Island Hopping

Believe the hype... The South of Thailand is paradise! From the curry to the coral, to the people, everything just glows here. Brittany's glowing red sunburn fits in perfectly. Seriously though, Phi Phi Island is more colorful than Tim Burton's dreams. (Just think "Alice in Wonderland" not "Nightmare Before Christmas") Turquoise blue water gently laps at powdered sugar sand, lush jungle peeks over the edge of towering limestone cliff, and geological anomalies mascaraing as islands jut out of the blue depths as if reaching for the cloudless sky overhead. Fade in the Moby music, Que Leo D. and we are rolling... Cliche Hollywood garbage and... Action!

Sorry, I know that reference was ridiculous and over the top, and so if it was over your head my apologies for dragging you through it. But before Phuket was the screen saver to every computer in every public library in all the world, and before DiCaprio was Scorsese's goto star, Hollywood's then pretty-boy starred in a laughable dystopia film call "The Beach". I was among the unfortunate few to sit through it in theaters, and while the plot now slips my memory the panoramic opening shot of tropical beach paradise was burned into my head. Sitting in Maya Bay at "The Beach" 10 years after seeing the movie, the Moby music still echoed in my head, but Maya Bay is even more beautiful in real life than in the film. Cinematography just couldn't do Phi Phi Le justice, and if you see it in person you don't have to deal with the movie's awful plot line either.

Everything I try to write about this place sounds cliche, but then again this place is a tropical beach paradise, the mother of all cliches, so what can I say... I'll say this the Bungalow next to ours is empty, and if you book a flight to Krabi tomorrow, Britt and I will still be here when you arrive, and if the beauty of this place doesn't put you at a loss for words then I will cover your bungalow cost for a week. Ah Tho Ka is on the south east end of Phi Phi Ko. Until you get here, I'll be on the beach in a hammock sipping Mai Thais and hoping someone takes me up on it.

(Sorry I hadn't written in a while. I will fill in the time gap eventually, but not tonight.)