Change of Pace

OK so I guess after that you deserve some actual stories... :)Past few days have been a serious change of pace from temple-going!! After a blissful sleep in, we awoke in Phuket!! Sunny all around outside, we headed out for 'brunch' as we'd slept until 11... Probably our least favourite meal so far but HEY its gotta happen. Checking out a market and purchasing some BEACH TOWELS, we caught the 'bus' outside our hostel to the beach on the west coast - we chose a beach called Kata, which is the second most giant beach on Phuket. Waltzing in, we claimed 2 beach chairs set up under umbrellas all lined up in a row - I'm talking LOTS OF beach chairs. The beach was probably 3km long and was LINED with them!! We laid in the sun, read, went in the WARMEST ovean, got some orange shakes, laid in the shade, etc. for the afternoon and it was AWESOME. Super relaxing and we were loving it! We had planned to only spend 2 nights in Phuket, so we booked our bus to Ko Phi Phi - and island between Phuket and the mainland - for the next morning, and just kinda chilled for the evening. Caught up I guess you could say. We caught a ferry the next morning to Ko Phi Phi (boats are 900X better than buses!!) and had a lovely 2 hour cruise to the island!! Arriving at Ton Sai beach on Ko Phi Phi at around 1030, we were let off and headed on a hostel hunt - we immediately liked this place. No roads, no cars, only walking streets and bicycles! And SO MANY dive shops!!! Crazy! Walking around we easily found a (kinda pricy but cheap for here) hostel. Putting down our bags, we set out to explore the town and found a 'Beach 60m' sign right around the corner from our hostel.... NOT bad!! Afternoon plans included checking that out. Another beach afternoon and some more town exploring and we headed to grab a bite to eat (foudn the best restaurant - we are regulars) and ended up deciding to check out the beach scene at night... SO much going on!! So many bars playing tunes, flashing lights, fire shows, glow in the dark things, games... etc. ALL the way down the beach. Tiny in comparison to the Full Moon party I am sure but it was a taste!! Sarah and I danced the night away in the 30 degree heat (SO SWEATY)! Day 2 on Ko Phi Phi was just as sunny and beatiful - we decided after breakfast to check out the viewpoint on the island, from which you can see both bays separated by a small strip of sand - this town got absolutely destroyed by the 2004 tsunami, and from up there, its easy to see how :( After reaching the viewpoint and snapping some photos, we decided to hike down to the other side of the island to check out some other beaches! We followed signs for Pak Nam beach and Relax Beach Resort... sort of a wild goose chase and we almost turned back, but we made it!! Such a secret little resort beach.. on the open ocean but there was literally ONLY the resort there. We grabbed some delicious lunch at the only restaurant and hung out on that beach for the day! Going swimming there was a different story compared to the calm bay we had been at the day before.. Sharp rocks, serious waves, and mysterious creatures! We survived (relatively) unscathed and caught a longtail boat back around the island to the main town. Arriving JUST in time for dinner, we had curry (a once a day occurence) and may or may not have gotten ice cream from 7-11 and people watched on the street... it is a regular activity. Pooped from our walk, we headed to bed KINDA early but only after investigating some SNORKELING TRIPS!!! OK so since we were too disorganized to book it the night before, we woke up this morning an hour before we knew the tour was leaving and hoped there were two spots left - YUP booked ourselves in! Ran to get breakfast and found out EVERYTHING is closed in the morning.. probably cause its open so late. Got breakfast and met our tour guy, walked a while through the town and arrived at the launch spot! At around 930, we loaded onto a big longtail boat for our 9 hour snorkeling and boating tour! First stop - shark point! Just off of the island, we hopped in to check out some Finding Nemo fish and coral!! No sharks spotted sadly.. Moving on to Bamboo island, we got off the boat and snorkeled / laid on the beach for a while. The island is TINY and perfectly round, the sand is SO white, it looks fake! This was at around 11am and it was already SO HOT I couldn't even be in the sun for more than 10 minutes... not like humid hot, but like a ray of sun is BURNING me hot. OK you know me, take that with a grain of salt. But scalding. Back on the boat, we took a quick trip to Masquito island, only to snorkel at its shore, but not actually go onto the island. I'm fine with that, don't WANT a mosquito island thank you! Sailing around to the other side of Ko Phi Phi, we ate a quick lunch of fried rice with chicked, with watermelon for dessert. Fuelled up and ready to go, we stopped in really quick at Monkey Beach, but didn't end up going in because the tide was too low.. So we headed on to our next snorkel spot! It was in a little cove and was so cool... we swam through a semi-cave and saw giant schools of fish... if you swama at them they would split up and soon enough you'd be surrounded! Moving on, we continued boating over to the other half of Ko Phi Phi - its called Phi Phi Lay (the main island is Phi Phi Don). Stopping at a cove, we had an extensive snorkel with our guide taking us along shallow coral and pointing at things - the higlights (ready for scientific names) were sea slugs / cucumbers, Dorys, schools of fish that make the shapes in Finding Nemo, black poky balls that looked like underwater porcupines (I was scared they were going to shoot at me), giant shell-like coral that was bright pirple inside, and fluorescent fish of all kinds. The fish seem so unfazed... swim along and turn around and an entire school will be RIGHT behind you! After our serious snorkel, we once again loaded up and headed off to our last stop - the beach. Not just any beach, the one where the movie 'The Beach', starring Leo, was filmed! Pretty excited. We pulled into the Maya bay and parked the boat in low tide, meaning the beach was at its best! The sand was HEAVENLY - it was like walking in flour or something. We walked through little sand pathways and a little village type thing and arrived shortly at the other side of the island! Just to check it out. We mainly hung out on the beach and took some photos of the setting sun in the bay. After our time at the beach, we headed back to the boat for our final journey back to the main island, just happening to see the sun sink into the ocean on the way, NOT too bad :) Tomorrow we are headed to the mainland to check out Krabi, then quickly move into the other side of the peninsula - time to check out the Gulf of Thailand!