Week 13 Koh Phi Phi

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I would like to spin this and say getting to Koh Phi Phi island was a big adventure but it was a pretty smooth operation. I had checked out a couple of the tour touts in Karon and found one where the cost of the ticket was a third less than the hotel was quoting and included a pick up from my hotel and the 45 minute van transfer to the ferry in Phuket Town. There were several types of boat available but I figured the normal twice daily public ferry would be easiest for taking my luggage and reasonably quick as it only takes 90 minutes.

I had read tales of rough seas and wet luggage so opted to take a seat downstairs which meant sliding my case down the vertical ladder-style stairs - easy, but the thought of lugging it up those steps was daunting. The seats were not very comfortable as they were solid moulded plastic but were made bearable by the padding in the life jackets that hung on each place. I wasn’t sure whether I found the obvious display of the life vests a comfort or not. It was a bit stuffy downstairs but you couldn’t open the windows due to the vast amounts of spray flying up as we sped through the water. I sat next to a window anyway as it was fun spotting the various limestone rock islands we passed on the way. It wasn’t very easy to see clearly as the windows were high with their lower edge about level with your ear, but if you did a bit of stretching and bobbing you got to see out.

I had popped a sea-sick tablet just in case, but luckily it was not too rough and there were only short periods where it got a bit bouncy. It did have a strong whiff of diesel fumes though which did make a few people a bit green and there was quite a lot of traffic up and down the stairs between the outside and inner decks. Judging by the interesting hair styles that people were sporting when they come down from the top deck, I think it was a very windy experience if you chose to stay outside. Also, the bright lobster colour of those folks indicated that they hadn’t factored how strong the sun was.

When we arrived at the pier it took ages for people to empty out as they were queuing to pull their luggage out of the huge pile of rucksacks and cases. When I finally got to the front of the queue I was thrilled that somebody had already hauled my case up to the top deck. Result. You had to run a gauntlet of touts the length of the pier trying to sell you tours or hotel rooms but I eventually saw a guy from my hotel who took my luggage while I walked to the hotel 5 minutes away.

Phi Phi (pronounced pee pee) is actually a small group of islands with two large ones, Phi Phi Don where the hotels and villages are and Phi Phi Lei which is uninhabited and forms part of the National Park. This is where some of the main sights can be found including Maya Bay which is famous for being the legendary “perfect” beach in the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Beach.

Although its only one island, PP Don looks as if its two islands joined by a large, curving, flat spit of land. This narrow join is where the main village is located and where a massive amount of damage and loss of life was sustained in the tsunami, as the high-sided bays on either side of the populated land-spit acted like a huge funnel. The main landing pier is on the Ton Sai Bay side and the other side, with a prettier beach, is called Loh-Dalum Bay. My hotel was perfectly placed between the two and I got a good room with an view of the sea on the Loh-Dalum side. Its only a short walk either via the beach or down the main path into the centre of the town that is a maze of alleys full of small shops, bars and restaurants. There are no motorised land vehicles on the island so many of the paths are compacted sand and you are only likely to be run down by a pushbike or a handcart. Both are actually quite likely and dangerous with operators who wont stop for mere mortals, specially not tourists.

No land vehicles, but plenty of noisy longtail boats and speedboats that sound even louder as the high jungle-covered slopes of the two bays act like acoustic basins. They also give an unusual tide pattern and the morning’s low tide means hundreds of yards of ankle deep water, deepening to about knee height by the time you are bored sick of trudging through water as clear as gin, several shades of pale blue and turquoise with lots of crabs and pale coloured fish dodging your feet. Low tide also means the water is hot and not at all refreshing - I have had cooler baths. It also makes it impossible to go for a quick pee in the sea. High tide in the late afternoon brings water that gets up to waist height and is slightly cooler, darker and and more opaque.

The sand is gorgeous, very white and powdery above the tide line and a narrow strip of crunchy, pretty little shells along the waterline. The beach bars all seem to play reggae music during the day and early evening and trance later on, which is also when the fire dancers put on the best acts. Later, when things get really rowdy they bring out the burning games, such as the flaming limbo and the blazing skipping rope. You have to be very drunk to want to join in and when you are drunk you are obviously useless at these games. Fun to watch.

The best time of the day is either before 10.30am or after 4pm In the morning you have the beaches to yourself as the party people are still in their beds and the day trippers have not yet arrived and the afternoon is when the day trippers have left and many of the people staying on the island have gone off on one of the countless tours on offer.

My favourite sunlounger is by the hotel pool which gives a commanding view of the whole of Loh-Dalum Bay. I have been thoroughly entertained by watching how far out some of the longtail boats and big tour boats drop their passengers in the morning when the tide is low, sometimes where the sea its still almost waist deep which is a bloody long way to walk in to the beach, particularly for those who have luggage. Some of the luggage is carried by people arriving to stay but often the bags and packs are lugged by people who have over-packed for a simple day on a boat & beach excursion. The longtails are local wooden narrow vessels that seat about 6 people in comfort (10 if the boatman is a scammer.), often with plastic or fabric top and side awnings to protect against the sun and spray They have noisy diesel engines but with their small propellers on the end of a long pipe at the back of the boat, that looks suspiciously like metal scaffolding pipe, hence the name.

Its nice that there is not much sign of Christmas here. I have seen a couple of baubles but these are mainly hanging on bits of driftwood near the beachbars and by their tattered look, may have been there since last Xmas.

After hunting around to see what was on offer, I booked onto a half day sunset cruise that stopped at a couple of the key sights that were on my list of must-do. Conveniently the boat left from the little pier right outside the hotel. It was quite an old boat and very slow, but it was sturdy and the crew were fabulous. It weathered the rough seas far better than the longtails which looked very uncomfortable when we passed them.

Our first stop was Monkey Beach which, as the name implies, is where a troop of wild monkeys rule the beach and live off the food the tourists bring. The site was still on the main island of Phi Phi Don where our hotels are. Our boat was too big to get near the shore so we had to transfer onto a little boat with an outboard motor, in small groups. We had to jump out into the surf on arrival but there were huge, sharp rocks where we had landed and I managed to fall over and got a dunking. Nothing was hurt but my dignity and a grazed foot, but I did feel sorry for the poor Australian chap that offered to help me up and then got stuck with me hanging off his arm for several minutes while I navigated the rocky route onshore, hampered by massive waves crashing into the backs of my legs. He avoided me for the rest of the trip.

The monkeys are really aggressive, particularly if you get too near their young. We were told that they don’t like water so I decided to stay at the waterline and not venture up the beach among them or, more importantly, behind them. The comment about not liking water turned out to be rubbish. When they saw some people arrive on a longtail boat with bananas, the monkeys swam out, climbed up the prow and virtually attacked a woman on the boat. The folks on the boat were scared and tried to throw the bananas into the sea hoping the monkeys would follow. They didn’t, but more from the shore swam towards the floating fruit and there was pandemonium among the innocent bystanders who were also now caught up in the melee. There was much screaming, running around in the surf and throwing of fruit. Fortunately I was just far enough away to be able to watch with impunity.

One of the nice things the staff did on this trip was to collect all our cameras in a double watertight bag whilst we were on the big boat and then hand them back to us when we were on each of the beach stops, then they also looked after them for the return trips. There was free drinking water and tea/coffee on tap from the start and you could buy pop and beer. At the half way point they handed round delicious fresh, sweet pineapple and after our last stop just before sunset, we were offered fried rice with vegetables which was very good, followed by slices of watermelon.

So after we escaped the monkeys and returned to the big boat we crossed the rather choppy gap between the two islands and reached the uninhabited island of Phi Phi Lei. Viking cave was our next stop, although we didn’t leave the boat and just viewed it from the sea. This is where for aeons the locals have harvested birds nests for the famous, and expensive, soup. You could see some of the bamboo ladders and the boat staff handed round samples of the nests. They are made from bird split, so luckily they were in plastic boxes and we didn’t have to handle them. The Chinese are their main customers nowadays and birds nests sell for thousands of pounds sterling per kilo in Hong Kong. We were also shown photos of the inside of the cave, including the ancient paintings on the walls that gave the cave its name, as they are of Viking type ships.

The normal snorkle spot was too choppy as the sea was quite rough, so we went around to the other side of the island to another site. Here the limestone cliffs rose vertically above our heads and the sea was a multitude of colours from emerald to pale blue. The water was so clear that from the top deck of the boat you could see the rocks and the fish on the bottom even in the deep areas, so you didn’t really need to go snorkelling. In addition to the snorkel gear, you could also use the kayaks to go exploring around the bay. We stopped here for about an hour and we saw dozens of different fish and some huge jellyfish. Not many birds though, which was a bit strange as I would have thought they would have used the island as a base - probably scared off by the noisy boat engines..

The main event was next and as we approached the entrance to Maya Bay, the crew played the 2 main theme tunes we all associate with the film The Beach, which was a bit cheesy but we all loved it and it created a real sense of anticipation. Unfortunately the real thing was a bit of an anti-climax. Yes the place is stunningly beautiful and is the epitome of a perfect beach. Sadly it was over-run with people and boats and the sun had moved behind the cliffs making it impossible to get photos of the turquoise water and the pure white sand. The sand is the thing that I was most surprised at, as it was wonderfully soft, powdery, light, clean and almost pure white.

Again we could not get to the beach in the big boat so we had the option of swimming, kayaking or going on the little boat. I chose the boat which seemed eminently sensible when we passed the swimmers who were struggling, even though they had been warned that it was further then it looked. The crew were very good and made sure they were OK and I think the little boat went back later and picked up a couple of stragglers. The kayakers had fun getting to the beach but whinged when they had to do the return journey as the wind had picked up and they built up quite a sweat. I didn’t fall over this time when I got out.

Small world again, I asked a lad to take my picture and asked him whereabouts in Yorkshire he was from as I recognised his accent. He was from my Mum’s home town. He was so shocked when I told him I was also from there that he managed to tip Fanta all over my camera.

As we had stayed anchored in Maya Bay while we ate our fried rice supper, we were almost the last to leave which gave us a view of what the beach and bay looked like without people. Even though Hollywood exaggerated the scale of the beach in the film, you could imagine yourself right there with Leonardo. Our last stop was to watch the setting sun which was lovely and a cold beer made it pretty near perfect. Then we braved the even choppier sea between the islands and made our way home. It was a lovely 5 hours, the other trippers were a really nice bunch of people, the staff were great and the whole thing was good value.

On the move again to another part of Koh Phi Phi called Long Beach.

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