Speed Boat Around Thai Islands:

During our 2006 backpacking trip to Thailand Lindsay and I spent about a week down around the beautiful coastal town of Krabi. This part of the Thai coast is absolutely gorgeous with sandy beaches, blue water and huge rock cliffs that shoot straight up out of the water. After a few days of just hanging out we got "anxious" to see more of the islands around this beautiful country. We decided to pay $60 to take a speed boat tour around the islands. Considering we were on a backpackers budget this was quite the splurge. When we first got on the boat and met the other passengers (mostly Chinese tourist) and the Captain (a Thai version of Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribean) we were quite skeptical. However, this boat trip turned out to be an incredible experience! We stopped by the Phi Phi Islands, when to Maya Bay beach (were the movie "The Beach" was filmed) and snorkeled around a reef that was in the middle of the ocean! This last experience was exceptionally memorable; the boat was in the middle of the ocean and then all of the sudden it just stopped. It looked like we were just sitting on top of hundreds off feet of water but when the captain told us to put on the snorkel mask and jump in we were shocked to see that we were actually on top of an AMAZINGLY colorful coral reef. We were also blown away by the color of the sand and water around these islands. The ocean has a turquoise color and the beaches are pure white. This speed boat tour ended up being a great way to see a lot of the coast without having a lot of time; we will never forget it!