Phi Phi Viewpoint

We climbed 1000 feet and many hundreds of stairs to reach the Phi Phi Lookout. It was HOT. The funny thing is that we started the morning being very lazy. The walk from the breakfast buffet back to our hotel room to retrieve our towels sounded too taxing, so we decided to buy new sarongs on our way to the lookout. You can see that all of the development on Phi Phi is on one very narrow strip of land. From this vantage point, it's easy to visualize how a tsunami could wipe the place out.

From the lookout, we then hiked down the other side of the mountain to a more remote beach area called Rantee Bay. I would not have done this if I knew how strenuous it would be. There was not much of a path and bikinis and flip-flops were not appropriate attire. It was really steep in places and there wasn't much to grab onto. We walked through clouds of mosquitoes and piles of ants. If I end up with a tropical disease, it will have been contracted there. When we finally reached the beach, we jumped right into the water.

There was no way we were climbing back up that mountain so we took a longboat taxi back to the "town" pier. This is the main mode of transportation on the islands... a cheap and easy way to get from point A to point B and it's also very scenic!