It's a Wild Life!

Today we had an adventure on the high seas. We went on a speedboat cruise around some of the small islands off Phuket. Our first stop was Phi Phi Ley where The Beach was filmed. It was incredibly beautiful but unfortunately hundreds of fellow adventurers crowded on to the narrow strip of beach along with us to admire the stalagtites, flora, turquoise seas and white sands of Maya Bay. It was back on the luxury cruiser (not) to bounce around the island to Monkey Beach. As the boat drew up to the beach we were very sceptical - monkeys - what monkeys? We took a few paces along the exceedingly narrow beach, avoiding banging heads on the outcrops of rock and found an excited group of humans snapping away at the local monkeys! What could we do - we just joined in - warily. You can see we were really at ease with them. One mummy monkey had a little baby holding on underneath - very cute. All aboard Gennaro 2 for Viking Cave - so called apparently because a painting of a Viking longboat was found on the wall inside - we didn't see it. Apparently a good place for collecting the ingredient (key) for Birds' Nest Soup. Before lunch we did some snorkeling - when I say we - I mean dad did some snorkeling and I floundered around in a dodgy life jacket - great fun! We saw loads of colourful fish. Back on board we headed for Phi Phi Don and had lunch and chatted to Swedish man. Lunch not so good so went for a walk - we were reminded starkly of the terrible disaster that struck in that area of Thailand when we saw the tsunami evacuation signs. Head for high ground is the advice but easier said than done - the island consisted of a narrow beach a bit of a plain surrounded by peoples' houses then just sheer cliffs. Last stop was an island called Kai - a small rock about 150m long surrounded by narrow beach - this was so relaxing and beautiful. Dad tempted me back into the water and I briefly stuck my face in the water to see the fish he was so excited about - they were nice! The most exciting part of the day is yet to come. Whilst lounging on the deck chairs we were altered by a bit of a commotion coming from the men that drive the boats (crew) they were moving pretty damn quick and making a bit of a noise. A glance along - was that a snake - let's investigate. We walked along to see - by the time we got there the men had calmed down and everyone was busy taking pictures of an enormous snake - which appeared more frightened than us. It slithered about for a while then disappeared under a pile of beach rubbish. Back on board we headed for home. What a wild day! We're heading out now for food!