Familiar Territory..

Koh Phi Phi Don, Thailand

January 17, 2008
N 07°44.128
E 098°46.795

A lot of people asked us why we were flying back to Thailand from San Francisco and not going from Europe. Well, our Around the World ticket required us to travel in one direction, and going back to Thailand was simply against the rules of the ticket. Instead, we used the last of my hard earned air-miles to buy our tickets from SFO to BKK; a perfect way to end our trip, on the beach… far from the freezing temperatures in Europe over the past three months!

Our travel days over the two weeks were meticulously planned. We arrived in Washington D.C. just ten days ago. We then spent a couple nights in NYC and then flew to San Francisco; all fairly easy segments. However, getting from San Francisco to the island of Ko Phi Phi had a lot more moving parts.

We flew out of SFO on January 15^th and arrived in Bangkok on January 17^th at 12: 15 AM. We slept for a few hours at the airport hotel in BKK and then hopped on a flight to the small town of Krabi, in southern Thailand, at 9:45 AM. After we arrived in Krabi we took a bus to a ferry and arrived to Koh Phi Phi after a 1 ½ hour cruise. Amazingly, all the pieces fit together and we arrived at our bungalow a mere 40 hours after our departure from SFO. Everything went very well along the way, but there were a couple of tired, hungry people—us!

The island has changed in the five months since we were last here. There are a few new beachside bars and bungalows; however, the numerous barges, bags of concrete and ongoing construction to re-build after the tsunami still remain.

After we made our way from the dock, navigated our way through the construction debris and past new bars, the serene environment quickly reminded us why we came back to Koh Phi Phi Don.

It is a perfect place to decompress, think about our futures and enjoy the last two weeks of our amazing journey.