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To warm up this cold and wet December morning I think about Phi Phi Island, to the warm embrace of this wonderful gem in the quiet Andaman Sea, in the south of Thailand, with its white beaches and enchanting shores.

Ko Phi Phi is a tiny island forbidden to vehicles and entirely pedestrian, where you can walk on the nice path that runs along the east coast, with clear water lapping against beautiful shores a few steps from the  town center, a bunch of houses and wooden huts that host guest houses, cosy hotels, cafés and restaurants, and many diving centers.
The island belongs to an archipelago including Ko Phi-Phi Le, an even more stunning place that for a long time kept its paradisiac bays secret and secluded to the world; the island become famous when its more spectacular beach, Ao Maya,  was chosen as location for the Hollywood movie The Beach with Leo di Caprio. Since then a crowd of tourists and snorkelers daily invade this paradise leaving their garbage behind when local boats bring them back in the evening.
Phi Phi island too is often crowed with tourists, especially during the high season, but it’s easy to get away from the crowd looking for more quiet places, maybe renting one of the local long tail boats to reach the most remote bays hidden along the coast.

© silviaromio.altervista.org


Luckily Phi Phi is too small to have an airport or a big harbour, which has spared the island from mass tourism and big resorts: hotels here remain small  and cosy and well hidden in the luxuriant vegetation.
Climbing up the hill that stands in the center of the island, behind the beautiful beaches, you can enjoy the rough profile of the west coast, with high black cliffs that stand up in front of the ocean.
But the true treasure lays below the sea, where a stunning world animated by a variety of colourful fishes and sea plants opens up to the divers and snorkelers.
A magic place to visit with slow pace, far from the shining and smarter islands of Pukhet and Ko Samui, where you can rest and admire the amazing beauty of this tiny, quiet paradise.