travel

Total distance traveled: 1132 km (704.4 mi)
Days: 20

Cities visited: 7 - Lang Suan, Surat Thani, Phang-Nga, Phuket Town, Kata Beach (Phuket), Patong (Phuket), Krabi
Islands visited: 5* - Koh Panyi, Phuket, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Phangan, Koh Tao (*8 if you include James Bond Island and two unknown islands where our boat landed and we disembarked for an hour or less around Phang-Nga)
Caves visited: 4 - Khao Kriap (near Lamae), Wat Thaksinawat (Phang-Nga), Wat Tham Seua (Krabi), Khao Pina (near Trang)

Most expensive meal: 190 baht for a McDonald's Chicken Sandwich Supers

It's off season on Koh Phi Phi. Which is good. Perhaps because of this, despite what the Lonely Planet had led me to believe, we're able to find affordable accommodation in a bamboo bungalow up on a hillside. But even so, it's difficult to navigate our bicycles through the throngs of people on the paths around the "Tourist Village". It's hard to imagine how crowded this place must be in peak season.

But now, it's nice. Busy and bustly enough to feel like a holiday and to gather a sizeable crowd to pack the dance space for the late-night beach parties.

It's 6:15 a.m. when I knock on S's door. It's the second time that morning. We're at a small hotel in the middle of nowhere, more or less. We're outside the little village of Ban Ta Khun, 55 kilometeres from Khao Sok National Park and at least as many from Surat Thani, where we came from yesterday.

We had stopped in the village the evening before, having been drawn in by a festival at a temple next to the road.

"Let's check it out," I'd suggested, on seeing the people and the dancers as we rode past. "Just for a little while."

"Okay. Ten minutes?" S had agreed.