Snorkelling

While in Phuket we bought a 1 day package tour to visit some islands and do a bit of snorkeling. The whole trip got off to a fantastic start as the wonderful (but slack when it comes to blogs!) Rob managed to get the price of the trip pretty much halved - his bartering skills are really coming on!

The speedboat was fantastic fun - it was incredibly fast and wonderfully bumpy - I lost my stomach several times!!! It was also amusing to see the lack of people without the ability to smile all the way - and the few people clinging on to the side of the boat looking rather green......

The first stop was to Maya beach on Phi Phi Don. For those of you into shit films it is the cove where a lot of the Beach was filmed - it was breath-taking.... I don't think I have the vocabulary to do it justice - but it was idyllic (Rob's blogging job is now to insert photos - I write he sorts out the pictures - so I hope he picks a good one for this) We stayed about 20 mins milled around with a few other hundred tourists and then got back on the boat and headed to a place called Monkey Beach - where you've guessed it - there are lots of monkeys!!! After us all cooing at how cute they were and taking the few obligatory photos while watching the monkeys very dexterously scaling the cliffs we were off again.

We sailed (or should that be sped?) for about 20 mins until were relatively close to the cliffs and then all donned life jackets were given snorkels and dropped into the water. I had never been snorkeling before so was really not prepared for the magic of burying my head in the water. I looked below and saw wonderful coral formations, sea urchins, and so many beautiful coloured fish. I couldn't get over just how close the fish would swim to you. It was great too as the guides from the boat were dropping biscuits into the water where I was swimming - so suddenly I found myself surrounded by a shoals of beautiful fish. After 30 mins we got back into the boat - all carrying large smiles :)

Our next port of call was Ko Phi Phi Lay- we didn't really get to see much of the island but stopped for some food and a quick look round the seafront market.

In the afternoon we stopped at our last beach which wasn't much more than a small golden bar of sand and coral out in the ocean and had a little bit of a snorkel - nothing as stunning as the first snorkel and you had to be much more careful as you were in really shallow water with loads of the spikiest black sea urchins I have ever seen. This too was great fun - then it was back on board the speed boat to blast home.

When home we found a a shisha bar - and rounded off a wonderful day with a lovely apple tobacco - god I hate this travelling thing!