The flight we caught from the Bangkok airport left early in the morning, so it was time for another Burger King breakfast.

As I walked up the stairs to the plane I could sense this crowd breathing down my neck, so I turned around and snapped a photo.

The plane we took from Bangkok to Phuket was enormous, the same type of plane I took from from San Francisco to the Philippines! For a flight that barely lasted an hour it felt kind of like flying the Space Shuttle to Denver, but it was tough to complain because the tickets were only $30 each one way.

I think Steve, Alex and I all took comfort in the fact that the 42nd World Annual Convention of Loyalty was held in Phuket while we were there.

At the pier where we were to catch our boat to Phi Phi Island, we met this charlatan cab driver who tried to take us to lunch and pick us up in Phuket for the exorbitant price of $20 round trip.

Alex noticed that for some reason he had this miniature Spiderman riding in the back of the car that really wasn't a taxi at all. Photo by Alex Iams.

By the time we were done negotiating with this fellow, the cab ride collapsed into one of those "stop the car right now" incidents that ends like an episode of COPS, complete with attempts to hide from the camera.

We had lunch at a good local place in Phuket that didn't seem too heavily touristed. Our suspicions were proved correct when we stumbled upon this abomination that we named "The Toilet from Hell".

After the adventures with the cab driver and lunch in Phuket it was time to get back to the pier to catch our boat to Phi Phi Island.

After a couple hours of high seas motoring, the islands of Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Lei appeared on the horizon.

Although both islands are supposed to be protected as marine parks, only Phi Phi Lei is uninhabited. They did use Phi Phi Lei as the set for the movie "The Beach" a few years ago though.

Sitting up on the top deck of the boat was a lot nicer than sitting below decks with the bilge water smell. Photo by Alex Iams.

I think all of us noticed that the crowd gathered on the top deck of the ferry looked more like they were headed to Ibiza or to try out for MTV's "Real World" than going to visit a protected Thai Marine Park.

I doubt you'll find Alex or Steve hanging out in Ibiza anytime soon.

Phi Phi Island looks a lot different than the relatively quiet and undeveloped island I remembered from several years ago.

They still have the same beat up long tail boats to get around the island at least! Photo by Steve Iams.

Across the island and opposite from the bay where we landed on the pier, things are a little quieter. (click here for a close up view of this photo).

We eventually found a hotel with a room open, and we were just in time to catch this sunset (click here for a close up view of this photo).

For dinner we went to a restaurant at one of the other resorts on the island. I ordered lasagne and got this yellowish pile of glop resembling...vomit. It didn't taste as bad as it looked, but jeez, just look at it!

Alex and Steve ended up with slightly better meals than my pre-digested lasagne, but I think all of us were starting to wonder if we'd made the right choice to come to Phi Phi Island.

When we got back to our room, for some reason the toilet was spouting a jet of water up into the air. Yeah, we were really wondering about Phi Phi Island at this point.

We awoke to the sounds of circular saws ripping through wooden beams and banging hammers. There was also this seething bonfire spewing acrid smoke all over the place. Now we definitely knew it was time to leave the resort that was also an industrial grade construction site. Photo by Steve Iams.

The options to leave were many and leaving right away, so we caught a boat to nearby Koh Lanta where everything was just right.