Don't poo-poo Phi Phi

Phi Phi Island. It's a beautiful place. Beaches, rock outcrops, cliffs, and jungle, all thrown together into the beautiful warm blue waters of the Andaman. With tourists as far as the eye can see.

I've been to places with a a lot of tourists before - Great Barrier Reef tours, The Coca-Cola factory in Atlanta, Bondi Beach - but never in such numbers.

My speed boat tour to Phi Phi islands happened on a miserable, wet, rainy day in March, after a full week of unseasonal rain in Phuket. And still the tourists came out.

On a good day in peak season, it's apparently hard to see the beach for all the tourists looking at the beach. I can believe that.

Does the tourism spoil the experience? Well, not completely. You have to shut out the hords (one of whom, is you) converging on beach after beach in turn. One speed boat full of farangs (and whatever the word for non-white farangs is) from around the world pulls out while another waits to take its place.

You just have to step back, and see the beauty. You have to look past the cigarette butts, empty coke bottles, and roaring marine engines to look at why all these people are here. A place of natural beauty, with the people of the "land of smiles" as its caretakers.

I saw the famous limestone cliff islands, long-tailed macaques, clown fish, sea cucumbers, and beneath it all, a reef still recovering from a tsunami most of the world has left behind.

They talk of the tsunami - of its devastation, the people killed, the height of the wave, where it hit, what they were doing when the three waves came. Our guide, Mr Boy, told us that when someone called him to tell him to stay away from the beach because a tsunami was coming, his response was "what's a tsunami?" He knows now. We all do.

I was disappointed not to go to the last stop on our tour, and visit the tsunami museum. The other farangs on our tour were feeling wet and miserable and wanted to go home early. I caved to peer pressure. 31 against 1 isn't very good odds.

So to wrap it all up - I loved the islands. They were amazing, and I would like to visit again. I would not like to be a tourist again.

The low-point in the trip was sitting in the speed boat, among a few Russians, one or two Britts, a Dutch couple and the balance of Aussies, and having the Australian compatriate next to me equate one of our flamboyantly gay guides with being a "kiddy fiddler", presumably because he was flamboyantly gay.

This is a beautiful, welcoming place you have here Thailand; please don't let us tourists take over.

D.