At the halfway point

Time is flying by, and we've reached the half way point - four months in, and 5 countries later, we've made it to Malaysia. This is the last stop on the South East Asia leg before wit hit Australia on the 24th of October.

First things first though, we've still got some pictures from the end of our in stay in Thailand to show. We ended up staying in Koh Phi Phi for 11 nights, which I'm pretty sure is our longest stay yet. This was partly because it was really nice but mainly because Alex came down with a nasty cold half way through. We decided not to do any diving in the end, the budget was already too far gone to shell out the big bucks so we did the other two activities available instead; rock-climbing and boat trips.

I'd never tried rock climbing before, and was a little uncertain that I'd be able to drag my not inconsiderable bulk up a cliff face. Alex had done a couple of hours at an indoor climbing place in London, and convinced me it was easy, so we signed up. One small hitch in the plan - Bekka had put us onto a really good bar the night before and we'd stayed there maybe a little bit too long to claim our balance was 100% the following day.

The cliff we were climbing on was right at the end of the beach, and looked like quite a nice one to start my climbing career on. We'd got lucky on the day and it was just Alex and I with the instructor lady, so we didn't have to hang around for a big group each time. It did mean I was called into action straight away to help the lady get up the cliff to set the top rope which we'd be attached to. She gave us a quick bit of instruction but soon enough it was our turn - I went first and got about half way up the climb until my legs gave up and I came back down.

Alex proceeded to shoot up the cliff and made it all the way to the top of the rope :



The second climb was a bit more successful, and we both made it to the top. From there it went downhill as our arms and legs proceeded to pack up completely, and by the fourth climb we both came off about 3 metres from the ground - pretty rubbish all in all =)

It was well worth the pain as the views from 20 metres up the cliff were great, and it was great to try climbing for the first time. The experience of clinging on for dear life to tiny cracks in the rock, way up in the air, as your muscles slowly but surely give way is an interesting one that's for sure, but I guess that's what the ropes are for!

It took a few days before our wrists and legs recovered, and also this is where Alex's cold reared up its nasty head. We had a few days of totally doing nothing, mostly relaxing and sleeping - and I got completely hooked on CSI:Miami and NCIS as the only TV channel that we had in English was Fox Crime. Could have been worse I guess - it was kind of like watching DVD box sets back home when you get ill. Thankfully Alex recovered before my addiction got totally out of hand, so we booked up our next day out - a boat trip to visit Koh Phi Phi Lay. This is the smaller of the two Phi Phi islands, and its main claim to fame is that the film version of The Beach was filmed there.

First stop on the trip was a beach on the main island just down from where we'd done the rock climbing. It was called Monkey Beach, and it was pretty obvious why :



The tour guides warned everyone to be a little careful with the monkeys as they aren't always friendly - we'd come across this first hand during the climbing day as an enterprising primate nicked off with our bananas whilst we were distracted. The ones on this beach were even worse, they'd go for any people that wandered too far from the surf. I'm sure their intentions were just food based, but they caused a few screams of panic when some of the bigger ones started on the tourists!

The boat set sail across the short (but really quite choppy) stretch to the smaller island, and it took us past a small colony of locals that live inside a cave and make a living collecting the birds nests from the cliffs.



These nests sell for a small fortune to make birds nest soup all through Asia, and it looked like a pretty risky game shinning up bamboo poles. Each to their own I guess. Next stop was a small bay for some kayaking and snorkelling, which was great. Then to the big event, the trip to the 'beach' itself. The boat would usually sail right into the bay and drop people off there, but the sea was so choppy they couldn't make it through the rocks safely. Instead they dropped us off at the 'hole'...



This turned out to be a whole world of fun; the aim is to dive from the boat and make your way to the ropes. Then you hold on for dear life and make your way over the rocks to a tunnel underneath that bit with the stairs, all the while trying not to get washed away by the reasonably sized waves. Then you time it right to dodge through the cave onto the other side before the next wave. This was definitely not for the faint of heart, but it was a real adventure so we loved it. On the other side of the hole it was really calm and quiet, and after a few minutes walk we made it out on the beach.



The island is pretty much unspoiled as you can't build or live permanently on the island (apart from the nest people in the cave, they get special treatment) and the beach was amazing. The only downside was that it had got quite late in the day, and the weather that was causing the big waves also brought windy spells that whipped up the fine sand on the beach. After 10 minutes of gazing around in awe, most people switched to shivering in the tree line trying to avoid the sandstorms!

The trip out back through the hole cave was even more fun, and we made it back to the boat for some well earned dinner and the sunset views of the island on the way back to town.



That was the last act for Thailand, the next day we hit the boat back to the mainland, followed by the eight hour mini-bus ride down to Georgetown in north west Malaysia. This was a fairly painless journey, apart from the knackered suspension and bumpy roads, we were bouncing up and down relentlessly the whole way through Thailand. The Malaysian's road building prowess was a welcome relief and the end of the journey flew by. We'll save the Malaysia news for the next post, so that just leaves our final thoughts on country number four...

Thailand definitely won the prize for the most amazing island backdrops, but we didn't ever try hard enough to see the real side of the country. So its really our own fault we didn't get a good feeling for the non-touristy side of things... saying that it was pretty amazing to be able to chill out for the entire month on the beach =)