Ko Phi Phi paradise, much delayed

So I believe I mentioned like eight months ago that I went to heaven on earth.  I needed some time to register what happened.  About time I posted some pictures though, methinks.  This, friends and family (and strangers who've happened upon this blog), is Ko Phi Phi, Thailand.

 

On the approach.  I'd estimate these particular cliffs to be at least three hundred feet.




Tourists arriving at Phi Phi Don.





Ridiculous beach, completely enclosed in horseshoe shaped mountains.  The water was  bathtub warm and crystal clear.  You could walk out for hundreds of yards with the water barely reaching past your waist.  I don't know why the sky looks so gray in this picture, it was never anything but clear blue.





Click on this picture.  Our hotel was a thirty second walk from this spot.  Thus the week was spent primarily shoe free.



This monkey has developed a taste for Coca-Cola.  A palpable example of humanity's befouling interaction with the natural world?  Or awesome.



Snorkeling trip to Phi Phi Leh.  Our boat looked just like the wooden one on the right.




Snorkeling.  I still haven't developed the pictures from my underwater camera (surprised?).  You can see some fish if you look carefully.  They really liked to eat pineapple (the floating bits).  The guides would toss it out and they would come swarming.




I got bit by a fish (maybe it thought I was a piece of pineapple?).  Jaclyn thought it was funny 'til she saw me bleeding.  Then she thought it was hilarious.


 



Us on the beach where they filmed The Beach.  I put on sunscreen probably 4 times a day (spf 50) but I still ended up roasted, as evidenced in this picture.  That's what you get for being so close to the equator.  A small price to pay.



Jaclyn is always at home on a boat, even a jankity wooden skiff.



Me, not so much.

This is the view from the top of the mountain (panorama below).  The beach to the right of the isthmus is the one in the pictures up above.  Almost everything on the isthmus was swept away by the 2004 tsunami, but sprang back up quickly thanks to tourist dollars and donations from good samaritans.  Around the island you could find signs thanking the donors that helped businesses to get back on their feet.  Our hotel survived the destruction and was used as an impromtu hospital.

 

Quite the vista.



One more for good measure.

Valentine's Day dinner in paradise.  It was a really nice restaurant, with our table directly on the beach.  But for whatever reason the food was crap.  We got a pizza afterwards.





Sunset on the water.