I think it's pronounced "Thigh-land".......

So I'm 99% sure I've stayed on the same sleep cycle Since we left in May. At first I was asleep at 8 and awake at 4 am and now I'm up until 3, awake around 11. (Back to my college days). So I'm now on our second to last (fingers crossed) overnight flight at 2 am, (3:30 in Australia where we're landing) writing a blog and drinking a nice glass of white. Everyone else is asleep but this is my favorite plane time. I think I left off in Chiang Mai, so now we move onto Koh Phi Phi. We got to Phi Phi, making the very last 2 hour ferry of the day by just a few seconds. Lucky for us, our cab driver apparently worked for Evel Knievel back in the day. And honestly, until you've run with a 23 lb backpack at full speed down a slippery jetty, you really haven't lived. (Cue us almost face planting twice in 12 seconds). But nevertheless, we made it to the island. The picture you see of Thailand is most probably taken in a 2 mile vicinity of this  place. There is teal water surrounded by beautiful limestone towers that just shoot out of the ocean. It is absolutely breathtaking. We fell in love. For about 5 seconds, until we looked around. Turns out, we are about 10 years too old and have about 3x as much material on our bodies as our surrounding islanders. (See crop tops and booty shorts. Also this is the moment I realized I was that bitchy old woman. It was really unfortunate.) Everyone is 19, everyone is drinking warm liquor out of sand pails (referred to as a bucket, mainly because you can't trust the ice), and everyone there is a 'woo girl.' (If you don't know what this is, is a girl that screams woo every time she hugs her friend, takes a Yeagerbomb, or sees a guido.) 

But, we made the best of it, and I think we beat those silly youths. We drank, we danced, and we watched some pretty sick fire shows. These guys were insane. They repeatedly burned themselves and laughed and then started again. I'm sorry, but if a flaming ball of fire burns my arm, I'm not trying to swing it around my head and then light a cigarette with it. But that's just me.

Our favorite day was when we decided to do the 'island tour.' We booked a speedboat tour, where I was promised it was "the best and fanciest way to see all of the islands." This was one of those times where I saw the boat, and immediately missed the Mama Gumbos. (For those of you who don't know, we had two pontoon boats. The Mama Gumbo I and the Mama Gumbo II. These boats weren't pretty, they barely ran, and we loved them. Unfortunately, they were both taken by hurricanes, or they just sank. I don't think anyone will ever know the truth.)

 We went to a few key places including a stop where our guide showed us monkey beach. (But literally showed us, and then told us the monkeys bite. We did not get our rabies shot. So we stayed in the boat for that one.) We went to a few more cays, each more grand and magical than the one before. But - the reason I chose this boat was because they would bring us to Maya Bay, the place I had seen in pictures as a little girl (slash college student) and always wanted to go. We get there, and it is quite beautiful. But to be honest, there were a TON of people there, and trash in the water all around us, which broke my heart a little bit. Rob and I sat in the water and just looked around and it was so surreal. The fact that this exists in nature, and I was able to witness it, was amazing. 

Our very fancy speedboat drops us off at Maya Bay, but our driver explains that the tide is low and we should meet him on the other side of the island. We agree, obviously not understanding what is happening. Once we decide to leave  we begin our trek. We walk to the other side of the island, and then we come to this net which leads to crashing waves against rocks where you were supposed to swim to your boat. There's some fun news. This is like a Spider-Man web with 20 drunk kids on it at any given time. Rob and I climb down the net and then our boat just drives away. Because, why wouldn't that happen to us? We then proceed to  tread water and swim around from boat to boat until we find our guy 20 minutes later. We get into the boat and he looked slightly panicked. Finally he explains that there are a ton of sharks in that area. Awesome. We came out with all of our limbs, got an impromptu workout in, and had about 6 beers on the way home. Caseys-1  Phi Phi Islands-0.