Day 9.

Arrive Ko Phi Phi around noon, which lives up to its reputation and more, is one of the most astoundingly beautiful places I've seen.

Accidentally stumble upon Viking Beach Resort by 1 pm, and think I am the most fortunate person ever. In most ways I am - I get an adorable little beach side bungalow on a little point, so amazing views all around, great atmosphere, private beach, nice staff, clean bathrooms, fairly low price. And I'm just in time for the afternoon snorkel tour.

My bungalow

View from my bungalow. Seriously.

Tour starts off with a swim in this lagoon which is absolutely amazing. The water is nice and cool, and I lie on my back for a good 5-10 minutes looking at the cliffs and watching some birds of prey coming and going from their nests.

Lagoon

Cool cliff

We move somewhere else to begin the snorkeling, and our guide gives us pieces of bread to feed the fish, which I'm first kind of dubious about but it turns out to be really fun and those fish are greedy little buggers. They confuse my hand for bread on a few occasions, but it's cool because I get to touch them. Once the bread is used up we move on to some real snorkeling. Saw lots of fish including some great big angel fish, but the coral and sea anemones were the most exciting part to me. I'd never seen so many different colors before.

Looking down from our boat

Come back to Viking Beach after watching the sunset, shower and have some dinner before retiring to bed to read, where there is a nice cool cross breeze from the ocean and no mosquitos. Go to sleep very proud of myself for having found such an amazing place.

Day 10.

Wake up in the morning to my astounding view, get up out of bed and discover I am covered head to toe with bug bites. Not mosquito bites either. At first I am very zen about it and decide that it's acceptable for staying in that amazing place. I'd just finished this section in Kerouac's On the Road Again and was inspired:

"Stan was stretched on the front seat of the Ford with both doors open for a draft, but there wasn't even the faintest puff of a wind. I, in the back seat, suffered in a pool of sweat. I got out of the car and stood swaying in the blackness. The whole town had instantly gone to bed; the only noise now was barking dogs. How could I ever sleep? Thousands of mosquitoes had already bitten all of us on chest and arms and ankles. Then a bright idea came to me: I jumped up on the steel roof of the car and stretched out flat on my back. Still there was no breeze, but the steel had an element of coolness in it and dried my back of sweat, clotting up thousands of dead bugs into cakes on my skin, and I realized the jungle takes you over and you become it. Lying on the top of the car with my face to the black sky was like lying in a closed trunk on a summer night. For the first time in my life the weather was not something that touched me, that caressed me, froze or sweated me, but became me. The atmosphere and I became the same. Soft infinitesimal showers of microscopic bugs fanned down on my face as I slept, and they were extremely pleasant and soothing. The sky was starless, utterly unseen and heavy. I could lie there all night long with my face exposed to the heavens, and it would do me no more harm than a velvet drape drawn over me. The dead bugs mingled with my blood; the live mosquitoes exchanged further portions; I began to tingle all over and to smell of the rank, hot, and rotten jungle, all over from hair and face to feet and toes. Of course I was barefoot. To minimize the sweat I put on my bug-smeared T-shirt and lay back again."

So I was zen for about 20 minutes - the bug bites didn't so much itch - yet - until I went down to the bathroom where there was better light and saw that the bug bites were also all over my face. Something about that freaked me out, and mission "zen" turned into mission "get me out of here!"

So I hopped a ferry shortly after to Phuket in search of some less buggy, if not as perfectly amazing in every other way, digs. Spend a fairly uneventful night in Phuket town while I plan my next adventures.