The Beach

Just a few miles off the coast of Phi Phi Don is the tiny 4 square mile island of Koh Phi Phi Ley, an uninhabited island that was unknown and unremarkable until Hollywood descended in the late eighties the film "The Beach".

Since then both islands have been the target of thousands of avid tourists seeking that perfect Caribbean-style idyll of a deserted, pristine, perfect beach.

I remains an uninhabited island by both day trippers and overnight campers travel there in droves. I have decided to become one of the latter and sleep on The Beach.

The journey was a classic Thai experience. Halfway out from the pier the captain decided (rightly) that the boat was too small for the 30 of us and all the equipment, so we jumped ship, pirate style to a converted fishing boat pictured below.

That boat then broke down not once , not twice but three times on the 40 minute journey!

We finally made it a couple of hours before sun set with the option of swimming ashore or kayaking around the bay.

As I mentioned before I swim like an articulated lorry, so the prospect of swimming the mile or so into shore in water 10m deep did not appeal. By contrast clambering from the Titanic onto a sea kayak, fully clothed with my camera in the same 10 metre water was a positive thrill.

Fortunately years of heavy drinking prepared me fully for situations that combine moving surfaces and a near total lack of balance. The sheer dread of capsizing saw me cutting through the water in my kayak like a ruddy torpedo.

Eventually the day trippers left and we 30 brave few had the beach to ourselves; as you can image quite a few asked for my autograph, I was able to put them straight on the fact that I am not in fact Leonardo, first thing in the morning.

Tents were set up and the BBQ and most importantly the portable bar. I'm sure I don't need top paint you a picture, but those buckets of Sansong (Thai whisky) and coke stack up pretty quickly, especially with lager chasers.

The highlight for me was swimming in the phosphorescent algae, beneath a perfect clear night sky.......before passing out cold on the beach.

I find it ironic that following the uproar about the ecological damaged caused by the filiming (the film company actually had the audacity to plant real trees on the island) not one word is now being said about the significant damaged caused by thousands of littering tourists that decend on the beach every week.

Anyway.....crikey, that rock looks like a gigantic penis!

Join me for more intellectual humour next time from Koh Lanta.

Next: Koh Lanta

Take care all.

Mr C