After our late night the previous night, I slept in until about 10:30 and then headed out for breakfast and to explore the island. The main Tonsai village is reasonably small and has no cars - walking and bikes are the forms of transportation here - and large 'wheelbarrow-esque' carts help transport bags and luggage around the paths.

This wasn't a place where you 'got in, saw the sights, and got out' - it was more a laid back, chill out kind of place. Restaurants and bars showed movies and second hand bookstores offered couches and free wi-fi, so everyone would settle in and relax if not down at the beach. Thinking about my next moves, I decided I would head to Bangkok straight after my two nights in Ao Nang on Saturday and Sunday, and investigated how to get to Bangkok. There were several options: the first involved a 14 hour overnight bus ride from Krabi (I wasn't that keen as everyone I've spoken to has been robbed on the overnight buses, and the thought of getting into Bangkok bleary eyed at 5am wasn't appealing); the second was a bus ride to Surat Thani and a train to Bangkok; or the third was to fly. I ended up flying - it made sense from a time and security point of view and wasn't too expensive flying with Air Asia. I wanted to make sure I got to Bangkok early in the week as well as I needed to get my Vietnamese visa whilst there.

At 1:40pm I was 'picked up' at the travel agent for my sunset cruise. When I say picked up, I mean I joined the crowd following the cruise lead walking the paths of the island - it looked like a Contiki group! Being low season there weren't many on the cruise, and we headed off to our first stop of Monkey Island. As the name suggests, the island is basically a strip of beach that is populated by wild, rabid monkeys. Our cruise lead told us to stay in the water as the monkeys are prone to attacking on the beach, so we stayed on the water and snapped photos. All of a sudden, a fight erupted between the monkeys, and hundreds of monkeys starting fighting and running to one end of the island. Seconds later, the fight moved to the other end of the island, and then they started running the into water! I've never seen a group of people run into the sea so quickly - it was scary!

Not surprisingly none of us were keen to stay long there, so we moved onto the next location of a lagoon. We were told that this area had been badly affected by the tsunami - previously the water had been a bright blue with sparkling white sand, whereas now the bottom of the water was covered in dead black coral, which was sad. We spent an hour here and I was able to do some kayaking on the open sea near the boat - whilst others snorkelled. There were large numbers of jellyfish in the water, but we were also able to see clownfish (Nemos), crabs and other brilliantly coloured fish.

Our next stop, which we were all looking forward to the most, was Maya Beach, where the movie 'The Beach' was filmed. Pulling up alongside the long-tail boats, we had a brief walk through the wilderness to actually reach 'The Beach'. And what a majestic sight it was. Large craggy cliffs covered in greenery hovered over sparkling white sand and brilliant blue water. Words and pictures just do not it justice - please watch 'The Beach' if you haven't seen it before! We had another hour here and I could completely understand why the backpackers all wanted to stay in this previously undiscovered paradise in the book!

By now it was close to 6pm and time to make our way back to the boat for a leisurely cruise back to Koh Phi Phi whilst watching the sunset. Watching the sun go down on the open water, legs hanging over the boat and majestic beaches all around me, I was awestruck. How lucky can someone be!

I ran into Matthew and Ashley again on the way back into town and we had dinner again, this time trying out another of Paul's suggestions for Italian. I was absolutely starving after my big day on the water and tucked into a Pad Thai - about the only Thai food I like! Afterwards we headed down to the Reggae Bar, which has a boxing ring in the middle of it. They offer free buckets to anyone who will get up and fight. Alas there were no takers whilst we were there but there was a 'professional' match being staged (we were slightly suspicious it may have been as staged fight).

With the fight completed, we were off to an Irish pub which was offering 3 for 1 buckets, and the three of us each had one whilst we played pool. It was my first game in a while and my first shots were surprisingly good! I tried to tell Matthew that I wasn't actually a good player, it was just a fluke ... and the rest of the shots proved that. Next up was another bar, which was absolutely thronging with people. I started chatting to a Belgian and Brazilian, who were both scuba instructors on the island and had been there for about 6 months.
At this point, Matthew was down and out for the count - I think the Thai whiskey was a tad strong. The three of us had moved down to the beach, which was going off compared to the night before, but Ashley and I escorted Matthew back to the guesthouse (after a 2am Thai pancake - seems to be a theme here!) He was insistent we return back to the beach, but when did it was dead! We hadn't been gone long - when we had left there had been bars open, people dancing, and lights flashing, but there was now no sign of life. The only place left open on the island was 'Stones', so we headed down there. It was very laid back with cushions in the sand on the beach - although the heavens soon opened so we all became very crammed inside. Ashley started chatting to an Israeli and myself a Belgian (I think he got offended when I couldn't remember his name - but it was so late I could barely remember my own name!) and we soon decided to head back in for some sleep. What a massive night!

We really felt it the next day after such a late one. Ashley and Matthew said they woke just before 1pm when they were due to depart for their boat cruise; I made it up about 10:30 after being woken by the cleaning lady. Chocolate milk is always my breakfast of choice after a big night so I had that along with some French toast, and they set out for a day of 'chores'. As I had filled up my memory card the day before, I had the photos burned to a DVD. I also purchased a new shirt and some postcards (can you believe they had a postcard of elephants mating?? Yuck!) and then sent a parcel home to Australia of things that I no longer need in my bag. There was a pair of shoes I hadn't worn, a couple of t-shirts, drink bottle I'd bought for Kinabalu etc - the parcel ended up being 3kg, making my backpack feel very light! I was also in awe of the Thai Post - the routine they had for putting the box together was absolutely amazing to watch!
 
I spent a bit of time on the internet and had 'lunch' (does it count as lunch if it's 4pm?), filling in time before the footy started at 4:30pm. I was thinking about watching it at the pub, as they were all showing it, but decided to watch it from the air-conditioned comfort of my room instead. Typically, Geelong won - let's hope they beat Collingwood next week too.
 
I met up with Ashley and Matthew again for dinner, although after the massive night the night before we weren't up for going out. We had a quite dinner at the restaurant underneath our guesthouse and had a stroll around the village before returning to our rooms. I went back out to play on the 'net and got chatting to some of the 'pub touts', and then went for another walk with Ashley and Matthew when they went on their 'pancake run' - I refrained this time. As we had been out for the past two nights, we hadn't realise how noisy our rooms were, as were right in the middle of pub central and directly across from the Irish pub. However with my earbuds and a sleeping mask I could mask out the world and had an amazing sleep.