the day before and they were brilliant. After snorkeling, we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the afternoon of island touring, and had a brilliant Pad Thai with a thick mango smoothie and an iced tea (this one was really odd, imagine making a Twinings peach fruit tea, pouring it over ice and then adding milk). But then it was time for the Island tour.

We walked down to the longtail boat and met 4 others who were on the tour as well. We set off and the moment we left the harbour it started pelting it down with rain. It was mental, skipping over the sea with the rain crashing around us. We headed for our first stop, monkey beach, which is a cove where monkeys live on the cliffs and in the trees around the beach. Another boat had peanuts, so we took some and fed the monkeys that came down to the water. It was amazing to see them in the wild and be so close to them! We got back in the boat and headed off to the island south of Koh Phi Phi, called Phi Phi Lee. First stop there was a place called "blue lagoon" where we jumped off the boat and swam for a while. Beautiful place! We then headed round the corner to another bay where we could snorkel. The fish here were brilliant and we followed parrot rainbow fish, angel fish, powderblue surgeonfish and loads of sergeant majors. We swam up to an empty beach too, and for a couple of minutes we were by ourselves on our own Thai beach! The boat then took us to Maya Bay the setting from the film "The Beach". Until a few months ago, this was a huge tourist destination and hundreds of people flocked there every hour to walk on the beach. It got to the stage where 80% of the coral there had died, so the government banned boats and people from entering that part of the bay, and since then it has started to re grow. However, we snorkelled in another area further back from the bay and the amount of fish was incredible! They were swimming around some food and we could barely swim for the fish that circled!! We spent an hour there taking photos and swimming around. It was brilliant! The guys driving the boat cut up a pineapple for us to eat.

After snorkeling here we sat on the boat for about 45 minutes waiting for it to get dark around us, then the boat drivers told us to jump in and wave out arms around. There were plankton glowing in the dark wherever you moved the water, it was absolutely incredible.

After heading back to the shore, we grabbed some dinner and then headed to the fire show. This was insane, guys just dancing around with sticks or balls on fire, standing on top of each others shoulders spinning fireworks and fire, and at one point walking across a tight rope while spinning wheels on fire... Absolutely insane and nerve wracking but well worth seeing.Read more