Phuket & Koh Phi Phi

Amber, Jemma and me swimming at Phi Phi ley

On the day we left for Koh Phi Phi, we were told we'd be picked up at 10.00, so we went down stairs, hurried our breakfast, and the truck came at 9.50 to pick us up. We had to leave our breakfasts uneaten and get onto the truck. We were then driven to a shop, where we were given a sticker saying Phuket and then we waited for an hour in this shop, sat in the heat. After an hour, another bus came, drove us five minutes down the road to another shop, where we had to get out an wait for another hour. After all of this waiting, a minibus came and finally took us all the way to Phuket. The journey lasted about 2 hours, and when we got to Phuket, the bus driver said he didn't know where our hotel was and wanted to drop us off in the middle of a long road with our big bags and let us look for it ourselves. Luckily, Jemma spotted the hotel before he chucked us off and we got dropped at the door. Phuket was so different to anything we have experienced so far. Very busy, touristy, westernised and with lots of people trying to sell you things. As soon as we got out of the bus we were offered another taxi. We walked into our hotel, which was directly on the beach and main street (in Patong). It was meant to cost about £40 a night, but we got it for £20 thanks to our friend Amber and her Thai bartering skills. Amber is Jemma's friend from Cardiff and we had arranged to meet her for one day in Phuket as she was just finishing a long stint travelling around Asia. The women in the hotel were very friendly and loved Amber; they told us she was waiting for us on the beach, so after we put our stuff down, we went out to the beach to meet her, where she was with her two friends. We then went for food together in a Thai restaurant, went back to room to get ready, and then went out for a wild night out with Amber in Phuket where we were introduced to the concept of drinking out of buckets for the first time.

Amber introducing us to buckets

They basically give you a bucket full of vodka redbull/ any other mixer, with a straw, and its cheaper than buying normal drinks. After a few buckets, we were well on our way and decided to go and see a ping pong show, which was an eye opener, and didn't just involve ping pong balls, but also live birds, fish and darts. After the show we moved onto another bar where we met the barmaid Sara, who latched herself onto us and wanted to come clubbing with us to the next club. The next morning, we were woken by amber saying she'd booked our boat tickets to go to Koh Phi Phi and we had two hours before the boat left to go and get breakfast. We ate a breakfast of garlic bread, chips and pizza, and laughed about stories from the night out, using pictures to aid our hazy memories. It was a really funny night! On the ferry to Phi Phi however, we felt the effects, with Amber having to go and be sick several times. We turned up in Phi Phi, boiling hot and hungover .

Breakfast the next day

We had booked a basic hut online, which turned out to be in a forest in the middle of nowhere, so we paid a man to wheel our bags for us. The man could only go so far, as the hill through the forest was so steep, so we then had to get a van to take us up the remainder of the hill. The hut was in the middle of forest, miles from anywhere. The reception had lost our booking, and it took an hour for us to sort it out, during which time we got eaten alive by mossies. We finally got into our hut about 5pm, which was very basic but ok. Went then went out for food, again thai curry, looked for new hotel, went back to hut, got ready, went out to meet Amber's friends, and drank buckets again. Jemma and I left early as we couldn't take the pace. As we walked back, the loud music boomed all around us, and I thought what a shame it was that such an idyllic island has been ruined by drunken gap yahs. Phi Phi really is in an idyllic setting – you can see why they filmed the movie 'The Beach' there. It has mountains coming out of the sea, crystal turquoise waters and is everything an exotic island should be. But, it has been completely destroyed by the hundreds and hundreds of shabby hotels, bars and nightclubs, that have been messily erected, haphazardly all over the place. It's dirty, ugly, loud and overpriced and it is such a shame. Phi Phi was one of the places badly hit by the Tsunami in 2004 and you can't really see any sign of that any more, although we did freak ourselves out a bit by watching videos on You tube, which wasn't a good idea, considering Phi Phi had another Tsunami warning the week before we got there. A friend told me not to go to Phi Phi, saying it was like a mini Benidorm. For me, it reminded me of a favela (the slums we saw in Rio). Ugly, tacky and overrun with drunken posh gap year students.

Our room on the first night

On our second day on Phi Phi, we swapped hotels and checked into somewhere that cost £5 more a night but had aircon and wifi. We had a very lazy day, walked along beach and saw most spectaular sunset of my life– I was extremely annoyed with myself for forgetting my camera. In the evening we went for tea at restaurant on sea front with ambers friend who's sister was on the X factor.

The next day, went for full English breakfast, and in the afternoon we went on a cheap boat trip to maya bay, the beach where they filmed 'The Beach'. We snorkelled in the clear waters and explored the area. Before returning back to Phi Phi for a slice of pizza, followed by another yummy Thai curry for tea. That night we noticed we had bed bugs. Amber's room was absolutely covered in them. We decided to check out the next day after discovering that the tap water was coming out brown.

We checked into new, even more expensive hotel, which had a nice view over the harbour but the shower water stank of raw sewage. Amber was leaving that morning to go to Bangkok and then home, so we met her for breakfast before saying our goodbyes. We decided that as we had really enjoyed the snorkelling that we should buy snorkels and hire a boat to go to the other beach (Long beach). We relaxed there, but didn't stay long as the water was no good for snorkelling and there wasn't much to do there. Amber had told us that we could walk up to a high point on the island and get a lovely view, although she had mentioned that it was a pretty tough walk. Having climbed up Machu Picchu we thought it would be easy enough for us. In the evening, we walked up to view point to see sunset – it was very hard, sweaty and the sunset was disappointing but the view was amazing. We decided to run back down to beach, to take photos of the sunset there after we had missed the opportunity the other night but alas there was no nice sunset. After the sunset we had tea at posh restaurant on sea front and walked around the town. We bought waterproof bag that we bartered the price down for and then went to bed.

More photos: Koh Phi Phi and Phuket