For our second day in Thailand, we booked a tour of the Phi Phi Islands through Phuket Sail Tours. If you’re ever in the area, I would definitely recommend this company. The itinerary was structured to avoid the crowds to the extent possible, and while we joined a group tour, the boat was spacious and not overpacked with people. Safety was definitely a big emphasis for the company, which gave me peace of mind the entire time.

Our first stop was Maya Bay, made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Beach”.

While I found Maya Bay to be very pretty, the overwhelming crowds (even at 9:30AM) made it pretty unrelaxing.

Next we boated over another island where we all took turns jumping in the water. Excuse the iPhone pics.

We headed over to a good snorkeling spot and snorkeled for about 30 minutes before heading for lunch on a white sand beach on Phi Phi Don island. I wish I had taken a picture of the spread, but we had massaman curry, green chicken curry, stir-fried vegetables, sautéed cashew chicken, fried rice, and more. I inhaled lunch pretty quickly because I was eager to walk around and take in the beautiful views from the restaurant.

To wrap up the day, we went over to the undeveloped Bamboo Island. The island’s main beach area was pretty crowded, so our captain took us over to a smaller beach that we had completely to ourselves. We lounged around for a few hours reading, napping, and sun tanning.

Below you can see our boat floating above the impossibly-clear waters. This island was definitely the highlight of the weekend for me, and I would have stayed behind if I had shelter and a sustainable source of food.