7th February 2014

Bamboo Island today on a speedboat.  It is a small atol North of Phi Phi Island. We were picked up from our hotel in a rough old open pick-up for the short ride to Noraprat beach and boarded the boat after a short trek through a National Park. The trip was surprisingly smooth and took just 45 minutes. Everyone got out of the boat with snorkel kit supplied but only us and half a dozen others were staying on Bamboo Island - the rest continued on to Maya Bay.  Bamboo Island is a very beautiful Island with wide stretch of white sand crystal clear water and a forest of trees in the centre.  We had 5 hours before the boat with the Maya Bay people returned at 3.15pm to pick us up so we had plenty of time to snorkel, sunbathe and take pics. We decided to go snorkelling before our packed lunch - lots of colourful fish swarmed around us (as people were feeding them with bread and scraps).  We took lots of pics including a cute hermit crab who was slowly making his way across the beach.  We had a brilliant day it was very hot 35 degrees.  We arrived back about 5 o'clock so came back to shower and have a gin and tonic before going out to eat.  Had some sizzling steaks in a restaurant on the Ao nang beach road - reminded us of 'hot stone steaks' we used to have on our Portugal holidays in the 80's!