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Published: March 5th 2008
Phi Phi Don
beach chair anyone???We left Krabi a day too late.... very funny! As backpackers, days and dates and times don't really matter. Unless you make a pre-paid booking for a bungalow that costs 1000 Bath a night... and you don't get there on the right date. Was our fault, we figured it out... but I would have liked to plame the dude that made the booking for us cuz I could tell by the way he spoke to his Thai friends that he was already only making fun of us farang. Too bad though, it was in the end our mistake. Thought we booked for Sunday but booked for Saturday. I figured out why too... cuz the calender he showed us was weird. It started the week on Sundays and ended on Saturdays... whereas I'm used to calenders that start on Monday and end on Sunday.
Don't matter none though cuz we had already wasted the money for that night and being Phi Phi Island, we had no chance of doing anything about it. We did get the ferry over to Phi Phi that afternoon and as soon as we got off the boat, I realized the place was bigger than I had
long tail on Phi Phi Don
little sister island Phi Phi Leh in the background thought and expected. Thank God for Paul's sense of direction... I would have gotten lost without him so many times! We picked up a map and off we went to the bungalows. Quite nice, but definitely not worth 1000bath. But it's Phi Phi and we were told we need to make an advance booking otherwise we might end up sleeping on the beach... haha, not! There was so much accommodation on offer, it wasn't even funny. Left, right and center there were rooms for rent...
I must say, in Thailand I am getting a bit sick of people asking 'you want taxi, taxi' or 'long-tail boat for you?'. Yes yes, it's all cheap cheap for you... You want massage? Massage for you? The vibe I get is that they don't really like us but yet they make a lot of money off us. Sure a dollar or two might not be much if you're here for 2 weeks on vacation, but if you wanna travel for 3 months and feel like you get ripped of on every corner, it's not a good feeling. But I do understand why they do it. There's so many Westerners here that just come
and spread their cash like there's no tomorrow, they just create an image and it's not a good one. You walk down the streets in some places and there's drunk Westerners sitting in bars and shit smoking pot, yelling out like it's their home. I'm also amazed by all the 'nana couples' here (old chubby western dudes with young Thai women... just yuk! Eeek! Gross). But it's so common and so obvious, and so wrong!
But anyway, back to Phi Phi. Lost the plot there for a minute but it's all good. Thank you, come again...
Phi Phi was quite enjoyable. The beach... bruddy beautiful! Just amazing. Water so warm and soft and clear and you could see your feet even 2m deep. The sand was nice and soft and clean too. Surprisingly clean cuz of all the people it accommodates all day. Food was nice too even though we didn't find the local food stalls until after dinner, but we celebrated life with a take-away sticky coconut rice with mango (yummy Thai specialty). It was not the best but it definitely filled a hole!
Massage for you? Yes yes, we decided to get a massage the
next day and we really deserved it... A German lady told us the night before about a nice walk we should do... takes about to hours to go up to the lookout, down to Runtee Beach and back to Long Beach... So, in the morning we headed up to the Lookout Point... not knowing what we got ourselves into again, we saw a few stairs... and walked up. In flip flops again. But there just didn't seem to be an end to those stairs. They just kept going and going and got steeper and steeper. Once we reached the top we thought we were almost there. I thought a sign actually said 400m to the lookout... Yeah... nah... I don't tink so! No bruddy way that was just 400m. We walked for another like 15 mins along a concrete slope, trying not to get hit on the head by falling coconuts (wasn't really coconuts but the thought of it just freaked me out that day). FINALLY, the end was near...
And the views were worth it and beautiful. Just amazing. Was interesting to see post cards of what the tsunami did to the island and then seeing how much
was rebuilt since then too.
Anyway, believing the German lady, we thought we'd just quickly go down to Runtee Beach and head back past Long Beach, we followed the sign that said Runtee Beach... and it lead us into deep Thai jungle! No kiddin. And remember that we wore flip flops!!! Down steep slopes, through trees and bushes (I didn't dare to look for deadly snakes or spiders along the track), and we heard voices... I though the end was near... but it really wasn't. I don't know what this lady drinks before she goes on this hike but it took us AGES! And we hadn't eaten anything before we left thinking it would only take 2 hours...
Once we finally reached Runtee beach, and after a quick swim, we had to realize there was no 'walk along the beach to Long Beach' as the tide was too high and we would have probably got smashed into the rocks... So 300bath and a very sickening and choppy long-tail boat ride later we arrived at Long Beach... It was definitely nothing special there, don't know why people would want to stay there and pay a bucket load of cash for accommodation.
Leh
massive rocks just sticking out of the ocean. pretty impressive! We walked another... don't know how long back to Ton Sai Beach (where we came from) along a trail that was less than obvious, chowed down some ordinary greasy roti for lunch, and made it back to the bungalow just in time for a quick change of clothes before we had to head back towards town where we met a group to go on a boat trip to Ko Phi Phi Leh.
That's the little lister island of Ko Phi Phi Don, no one lives there but it's a bruddy amazing piece of earth. The boat was already half full when we got there so when we left, there must have been about 40 or so people on board. Cool guide though. He's one of the few people I saw wearing sunnies! Asians don't seem to wear sunglasses for some reason. Only the 'cool cats' and a few monks...
Yo, so boat trip started with this 'Monkey Beach' where we didn't even stop cuz apparently the monkey wasn't there. Funny thing cuz I doubt there is a monkey there. People just pay for this attraction that is probably just fiction in order to get some more money out of
tourists.
But anyway, the trip was cool, we went kayaking and snorkeling and swimming. That was a huge deal after already conquering Thai jungle for about 4+ hours!!! Then we went to Ma Ya Beach - "The Beach" - and looked at what all the fuss was about. It is admittedly a beautiful spot, awesome beach and sand but it didn't look exactly like in the movie. We found out that the huts and many trees were planted for the movie but had to be removed after the movie was finished. But that's good, keeps the natural habitat.
Paddled back to the boat on our kayak and then had some fried rice on the boat while watching the sunset... Pretty special that was. Very amazing. How many people will actually do such things in their lives? We are pretty blessed, aren't we. But we appreciate it and that's important.
Muay Thai Super Fight Night. Phi Phi Island... See You Again!!!
The way back was pretty choppy and it was hard to even get a good photo of the island as we left. For desert we had banana and nutella roti. A definite YES from me!!!
Next day, hopes
high for Phuket... but as it soon turned out, it was more like Poo Town... for me anyway.
Where do you get poo??? That's right, in Phuket...
Well, Ito make a long story short... Phuket was not my sorta place. The highlight was probably the 5 donuts we ate in 1 day... ANd hiring a car and driving around to the beaches. Not too spectacular, very touristy but an awesome place if you like rows and rows of beach umbrellas for rent. You have about 3 or so km to choose from, jump in the waves and get your back twisted by massive swell. Quite amusing so watch chubby old men jump in like fresh fish and being washed up on the beach like whales. Not amusing was the sight of overweight dudes in budgiesmugglers... and saggy-boobed old ladies in g-strings... Didn't need to see that. But the water was beautiful and the beach nice... if you found a spot away from crowds. Good luck with that though!
And with an almost 6 hour flight delay out of Phuket in a freezing airport we headed to Bangkok... See you there.
more photos coming soon...
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