Ko Phi Phi, Ko Lanta and Railay

We fly into Phuket in Southern Thailand and spend one night in Phuket Town. Here, we meet an Argentinian called Mariano at the airport, who becomes the first of many lone travellers to join us on our island hop. From Phuket we get a boat over to Ko Phi Phi. It's a beautiful set of islands, with magnificent lime stone cliffs, white sandy beaches, blue blue water, no cars and all the tourists. This is well known as some of the most spectacular islands, plus it has the bay where The Beach was filmed, so it's a bit of a crowd puller. It's hard not to be reminded of the tsunami in the town. Phi Phi's town was hit quite bad, had to be rebuilt and now has evacuation routes clearly marked. We get a tour around the islands on a longboat and do snorkelling (oh so many fish), relaxing on beaches and spot the monkeys on Monkey Beach. We finish with our boat put-put-putting over to Ko Phi Phi Leh, the uninhabited island that Maya Bay is on where The Beach is filmed. And yes, it is stunning. The whole area is a marine Park and they do seem to be making a big effort to keep its natural beauty, despite the number of tourists visiting.

A group of us head over to another island Ko Lanta. This island feels entirely different. It's long, with a road with hotels off it all the way down the coast. It feels more like Europe, which is perhaps why we didn't settle there. We stay in a bamboo hut there and when we first walk in there is a huge gecko on the wall. Massive. I quite like it though, so don't mind. But the nature in our hut does not end there. We spot more smaller geckos, cockroaches, a snake(!) in the bathroom and a rat! The rat is a step too far for us, on our last night we return to find its droppings on the bed. Definitely need somewhere concrete next! The huge gecko meanwhile lives in the roof and occasionally makes a very loud noise that sounds like "geck-oooooo geck-ooooo geck-oooooo"! While we're staying on Ko Lanta it's Loy Krathong Day, when people in Thailand float little boats made of coconuts and leaves with candles on out to sea. I light one and send it on its way.

From Ko Lanta we head over to the mainland, to Railay. Railay is on a peninsular, so feels like you're on an island and it is absolutely stunning. Although, we arrived on a low tide to the muddy side in the rain, which didn't really show it in its best light. There are huge (even more magnificent) limestone cliffs all around here, making it very popular with rock climbers. Here's me and Alex with Mariano, our Argentinian friend on one of the many sandy beaches.

A rainy day means we set our sights on exploring some of the caves. There's one that's very dark, with a quartz 'waterfall' and has a little cluster of bats hanging from the ceilings. And another by the sea that has become a shrine for the fishermen. I think they're thanking someone for the fish, but look closely, it's quite an interesting choice of symbol they have gone for. The last cave we find is absolutely huge and involves a lot of clambering and climbing, but well worth it.

Railay is somewhere I'd gladly stay longer and want to come back to, but time is short, so we're heading over to the potentially worse weather of the East Coast tomorrow. It has been raining on and off here for the last two days though, so we'll take our chances.