The Australian Adventure

So where to being telling my Australian adventure story? Its now about 10 months and 20 days since I first arrived here. I really should have been writing as I went along but fun and to be honest, laziness got in the way! I’ll try and tell this as part reflection of life living in Perth and what interesting things I got up to as well!

I guess I should start in the logical place – the beginning……So I arrived in Perth feeling very jetlagged after my lack of sleep in Singapore after 10 days partying on Koh Phi Phi with Aoife!

I had made arrangements with Amanda to meet up with her in Perth and to stay in the same hostel as her. Amanda had been in Oz for a while and had just been to Sydney to find out about work and was due to arrive back in Perth later that Wednesday.

I arrived in Australia the day after Australia Day. If only I had known it would have been great to be there for it as I’m leaving Australia again before it in 2011 too! All I got to see was everyone hungover :-)

I got the shuttle bus from the airport over to the hostel where Ken the manager of the Emperors Crown greeted me. It was still about 8.30 in the morning and I had nothing to do so attempted a wander into town. If I thought it was hot in the countries before – this was something new as it was the middle of the aussie summer so it was around 40c! I remember walking into town with the sun beating down on me and of course nothing was open so I headed back to the hostel feeling hot and weary and had a snooze.
It wasn’t too long after I woke up and was sitting outside getting to know some people that I see Amanda walking in. Of course, everyone in the hostel knew who Amanda was – she had made quite the impression already!!

The Emperors Crown was a great start to living in Perth. It’s a fairly laid back hostel which isn’t focussed on being a party place, this was no bad thing as we didn’t seem to have any trouble having our own fun there! There was a great group of people there with lots of people coming and going but a lot of people who were long termers living there like me.

My first couple of weeks in Perth are a blur – thanks in part to the legendary goon! (VERY cheap boxed wine – about $15 for 3 litres). Oh how I remember the goonovers….not so good! I was out plenty in those couple of weeks enjoying backpacker life and getting to know everyone, however after 4.5 month travelling in Asia I needed to find work (not only for money but also for my livers sake).

It didn’t take me long to land work in a Solicitors office, firstly doing typing and then being a very highly paid filing clerk. It was worth putting up with the boring jobs though as a vacancy they thought they had filled became available in Family law which I very quickly offered to fill if they would have me…thankfully they did.

I never realised that working as a Legal Secretary in Family Law would give me much of an insight into the Australian way of life, but I learnt so much about life in Australia from being there.

So now after having found a job, I needed to find a place to live – and people to live with. Finding a home in Australia is no easy task – if you are renting an apartment there is a massive application process to go through and if you are wanting a room in someones place you also have to spend ages going to see them and hope they pick you! Its pretty competitive.

There was a couple of houseshares that I went to look at but in the end we found a place that was through someone Amanda knew. Some of the people in the apartment were about to move out and leave 3 out of the 4 rooms empty. I was a little anxious about living with Amanda – we have a volatile relationship (which she admits too as well!) as we both drive each other crazy at times – but as we said ourselves – we just have it out with each other and then its fine as nothing is left to simmer under the surface. We needed to find a 3rd person to move in with us and managed to persuade Claire into it. By this point I was pretty fed up of living and working in a hostel and having no privacy. Dorm rooms are hard to live in at the best of times but even harder when you have to work as well.

There were a couple of especially interesting experiences when in an all female dorm two different girls on two different occasions decided to bring their conquest back to the room for a tumble on the bed above me! Wednesday nights were a big night out and every Thursday I used to go into work knackered after being woken up at 3/4am so in the end I thought – if you can’t beat em – join em – may as well go in hungover and tired rather than just tired!

We had great fun all in all in the hostel as there ended up being about 20/25 of us at one point that hung out –the best time was when we decided to all go out for a Mexican – a very messy but fun night! Life in the hostel was generally filled with playing drinking games at the tables outside, cooking group dinners, watching movies…the usual sorts of things really with the typical backpacker nights out to Northbridge to places like Mustangs, the Shed, Black Bettys, Rosie O’Gradys, Brass Monkey, and various other places!

After 3 months living and working in the Hostel I was more than ready to move out into my own room and a proper home again! Our move also coincided with Amanda’s birthday so we had an awesome housewarming and party for Amanda.

3 of the guys who were living in the apartment were due to move out, Patrick – who moved out a couple of days before we moved in, plus Matty and Sharky. They were planning on moving on to other places but wanted to crash in the apartment for another week or so until they sorted themselves out………Sharky ended up being there longer than planned but Matty basically never even moved out of his room………..and was still there 6 months later when we all moved out of the apartment. He had a reason though – Claire and him ended up falling lurrrrrrrrrrrve! Awwwww.

Life in the apartment was pretty good – especially in comparison to the hostel – it was pretty great to have my own room and space and life felt fairly normal for a long time. We had 2 fantastic balconies – one with a view of the Swan River and one with a view of Kings Park and generally I fell into everyday life going to work and going out at the weekends.

Perth is a great place to live, especially for the winter season – I don’t think I could have picked a better place in Australia as it has the most sunny days per year than anywhere else in Australia.  Although don’t forget about my mad March where there was a hail storm the size of golf balls and the roof collapsed on the building where I was working!  But other than that, the place was pretty good, most winter days were between 15-20 degrees, occasionally it even reached 25 in the middle of winter!  The nights……….well the nights were bloody freezing!!  As cold as a typical English night time but we don’t have the proper heating to cope with it so many a night I spent on the sofa under blankets wrapped up in my hoody trying to keep warm! 

Now I’ve provided you with the overview of my time living in Australia I guess its now time to tell you about the interesting things that I did actually do and see!

So Easter was approaching fast, I had been in Australia for a couple of months and managed to not do anything too touristy. Life had started going back to normal …. Well normal for living in a hostel and working every day. I was getting 4 enforced days off work – I was determined to do something constructive rather than sit around the hostel in the day and go out drinking at night!

Some other people in the hostel – Tami and Tiit were talking about going away as well but I was determined to do something on my own on a tour to get away from everyone and try and meet some new people (hindsight is a wonderful thing – generally better the devil you know – although I did have a fantastic time on the trip).

After much deliberation and some advice from the wonderful and knowledgeable Ken Dobbie (manager of the Emperors Crown) I settled on a 4 day tour with Western Xposure which covered a total of around 2000 km’s as a round trip (that’s around 1200 miles so not too far to go then!). This was going to be my first real experience of how vast Australia is, and how remote Perth is from anywhere and WA is from anywhere else!

So day one…we leave Perth for our long drive (only 3 - 4 hours) north towards Nambung National Park where the Pinnacles desert is located, stopping at my first Aussie Roadhouse along the way. Well the Pinnacles is a magical place. You feel as if you have stepped off Earth and are on another planet. The place is full of these very strange rocks that have just grown out of the ground in all sorts of shapes and sizes with this amazingly yellow sand everywhere, which suddenly stops and becomes this much paler whiter sand. It’s the most amazing thing to see!

After my “out of world” experience, it was time to enjoy more sand fun – Sandboarding at Sandy Cape! After climbing to enormous dune to the top I looked down and nearly freaked out at the thought of having to go down to the bottom of it on this board thing! I stood there, watching the others having a go and eventually managed to pluck up the courage and got on….and sat at the top for about another 10 seconds although it felt like forever. I eventually managed to shoot myself off the top of the dune screaming my heart out until I got a huge mouthful of sand and then had to shut my eyes to avoid being blinded where I promptly lost balance and tumbled over (it wasn’t so bad – I was sat down on the board going down!). I stumbled up and proceeded to spend the rest of the day attempting to get sand out of places I never thought it could reach!


After a fortifying lunch we piled back on the bus for the rest of our driving that day – it was only another 5 hours or so to our night stop driving through Geraldton to reach Kalbarri. Here was my first introduction to just what can’t be cooked on a barbeque in Australia – nothing – ANYTHING can be cooked by Barbie here…..tonight’s dinner was chicken stirfry and again, another surprising introduction to en-masse tour cooking for 24 people – and it was delicious! Everyone was expected to help out chopping up veggies and getting things cooking, putting things away and clearing up – but it’s a great way to get everyone involved and mixing together. That evening was my first experience of some of the strange beds you get in some of the hostels in Australia – with our lovely rubber mattresses that squeaked and rubbed everytime you moved! Despite that, I had a great nights sleep and got up bright and early the next day to face some very difficult challenges for me.

We didn’t have too far to drive to reach Kalbarri National Park and Murchison Gorge, Nature’s Window and Z-Bend Gorge. Now, all the itinerary said about this was that it was a steep descent but worth the effort. I was prepared for some hard walking but that wasn’t the issue. Unfortunately what they don’t tell the uninitiated who have never done any walks in Australia, is that normal tracks are fairly basic anyway, but that the trek down the gorge (and back up again) was more like rock climbing.

We had two routes to take – the Look Out trail – a 1.2 km return walk – this was easy – a fairly flat track with some ups and downs but pretty easy going. The second walk was the Gorge trail – a 2.6 km return walk It was described as “demanding, exploring the steep sides of the gorge, expect loose rocks, steep descents, and ladder climbs”. This I wasn’t expecting and had nicely prepared for my hike by carrying my handbag!

This picture shows you just how extreme the hike down was. This was taken at the lookout point, but we basically walked from the top of here down to the bottom. Not only was it steep and uneven clambering up and down over and around rocks but there were bits of it were the walkway was so narrow I was clinging on to the rock face to make sure I didn’t fall down (party my own paranoia but partly it really was that narrow in some places!). Given my fear of hights this was a MAJOR challenge for me. I was lucky – everyone in my group was really supportive as there were quite a few moments where I froze and thought I couldn’t carry on but with patience and encouragement I managed to make it down to the bottom. I have to admit that I did not enjoy one moment of the climb down or up (except for thinking it was nearly all over) but I did have a massive sense of achievement at the end that I had managed it when I never thought I could do it.

Natures Window was our next stop which was a pretty impressive viewing point with another nerve wracking (but no where near as bad as the gorge) track to go along to get to it.

Thankfully I did make it back to the bus safe and sound having survived it all a slightly braver Caroline. We headed back to the hostel for a rewarding lunch of burgers to prepare us for the very lengthy 4 hour drive (again) north to Shell Beach a very pretty stop off to watch the sunset before heading on to Denham where I visited the most westerly bottle shop in Australia. We then travelled on to Shark Bay and Monkey Mia, our stop for that night. We were treated to a very nice dinner again that night of expertly cooked steak on the bbq followed by a night time Aboriginal walk.

This was one of the most interesting things I have done as the aboriginal guide came to meet us and took us not too far from the resort but far enough away to feel like you were in the middle of nowhere. He had this secluded area with a fire lit and got us all to sit down where we listened to him telling us all about aboriginal traditional lifestyles, played the didgeridoo (where I learnt that traditionally only men should play it) and cooked us some fish over the fire. It was only supposed to last an hour or so but we ended up being there more than 2 hours I think. I tumbled off afterwards to have a quick beer on the beach and then headed to bed ready to rise very early to grab a good spot on the beach to watch the dolphins come in.

Well this was my first time seeing dolphins and it was magical. We were all there pretty early and then gradually all these people came down to the waters edge till there was a huge crowd. These enormous pelicans come down to the beach too as they know that the dolphins are going to get fed fish and they try to steal it from them so extra volunteers have to be on hand to distract the pelicans and feed them their own supply of fish so they don’t get in the way.

Years ago, there wasn’t much control over how much fish the dolphins were fed when they came into shore at Monkey Mia and people were allowed to touch the dolphins. They realised that it wasn’t good for their natural hunting abilities and now the volunteers are there to ensure that the dolphins only get fed a very small proportion of their daily requirement so that they still have to go out and hunt, and you aren’t allowed to touch the dolphins but if they swim against you or your leg for example, that’s ok - its all very eco-savvy now. After a relaxing morning on the beach soaking up the sun it was time to move on to head to Ocean Park where we got to see sharks being fed and then headed to Eagles Bluff – one of the windiest places I’ve ever been to and felt like I was going to be blown straight into the sea.

These were all stop offs really to our main destination of the day – Hamelin Pool, a World Heritage Site, to see Stromatolites. What are they you say? Well they are the oldest living organism on earth – only about 3.5 billion years old. Without the stromatolites we wouldn’t be here today as they are responsible for creating enough oxygen for air-breathing life forms to evolve. There are only 3 places in the world where they still exist and the site in Western Australia is the only one that is actually accessible. I have to say – it sounds more interesting than it actually is to see it. When you get there, all you see are these rocks growing out the ground and some bubbles in the water. It was however pretty cool to see it and learn about it and the area was so remote and undeveloped it looked like it could have come straight out of pre-historic times.

Our stop that night was in a farmstay. Our arrival was greated with a paddock full of about 200 kangaroos and joey that the family living there had rescued which I got to have a cuddle of. After a bit of amazing star gazing it was off to bed as we had another very early start in the morning – the best bit of which was the AWESOME sunrise I got to see!

So on our way back to Perth we decided to leave Australia for a couple of hours and headed to the Principality of Hutt River. Ok – so not quite as dramatic as it sounds, however I really did leave Australia and have a stamp in my passport to prove it!

A little excerpt from their website to explain a bit:

The Principality of Hutt River is situated 595 km north of Perth, Western Australia and is about 75 square km in area, consisting of some 18,500 acres of land.


Hutt River is an Independent Sovereign State having seceded from Australia on the Twenty First Day of April 1970 and is of comparable size to Hong Kong (not the New Territories).


The Principality consists of undulating farmland well covered in places with a wealth of shrubs and glorious wildflowers.

Hutt River is basically a farm. Many years ago when the government was putting restrictions on farmers in the area as to what they could and couldn’t grow and was causing them untold problems, this farmer decided to take a stand and declare himself independent of Australia which meant he could grow what he liked. Of course, it wasn’t quite as simple as that, Prince Ron is a very very intelligent man as, if it was easy, more people would do this. He has established his own post office, government office, church, etc, you name it, he has it! A very odd quirk of Australia to visit!

By the time we got to Hutt River we were heading back home towards Perth. Our last stop was at a lovely Wildlife Park where I got to feed Kangaroos, amongst other more “normal” animals! Oh and nearly had a very close encounter with a brown snake that they found in the grounds whilst I was there. I returned back to the hostel weary and tired but having thoroughly enjoyed seeing quite a bit of Western Australia!

Not too long after my trip north of Perth in April 2010, Tami, Chelsey and I decided to head 200km south of Perth to a place called Bunbury where you can go dolphin watching and swim with them if you want to. We hired a cheapo car - Hyundi Getz and I drove it. It was the first time I had driven a manual for about 2 or 3 years so kind of bumpy initially, and it was about 8 months since I had driven at all! It helps that in Aus you drive on the left so its not that different to being at home.

We went out on a boat for a few hours to see the dolphins and Tami paid to go into the water as well to try and swim with them but unfortunately they weren't having any of it and didn't come close to anyone. I chose not to go in as the water was FREEZING even with a wetsuit on! As the dolphins didn’t go near the people in the water I actually got to see a lot more from the boat. it was amazing seeing them in the wild and jumping in and out of the water.

My next big adventure was my Visa run to New Zealand in August 2010. Why did I have to do a visa run? Well all because I never planned on staying in Australia as long as I did, or being away for so long in total. I applied for all my visas before I left the UK in August 2009 which means you have to enter the country for Australia and New Zealand within 1 year of being granted the visa. With my original plan, it wasn’t a problem. Now, as I was wanting to stay in Australia until December/January it was a major problem. I had to fly to New Zealand or loose my working holiday visa! New Zealand is a pretty far away place to get to from Perth – a good 10 hours or so flying time! Luckily, I managed to change the portion of my round the world ticket that was flying me from Sydney to Christchurch to go from Perth so all I had to do was pay a bit extra and then buy my flight back.

As it happened – my little jaunt to Christchurch worked out perfectly. Rachel, a friend I made in Perth had left Australia and was working in Christchurch, and Amanda, my flatmate who is really close to Rachel decided she wanted to a break as well and decided to join me. Unfortunately – we ended up on different flights but all ended up together in Christchurch!

So what did i get up to? Well the journey over was a nightmare – Never again will I do a night flight unless I have to due to the length of the flight. I only got a couple of hours sleep so was shattered when I arrived. I had decided to book myself a private room whilst I was there and I was so happy I did - I was able to check in straight away as the room was ready, so went and got brekkie and then went to bed for 4 hours! It was a bit of a waste of a day as I woke up about 2pm and didn’t end up leaving the Hostel till about 4pm.

Well – the weather in Christchurch in the winter is slightly cooler than Perth to say the least – it was like a proper winter! I had a little exploration of Christchurch for an hour or so and then headed to the pub that Rachel is working in to meet her and Amanda. We had a very quiet evening and went to bed early enough as we were still exhausted.

I woke up really early the following day and knew that Amanda wanted to sleep in and wasn’t bothered about sightseeing so I went off to happily explore on my own for the day. Christchurch is a very pretty city but also very very quiet. I was surprised how few people I saw out and about in the streets. There is a lovely feel to the place though and has a great arts side to it which I really enjoyed. Later on I met up with Amanda where we went out on a last minute panic mission to find Rachel a bikini as we were driving to Hamner Springs the next day.

We were up early the next day to head out to the airport to go and pick up the hire car to drive up to Hamner Springs. They are natural springs 1.5 hours north of Christchurch. Its in a resort area which is very pretty and the springs are lovely and hot but it wasn’t quite as natural as I was expecting in terms of the setting but it was a lovely day relaxing in the hot water surrounded by snow capped mountains. It was worth it was a day out though especially with the amazing scenery we saw on the drive up there.

We were planning a "big night" for saturday but we were so relaxed and tired we managed to go for a lovely italian meal which ended up quite boozy where I had the biggest bowl of New Zealand Green Mussels I have ever seen! They were delicious and I can’t wait to get back there and eat more of them!

I was planning to do another day trip the following day but the weather was turning a bit dodgy and they weren’t sure if they were going to be running shuttles to Akaroa where I wanted to do a nature cruise, and if the weather was dodgy there wasn't going to be much to see anyway. I decided to have a lay in on sunday and then go to the Art Gallery and have more of a wonder around Christchurch (again amanda was still in bed!!) you must be wondering why she came - it was to sightsee the pubs not the town ;-) sorry Amanda if you read this!

It was our final night in Christchurch so we headed out for a few drinks and cocktails and a bit of a party – the next day I headed for my plane back to sunny Perth with a slightly sore head!

My return from New Zealand coincided with me only have a couple of weeks left at my 6 month job in Perth which I was a little sad about leaving as I had enjoyed working there and settled in. It also meant it was time for me to buckle down and start planning all the other fun things that I wanted to do!

One of these things was making it down to Margaret River the major wine region in WA! How could I possibly not go there? Well it was an interesting weekend to say the least which had its ups and its downs but I ended up having a brilliant time!

Aoife, one of the girls that I met in Laos and was with in Phi Phi had arrived in Perth, and some of her work colleagues were going down to Margaret River so she invited us along to join them all. Unfortunately they weren’t the friendliest and most welcoming of people. I’d known that they hadn’t wanted to “organise” everybody but they didn’t even seem to want to bother including us. I should have realised on the Friday night when we got there and I asked one of them who had just been to the bottle shop to come with me in the car to direct me as I wasn’t confident where I was going in the dark and none of them could be bothered to get up and come with.

So, although we had all driven 3 hours or so from Perth to one of the countries biggest wine regions, none of the other girls apart from Aoife, Amanda and myself wanted to pay to do a wine tour. That weekend was the weekend of the AFL Grand Final so they all wanted to go to the pub on the Saturday to watch it, even though they aren’t into the footie. Us 3 decided to leave them to it and booked ourselves on the Wine for Dudes tour which was great fun and I ended up trying so many nice wines I finished the day with about 8 bottles or so! We headed back to the hostel after the tour to freshen up and then headed into “town” to meet the girls for more drinks! That evening they seemed to disappear off from us again so I didn’t even socialise with them then but again – I still had plenty of fun with Aoife and Amanda!

The next day there was talk of going on a Sunday session at a place called the Castle. The only issue it was a 30 minute drive away and of course, no public transport to get us there. I had no idea what the plans were as the girls weren’t really saying anything – I was just told to get up and be ready to go out in an hours time…..which I did – only to sit around waiting for the others for the next couple of hours. It turned out that none of them wanted to share the cost of a taxi there (about $8 each so not too much) and wanted 2 of us to drive, leave the cars there overnight and then one of them would drive back the next day to pick the cars up. I was not up for this seeing as I was driving a hire car with a $3,000 excess, and one of the other girls didn’t really want to leave her car there either. It didn’t hugely bother me as I wasn’t too bothered about driving all the way to this place just to go for drinks when there was plenty of bars within walking distance. However, Aoife did want to go with them but it turned out that none of them wanted to compromise and share the cost of a taxi and they ended up squeezing 5 of them into the one car and going anyway. It did put a small spoiler on things for a short while but Amanda and I were determined to have a fun time which we certainly did as we headed down into town for more drinks – turned out we had the right idea all along as 3 hours later the girls had driven back to town as they didn’t want to leave the car there either! Unfortunately, the next day – I had to drive us all back up to Perth on a hangover!

I was very lucky that before I left Perth to hit the road, it was whale watching season! Both Claire and I were between jobs so we decided on one lovely Friday to book ourselves on a tour to go whale watching and what a sight it was!!! We must have seen half a dozen whales whilst we were out there and they really are something you need to see to be believed!

Next up….I hit the road – well the air – to Adelaide!

Singapore Sling

The Famous Singapore Sling

So I left Aoife in Phi Phi and flew off to Singapore….I was feeling pretty knackered after my time on Phi Phi so took a taxi from the aiport to the hostel that I booked which I have to say was one of the worst ones I stayed in for the price I was paying.  Unfortunately I didn’t manage to enjoy Singapore that much as I was tired the whole time.  I did a night flight from Krabi to Singapore so was pretty shattered and unfortunately there was a girl in the room who insisted on sleeping with the window open – which in the middle of Singapore is kinda noisy (we had air con on too!) so I was pretty damn tired the whole entire time. 

Singapore wasn’t all bad though!  The location was pretty good and central and near to a metro so I did get out to explore.  I attempted to go to Little India one evening and it really was like being back in Delhi.  The streets were heaving but so much so I didn’t have the energy to deal with it so didn’t spend long exploring unfortunately.

I managed to get to the main shopping area (of course!) but it was quite interesting as its all enormous shopping malls which are linked under ground to each other and I did do a fair bit of walking about the city sightseeing and I managed a visit to the Raffles Hotel for the traditional Singapore sling!  Totally overpriced but a lovely cocktail nonetheless.  It was amusing that nearly everybody who went into the bar ordered the same thing and were all doing the touristy thing like me, very few looked like they were actually staying in the hotel itself!

Me in Raffles

What else can I tell you about Singapore?  Not a huge amount, it was VERY hot and humid, it was very clean and it seemed ok but I was so tired the whole time I didn’t enjoy myself.  I didn’t even make it on a night safari at the zoo!  Would I go back? Yes! But maybe with someone else, and maybe when I am less tired! Once again it was time to move on to the next adventure- Perth, Australia….on another overnight flight!

The last of S.E. Asia - Krabi and Koh Phi Phi

So my time in Perth is coming to an end and I’m about to pack everything I own into a small bag again and say bye bye WA…..hello the rest of Australia!

I know I haven’t written anything for months, and of course I have forgotten lots of details but I thought I would take this opportunity to reflect on the last 10 months as I’ve only told you about up until the start of January this year!  So to remind you – I left you in Koh Tao and my next stop was Krabi with Aoife. 

Koh Tao had been a fantastic place to spend a week or so getting into the real party spirit of Thailand and also a nice change for having to meet people all the time to go out with – I had ready made party friends right there! 

However, after my break on antibiotics and then the partying to make up for it – I needed another rest!  So off to Krabi Town Aiofe and I headed.  After a long long boat ride back to Koh Samui, and another overnight stay (a pretty mild night apart from Aiofe attempting to hustle the thai kids hustling tourists to play connect 4 against them for money),we headed off to the airport and said bye bye to Amanda at Koh Samui Airport where she headed off to Kuala Lumpar and Aiofe and I jumped on a plan to Krabi.

We arrived in Krabi and headed for the cheapest transport transfer option of a minibus which will drop you at your hotel or at the beach for boats which take you to another amazing beach resort.  Aoife had to get on a plane herself the next day to head also to Kuala Lumpar so that she could extend her thai visa for another 30 days by flying back into Thailand.   That was our main reason for stopping in Krabi on our way to Phi Phi as the town itself isn’t all that great.  We had already booked ourselves in to a hotel in the middle of town and gave the information to the minibus people and headed off.  As usual there was the normal confusion at one end of whether we should be getting off or not as they started to unload our bags outside this shop in town.  EVENTUALLY it became apparent that they wanted to transfer us and our bags into the back of a pickup truck to transfer us to our hotel – what style! This was another one which didn’t have even bench seats in the back – it was just the back of the truck and we ended up sitting on top of our backpacks and hanging on for dear life.  I was kind of used to it by then having spent a good month or so travelling around Asia by that point.

We finally arrived at our hotel and it wasn’t all bad – it had air con, comfy beds and a proper bathroom and tv albeit a bit tatty around the edges.  It was advertised with a bar/nightclub as well……..I peeked in one night and it was full of the locals and some dodgy thai’s singing – we decided not to venture in for a drink – it looked quite shabby and dodgy!  So what was Krabi town like? Well a bit boring really.  I even attempted to find somewhere to get a pedicure and found it impossible – nearly unheard of in most of the places I had been to in Asia . Aiofe and I decided to use it as downtime to recover before heading to Phi Phi fully recovered to attempt scuba diving.  Aiofe headed off for her flight the next day and I was left to my own devices…….I explored the town and found it slightly lacking!  The best bit about it was going to the night market with Aiofe the evening we arrived for dinner.  MEAT ON A STICK GALORE!  Full of stalls cooking fresh food on order and loads of locals sitting there eating away.  I ended up filling my time sleeping in and sitting in cafes write to all you lot!  She arrived back from KL and we headed off the next day on our adventure to Phi Phi Island! 

So first off – yes – I do think that Phi Phi is possibly over touristy, yes – I do think that 10 years ago it was probably so much better…..BUT! I loved it!  You arrive at the harbour which is pretty basic apart from a very long pier leading you out to the boats.  Get off and are confronted with loads of touts either trying to get you to go to that hotel or to meet you as you have pre-booked. 

We had decided to pre-book somewhere for just the first two nights after our experience in Koh Tao!  It was still pretty soon after new years so it was massively busy everywhere and still high season prices.  Having looked around beforehand some of the prices were ridiculously high and it was really hard to find anything under 2000baht – that’s about £40 so quite expensive for Thailand.  A lot of places were much much higher than that.  Whilst in Krabi Town I had done loads of research on all the places recommended in Lonely Planet and on other places on the internet and it was hard to find anywhere and when you called them they didn’t speak enough English if they even answered the phone!

I ended up getting a local agent to book us a room in a place called Uphill Cottage.  It had an en-suite inside bathroom with hot water and air con! Bliss but expensive at 1600 bath a night – 800 each – that’s a whole £15 a night each!  It definitely blew my budget and I became an official flashpacker, but it was well worth the money!!!

So we found our guide on the pier at the harbour and he led us into the start of the town and told us to wait for him there as he went off to round up more people he was “picking up”.  After dragging a few more similarly bemused looking tourists over he started loading our packs onto what can only be described as a large trolley.  On and on they went and we were told to follow him. 

Phi Phi has no roads, no cars and very very very few motorbikes.  The walkways are fairly small lined with shops and restaurants and plenty of tourists and loads of locals on pushbikes. (at the end we weren’t sure what was worse – motorbikes that you could hear or pushbikes that you couldn’t!).  

It’s a real assault to the senses arriving and following the man with your bag quickly down loads of little streets and trying to remember which way you are going and taking in everything that’s going on around you.  We started dropping people off at different places along the way and me and Aiofe kept going.  I started to think..whoops have we made the wrong choice….we are heading so far away from everything……but no we certainly hadn’t!  We finally ended up at the end of the path at the bottom of a hill where the reception was in a little hut.  We got checked in and then hiked our way up the steps to our “Uphill Cottage”. 

We were tucked away in the corner and had no view to speak of from our terrace with two little chairs out the front.  Our room was one of the best we had stayed in – very comfy beds and the place looked practically new!  Whilst we were there we had cleaning every day (or would have done if we had gotten out of bed early enough!) and it was just so comfy and – quiet – especially at night.  Well apart from the monkeys that ran across the roof sometimes!  The thing was – that long walk that made us think we were away from everything was great – most of the accommodation was really close to all the bars and the night went on really late sometimes so an early night was impossible in some areas.  We were only an extra 5 minutes walk in reality so it was well worth it for a bit of peace and quiet sometimes!  Believe me, it did happen on our 10 night stay in Phi Phi.

  

The plan was to head out the next day to find somewhere else to stay that was cheaper…..never as easy as it sounds.  We did find quite a few places, but they were so shabby and horrible and dirty compared to where we were we couldn’t help but carry on and shell out paying for Uphill Cottage and managed to negotiate a discount to 1500 a night!

Phi Phi is a small place especially the area we stayed in – Ton Sai Bay, there are two main beaches, and neither are that amazing to swim in. One side where the harbour is, is full of boats (of course) and the other side has a beautiful view but the sea is very shallow for ages out and isn’t very clear.  The main town is just shops and tour companies and restaurants and bars. 

Aoife and I spent our time firstly focussing on sorting out something for a scuba diving course.  We spent a fair while going around the different companies asking them what the deal was.  All of them offered the same thing so it was working out which one we liked.  We ended up going to one where my brother-in- law knows someone.  A girl he met when travelling around the world.  She was working in a scuba diving place in Phi Phi.

Well we went there and got our books and spent all night studying.  We passed our first exam the next day and headed out to try the equipment just off the beach.  We struggled our way into a wetsuits and had to poke a hose down them to soak us through before we went outside in them and boiled.  It was only a few minutes walk from the scuba place to the beach but it felt like hours – it was well over 30c in the wetsuits and the tanks weighed a lot!  We had to get into the water and start practicing all different manoeuvres.  Unfortunately it was at this point I discovered that scuba diving is not for me L.  I couldn’t control myself in the water with the tank and the flippers and really didn’t like it.  I attempted to put my head under the water to use the regulater and mask and didn’t like that either – although I did get to see a few fishes for a few seconds!  I ended up having to get out of the sea and trek back to change and wait for Aoife.  I was disappointed that I didn’t like it but I just couldn’t do it. 

Aoife came back and had been having great fun learning and had gotton all the manoeuvres right so she could go and do her final exam that evening and then go on the boat the next day.  She went out diving and successfully did her padi!  We watched the video in the place and it was amazing.  So……..it had been about a week since we had left Koh Tao and it was time to head to some bars!

What can I tell you about the rest of our time in Phi Phi?  Of course there was plenty of eating and drinking.  The food was fantastic – a mixture of our meat on a stick and various other mysterious things from the stalls on the streets, to little restaurants serving fantastic thai dishes to a good ole burger (its nice to mix it up a bit!).  We discovered a rooftop Banana Bar

 Which became a firm favourite of ours with amazing Magaritas for less than £3!  Very cute and nice bar staff and a good vibe.  It was only open until 12 or so though so after that it was time to head down to the beach to another bar, the name escapes me at the moment, which is where we usually hung out to finish off the night.  There were trips to other bars, trailing down the beach, trips to another bar in the centre, the Regae Bar in particular which is where Lou and Yazz met all those years ago, and we watching 3 year old boys thai boxing.  Chris, who I met in Pai ended up in Phi Phi at the same time as us and we ended up meeting up with him for a drink too. 

 

 Of course, however, a trip to Phi Phi cannot be complete without a trip to Maya Beach.  It’s a cliché but it had to be done.  We chose to go out on one of the smaller boats- a traditional thai boat.  I think there was about 10 of us in it, plus our slightly dodgy looking captain.  We sailed out and visited lots of different bays and lagoons on the way to Maya Beach and then when we arrived we could just explore for a bit.  Its fairly developed in that there are signs saying this way to this, and that….

 But other than that there isn’t much there at all.  A few sandy paths and that’s about it.  The bay itself is very pretty but you don’t get a sunset from it.  You all get back into the boats and head back to watch the sunset, all in all a lovely day and a lovely place to visit. 

 Aoife and I had great fun in our 10 days or so on Phi Phi but by the end of we both needed a rest from all the partying.  Aoife was heading to Koh Lanta for a more peaceful time on some of the other islands whilst it was time for me to start heading even further south to Singapore to get me one step closer to Australia!