At 6:50am our transfer arrived to take us to the Pier. Near Na Thon we were piled into an air-conditioned tour bus and told we were off to Surat Thani – we didn’t know the journey would happen this way. We were loaded onto a massive car ferry at some remote port – bus and all – and we set off from what took us almost a 2hr crossing to Don Sak. The bus came roaring out of the ferry, loaded us all on again and we continued onto Surat Thani. We (along with one other Aussie/Portuguese couple) were dumped on the side of the road outside some little thatched hut that contained a desk with flyers and a sparsely stocked fridge. A rather stout man, shirtless, with a ‘rolly’ cigarette between his lips approached us and asked, “You go Phi Phi?” and then he indicated for us to take a seat. No explanation about when or where or who or why – just sit and wait. An empty minivan was parked out side and i wondered if it was our ride. The stout man had, in the meantime sat down and continued to watch the local Thai news channel near where we were seated.
Roughly 40 minutes later a very smart Toyota Fortuner pulled up and a fairly wealthy looking Thai man, along with his wife and chubby new born baby stepped out and called us forward to the desk – engine still running. He signed and gave us each a little pink slip of some sort, hopped back into his fancy car and sped off.
The stout man then showed us to the minivan which was parked outside and we were off to Krabi! As there were just the four of us, we had plenty of room, so i decided to stretch out on the back seat and have a nap. I was far away in dream land when all of a sudden the driver slammed on brakes – a dog had run out infront of the van. I went flying off the back seat onto the floor and almost under the seat infront of me where Quint was seated. Somehow my left foot caught on the metal frame of the seat as i went down and it ripped one of my toenails clean off! All arms and legs in tact, we pulled up outside another little open hut – again with 1 desk and 1 fridge. The lady there wanted to see our little pink slips and explained we had an hours wait for our transfer to the pier to catch our boat to Koh Phi Phi. We managed to keep ourselves entertained by doctoring my toenail with all sorts of interesting things in our medical aid kit bag.
Another hair raising ride on the tail-gate of some rusty old pick-up truck and a relatively easy boat ride brought us to the pier on Phi Phi Don. We were collected by a long-tail boat and transported to our bungalow at Ao Toh Ko.
After a good shower and a mountain of food – we fell asleep to the sound of the generator and the squeaking ghekos on our bungalow wall.
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