The island where 'The Beach' is... looks mysterious doesn't it.

Wednesday

Today we explored the town while Mum did some work at home. First we went to a Mini Golf course. This was cool, as there were models of dinosaurs, a jungle atmosphere and cool holes-there was even a cave one. Us kids reckoned that it was the best Mini Golf course we had ever been to.

Next we went to Kata town and did some shopping. We looked around and bargained some things, {Jess and Soph don't really like it when people follow you around the shops!}We then went back to the hotel and had our daily swim, {this normally takes about an hour and a half!!!} 

Thursday

Today we went to Phang Nga Bay, it took us 1 hour and a half to get there. We hired a long boat and went around the islands in it.

We went to a village called Panyee that is built on stilts over sea and is connected to an island and built totally over water although Phang Nga Bay is a fairly sheltered area and not far from the coast.

We also went to an island that they call James Bond Island where his movie The Man With The Golden Gun was filmed.  The island was where the bad guy's base was.  Here is Harry standing by a longtail boat on James Bond Island:

The scenery was really cool with these huge limestone rocks that looked like small islands coming out of the sea.

We also saw some mangrove swamp where a large lizard lives that is almost as big as the Komodo Dragon and is part of that family of lizards.

Friday

On Friday we travelled from Phuket to the Phi Phi Islands.  We went down to the Phuket Town wharf and waited for our boat.  We met Mum's research assistant, Mor there because he came with us to help Mum with some questions for the people on Phi Phi Don Island.

The main town on Phi Phi Don Island is built on at isthmus between two large islands that look like hills... see below... it was a bit of haul up to the viewpoint but the view was worth it.

The room where we are staying at Garden Home is really cool, it is in a natural setting with lots of plants and trees.  The room we're staying in is the honeymoon suite and it has a water feature in the bathroom, a screen made of shells and lots more.

"The best thing I've ever done" (Jessie)

We went on a half day trip to Phi Phi Lay Island.  We got to saw a Viking Cave where there were old drawings (actually by the Chinese and not the Vikings), went snorkelling and got to visit the bay where 'The Beach' was filmed - lots of tourists go there!...

Jessie said that going snorkelling was the best thing she has ever done because the fish that we saw were like all the ones on Finding Nemo except for the clown fish which is the Nemo fish.

'The Beach' beach was really picturesque but wasn't enclosed with a lagoon like in the movie but was an open bay... those movie people are pretty tricky.

This photo is of the sun setting at the right hand side of Ko Phi Phi Lay as we cruised back to Ko Phi Phi Don.  Today we got the boat back to Phuket ready for the next part of our adventure up north in Chiang Mai. We're looking forward to our time in the North because it is a mountainous area so should be quite different scenery.

The photo below is of a street in the main town on Ko Phi Phi Don, Ton Sae Village.  This is as wide as the streets get so there are no cars or motorbikes, the only vehicles are bicycles that act as the cars and trolleys that act as the trucks.  It is really busy here and we are so glad that we are here at low season and not at high season.  Apparently in high season they get traffic jams from the trolleys carrying tourists' luggage and food and building materials and other stuff they need to transport around. One of the stalls had these cool little soaps that the lady had carved flowers into... we got one for Nan... she'll like the nice smell.

On the day we left we got heaps of rain and the little streets next to where we were staying were like little rivers that we had to wade through.

The photo above is of the first stop on our half day cruise where we stopped at Monkey Bay to see the monkeys.  One of the little monkeys in the background came up to Sophie and grabbed her on the leg and Sophie wondered if it was Dad playing a trick on her... but it wasn't.  It was quite cool getting to Monkey Bay because Sophie and Mum got to dive off the boat and swim 150 metres into shore and got to swim through little fishies on the way in.

The last photo is of Mum and the girls swimming in 'The Beach'... step aside Leonardo... we've got some new stars emerging... the water was really warm like it has been for all of the beaches over here... you just don't want to get out of the water because you're not freezing your noonoos off like back home.