The Beach

Koh Phi Phi is actually two islands about 2 hours on the ferry from Phuket. The uninhabited one (Koh Phi Phi Leh) is where they filmed the movie 'The Beach'. The other one is a lovely island but unfortunately lots of the buildings were washed away by the tsunami 2 years ago and while everything has been rebuilt it hasn't been done neatly. It's a bit ramshackle in places with piles of building supplies behind and between various bars and guesthouses.
I planned to stayed 3 nights on Koh Phi Phi and ended up actually doing that. Although I did change accomodation after the first night. Koh Phi Phi is a fun island with a lot of young people partying and enjoying themselves. Accomodation ranged from expensive to really cheap. Probably 500B a night if you looked around. I paid a little extra and got a place with a pool on the second night. I had stood on a rock at the beach on the first day and wanted to swim but didn't want to get any sand in the cuts :-(
Cutting the bottom of my foot slowed me down a bit so I mostly relaxed for the days I was there. There were some really nice bars on the island but they were well balanced by a lot of other places as well. There was a place called 'The Reggae Bar' where they had amateur thai boxing. Essentially the staff went around and convinced pairs of totally inexperienced people in the bar to put on some gloves and a helmet and hit each other. For entertaining everybody else the combatants each got free alcohol.
Ultimately Koh Phi Phi was very fun but again a little light on cultural sights. I spent my last afternoon walking over the hill at the back of the tourist areas and found myself on the other side of the island on a beach with about 10 other people spread along 200 meters. I was pretty happy that I had brought swimmers and a towel. This picture doesn't really do it justice.