Monkey Beach, PhiPhi Island, Thailand

The monkey's get their own entry. I can row to this beach in about fifteen minutes from where Pelican is currently anchored.

South Pacific Flashback

Now that I've been in Asia for a bit, I am seeing the South Pacific in a whole new light. The island I am currently on, PhiPhi, is like a disneyland for twentysomething backpackers. I've never seen anything to this extreme. Apparently there is a movie about this place called "The Beach." I saw it playing in one of the bars here. Odd to see the bar full of people watching a movie about the place they currently were... I could go on for a while about how backpackers are just another form of packaged tourism. This is happening to the yachtie scene as well in the form of rallies... When thoughts like these get me down, I flip through photos I took of the nicer spots in the South Pacific. The video below is usually the accompanying soundtrack...

The clip is of Sola in the Bank islands in Vanuatu. It is of a restaurant that turned into a music rehersal.

Tonsai Bay, Phi Phi, Thailand

This short clip gives a drastically different impression than if I were to walk around in the evening through the couple of small streets that constitute "town." Hordes of young partiers from all the world's richer countries getting tattoos, massages and seriously shitfaced. "Guys go to Phuket and girls go to Phiphi" is what I was told. No sex tourists or old white dudes with young Thai wives here. They are all over in Patong. If you are over thirty, you stand out as being old. Despite all the youth energy and huge amounts of booze, things are fairly tame. Even the one with the most outrageous image has their lonely planet and plane ticket home...

Malacca strait clips

I ended up spending three weeks anchored off Georgetown. I needed the break after that Darwin Singapore non stop madness. I got really lucky with the winds after hearing a few other cruiser's accounts of how flat the conditions were around the Java Sea.

I visited two anchorages in Langkawi. Kuah and the back side of Pantai Cenang. Loads of other cruisers spread around the island. At least three marinas. Langkawi felt like a "nice" place to cruise - many beautiful anchorages, decent amount of facilities, duty free alcohol. So nice it felt a little bland to me so I left.