Oh,Koh Lipe. I remember like it was yesterday. The powdery sand, turquoise water, awesome people and my bracelet which I bought there and I still wear it every day as a reminder of ‘my’ beautiful little island. ☺️

‘I am very sorry that I left you without reading for such a long time but we spent 3 days on the most beautiful island I’ve been on and internet wasn’t exactly good. Where was I last time? Yes, we went island hopping. I’m not sure if I mentioned but we wanted to stay on Phi Phi island but we thought it’s too expansive. Well,I think we made the right decision. Don’t get me wrong, Phi Phi is beautiful but it’s too big which means hundreds of tourists…and the part where wouldn’t be too many, it is the one which is extremely expensive ( I mean for our budget right now). First we went to Bamboo island which was a very small island but so beautiful with its white,sandy beach and turquoise water. We spent there about an hour so we could swim and sunbathe. It was the first time I saw a jelly fish warning sign so I was very aware of what’s around me in the water. Last thing I’d want is to get stung by a jelly fish. Then we went to an other island, wasn’t as nice as the first, we stopped in a bay where we could snorkel. It was great. And then we went to Maya Bay. I mean….it was crowded. But when I say crowded,I don’t even mean the hundreds of people,but the boat people arrived on. It was like 50 boat just stopped one by one plus the hundreds of people…it wasn’t what you would expect. We tried to take some photos with the least people in but it wasn’t easy. We went for a little wonder as I wasn’t keen on the crowd and we found the rock where Leonardo DiCarprio jumped off from (The Beach movie) and it was beautiful. No people and the little bay was fantastic.

As we went back, something happened, literally about 10 boat left and I could actually take photos without people and boats. And now I could see the beauty in the bay. ☺️ The last stop was Phi Phi and as I mentioned, we weren’t extremely keen on. It’s nice if you first go on an island like that but we have seen much nicer places before. We went back to the hostel which was my least favourite ever. There were literally no people behind reception. And when they did go, they weren’t helpful. We found a massive cockroach running on the floor in the room so I was happy we left the next day. Basically we met like 4-5 really rude people in the whole place,didn’t like it at all.

We went to Koh Lipe. Ferry took ages. It supposed to be a 2.5 hours trip, it turned into about 3.5. We had to change buses and ferries twice and then we had to pay for a boat taxi to the beach as the big boat couldn’t go off shore. We went the wrong way on the island to our hostel, so basically the 12 mins walk took about 30mins, again on the hottest time. ☺️ Our hostel wasn’t a hostel but a campsite (£16/2xnights). It had little bungalows and tents. We took a tent as it was way cheaper. The island itself is fairly expensive for accommodations. But the campsite was great. It was in the woods so it had the authentic look. The sink was made of a massive oyster shell, the water came out from a bamboo stick and we had a BBQ in the middle. The common area was like a gallery and everything was made of wood. The 2 lady there were hilarious,probably the best hosts we had so far. I couldn’t really sleep for the 2 nights as it wasn’t comfy plus it was very humid. The beach…the best beach I’ve seen. It was 5mins walk from our accommodation and it has white sand which felt like powder and the sea was turquoise and there were corals everywhere within 5 steps in the water. All sort of coloured fish were swimming in between the corals and the beach was busy enough to have a good atmosphere but not even close to too much. In the evening it was very nice, bars all around, we watched the sunset in one of the beach bars while the guy was doing tricks with fire sticks. It was so relaxing,like there is no trouble in the world and it was just so nice and peaceful. It’s my favourite place, I didn’t want to leave that treasure island today. If you can ever go there,I promise you, you will love it. People are very nice, smiling and saying hi. However, it isn’t cheap. Food was more expensive than on main land but it wasn’t something we couldn’t afford. Normally a fried rice meal or pad Thai would cost 50baht, it was 80 and over here. We basically spent 2 days on the beach… well,would have spent it under the sun but yesterday it went cloudy and very stormy. It was still nice enough to stay around ☺️ Today morning I had to say goodbye from my little island to start a new chapter, in Malaysia. Ferry took about 1.5 hours to Langkawi which is a bigger island just by the Thai and Malaysian border. Thai people couldn’t really get close to my heart, they probably my least favourite from all the Asian ones so far even though we did meet with a few very nice Thai people.

Ferry ticket cost 800 baht/ person. We had to stamp out from Thailand which we could do by the ferry office in Koh Lipe. We then just walked through the Malaysian border and got a 30 days visa for no extra fee. The first thing I saw as I walked out was a warning of the Zikka virus. Great, I thought… As we didn’t know where we are exactly and didn’t book any hostel (I did have one in my iPad just in case), we took a taxi for 40ringgit and got to the ‘centre’ in about 30 mins. Malaysia’s money is the Malaysian Ringgit, £1 = 5.5ringgit. As we got out from the taxi we started to walk down on the Main Street trying to find a place we could eat and use wifi to check hostels. We spent 92 Ringgit in a Mexican restaurant, we didn’t know if it’s expensive or not at that time -now we know it isn’t the cheapest- and then we got to my chosen hostel (£8/night). It’s a very nice hostel, the receptionist is a very kind and nice man. I had a little chat with him and he told me he is from Pakistan,lives here for 4 years now. Speaks their language and a very good English. As soon as we got the room key, we had a shower and then Rich collapsed in bed. I was checking stuff we could do online when I’ve heard a very loud noise. I opened the door and saw a very heavy, pouring rain. It was very refreshing. After the rain has gone, we went to ask the guy about trips and so on. We booked a 6 hours boat trip in the mangrove forest (90ringgit/person), a night bus to Kuala Lumpur in 2 days (80ringgit/person) and we realised that we booked the cheapest bus and trip we have had in the last 6 weeks. It actually isn’t that expensive here as we later found out walking around. We had a nice walk by the beach which has the same sand as my lovely beach back in Koh Lipe but it was a bit wet after the rain. The beach is fairly long and again, it’s very nice, not too touristy. We had a nice dinner -accidentally in the very same restaurant as before- and we are pretty ready now to have a good sleep…well,I definitely am ready after the last 2 nights. Tomorrow we set off at 9am to our nice trip. We are also planning to go to the cable car which meant to be the steepest in Asia and a skyline bridge just below it. Either tomorrow or the day after as we have time before we head to Kuala Lumpur.

We did have a few disagreements with Rich since I last write you but we are still fine and haven’t killed each other ☺️ yet…. 😁😁’