I am never coming home

That's right, I don't ever want to leave Thailand. This is the greatest place on earth! It's beautiful, cheap, good food, nice people. What more could you ask for?

This afternoon we took the boat over to Ko Phi Phi Island (pronounced pee pee) and I've been in love ever since. The place we are staying at, Phi Phi Casita, is $13 per person per night and its an adorable air conditioned bungalow. Paradise. There are gorgeous flowers everywhere and as discovered on our walk back to our bungalow before dinner there are also croaking frogs and some sort of animal that sounds like a cow. There are raised walkways and fountains that lead around to the bungalows.

We walked around town after we checked in and bought a thai pancake with nutella, kinda like a crepe but crispier, for like 20 cents. I bought a beach towel for $3 and tomorrow I'm going back for some knock off Ray Ban's I saw for $2. When you ask a price the super nice shop keepers say 300 baht, for example, but them before you even have time to say "that's too much" or "that's cheap!" they say "Ok, 250 baht". Then you can say "how about 200?" and they act like you are the nicest person ever to buy something from them.

Oh I forgot to mention that yesterday while still in Phuket Town we went to a pharmacy and discovered that even their imported beauty products are dirt cheap. The face wash I paid $8 for in Australia was only like $1 here. So I stalked up on some toiletries, even though I didn't need them. I would buy something then before I reached the door I'd find something else I also wanted. Sarah was doing the same thing, I think the pharmacy girls rang us up 5 different times.

Ok, so back to Phi Phi. After the Thai pancake and walking around we met a guy from Cali who works here at a dive shop (my new dream job) and so we'll probably go diving with him in a few days. It's only $75 for 2 dives. For reference I paid $250 for 2 dives in Australia. Fingers crossed that we'll see a whale shark! (I don't think it's their season but a girl can dream, can't she?)

We got pedicures, foot scrubs and mini massages for less than $10 this afternoon. I haven't had a pedicure in over 7 months. My feet look so weird with polish on them! We'll definitely be going back for a $9 hour-long, whole-body massage. Maybe even one each day....and I heard you can get a massage on the beach. Nice. While getting a pedicure I overheard a lady saying that they are testing the tsunami alarm tomorrow morning. Good thing we heard that or I'd be running for higher ground when we hear it. The lady also said that this tiny island we are on lost 1,600 people in the tsunami. I'm glad to be contributing to their economy, even if to me it is so cheap. Haven't seen any signs of the tsunami devastation yet, I think it was cleaned up pretty quickly since this is such a touristy area.

For dinner we went to this small restaurant recommended by the Cali dive guy. We heard the portions were huge so we split the pad thai, which was cooked right in front of us. We also had spring rolls for appetizers and a giant Singha beer each. My portion of the meal cost $4!! Now can you see why I'm never leaving?

We haven't even been here 2 days and haven't been to the beach yet and I already and thinking about when I'll be able to come back. I know the flight is expensive and its halfway around the world but you spend next to nothing while you are here. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a tropical vacay. Forget Hawaii and Mexico...Thailand is the place to be!