Week 14 Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta

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Wed 16 to Tues 22

To make the most of the short stay on Koh Phi Phi I moved to another hotel in a different area for the last couple of nights. My second hotel on Phi Phi’s Long Beach certainly has the wow factor in respect of the room, the view and the great beach, but boy does it fall flat on everything else. The hotel facilities and restaurant are rubbish and expensive rubbish at that. However, I had a perfectly lovely couple of days here making the most of the stunning soft white powdery sand, the clear water and the reef, acting like a complete beach bum. There was enough fish-life to keep me entertained for a few snorkel sessions lazily drifting over the reef, which starts right from the beach, with fins and a mask only a couple of pounds to rent for the day. Its extravagant to spend this much on a hotel room but its only for a couple of nights and is part of my Christmas gift to myself.

My room is part way up a hill but has big steps and a handrail so access is not an issue unless its bucketing down with torrential rain, in which case the steps become a rather attractive waterfall. We had a humdinger of a storm one night with lightening doing its thing and lighting up the whole bay, and massive rolling thunder clashes, which was great fun. I had a wide wrap-around verandah and windows on three sides of my double-height luxury wooden cabin on stilts, so I got a grandstand view of the whole storm which went on for almost two hours. The rain was incredibly loud but I felt quite cozy tucked up inside my cabin. The multitude of gaps in the wooden structure were not really big enough for any significant leaks - they are however the size of a huge entrance way with Welcome written over the top in neon for the mosquitoes.

The big problem with mosquitoes is made worse by the lush jungle-type vegetation all around the cabins and also having an outdoor shower. The large hardwood shower room with a tiled floor is designed so that you are hidden from prying eyes whilst you get a wonderful view of the bay and sunset, but it is open to the mozzies. This means you have to shower in daylight or your light acts as a homing beacon for millions of the buggers. There is a door that you can close between the shower and the rest of the bathroom and the main bedroom but the maids always leave it open, so your first task after a hard day on the beach is to seek, find and exterminate the little intruders.

I was impressed by the huge bed when I arrived but on getting into it on the first night I found that it was actually two four-foot twin beds pushed together, with the gap filled with folded sheets. This would have been OK, but the two beds are slightly different heights, which results in nocturnal mountain climbing and then rolling downhill every time I move from one side to the other, which you need to do to stay cool at night. It would perhaps have been fun if I was sharing with some hunk, but being on my own it was simply annoying.

The seawater here doesn’t sting as it did when swimming off Phuket. I have heard that the stinging is caused by sea lice which is creepy, but apparently they don’t stay on you - it feels as if you have run into a jellyfish and is uncomfortable rather than painful. However, here off Phi Phi is lovely and Long Beach is better than Loh-Dalum as the water is deeper, so you can have a proper swim rather than just a paddle and its refreshing as its not so hot. Its still tepid though.

Right next to the hotel is a little food stall with a bunch of high bamboo bench seats and tables overlooking the sea. Once I had mastered a way of struggling up onto the seat which is way higher than a bar stool, I ate here most of the time as the food was wonderful and ridiculously cheap. Its all local Thai dishes and the cook was very good at listening to my requests and adjusting the spice factor and chili-heat way down to suit my pathetic, weedy Western palate. They are a friendly bunch and make the most amazing fresh fruit shakes and juices.

You will probably have heard of the famous Full Moon parties, but the ever resourceful and commercially-minded Thai folks here also throw big bashes for the Half Moon and the Dark Moon, so you cant go long without some sort of all night loud bash with spaced-out people dancing and drinking buckets (literally) of cheap vodka or whiskey and redbull mixes and lots of firedancer displays The bar next to the hotel was always very loud with the bass turned up so that everything vibrated and you couldn’t hear your TV in a room several hundred yards away. However one night was crazy-loud so that your ears were ringing the whole of the next day and the music went on until just before dawn. I don’t know what the occasion was but I guess it was Somethingelse Moon. The next morning there was a lot of debris and many comatose bodies lying around, so it was a little bit like Glastonbury but on the beach, without the tents. Or the mud.

On Thursday 17th I caught the afternoon ferry to Koh Lanta. In retrospect I wish I had gone for the morning one as the whole day was wasted with much hanging around in the heat and big gaps between 11am check out, catching the 1.30pm longtail to the ferry pier, waiting around for ages then getting on the (non-airconditioned) ferry, enduring the 45 minute delay in departure and finally arriving at Lanta at 5pm. I helped out with a lady on the ferry who was sick (fever, not seasickness) so I am hoping to get that Karma back in spades. In the meantime though the gods were not being kind and despite having had fabulous dry daytime weather for weeks, the skies decided to dump heavy rain just as we were approaching Lanta, which meant that my suitcase up on the top deck got soaked. However the promised transfer was there to meet me, albeit with a ropey old pick up truck without aircon and a driver who didn’t speak any English at all, so I didn’t have to stand around in the wet for long.

Koh Lanta is a group of islands south of Phi Phi. The main inhabited island is mainly Muslim and is large. Various people told me different lengths (as normal, the men exaggerated it) but its about 30 kilometres long by 10 wide at its widest, with a spine of jungle-covered mountains along its centre that look like a dragon’s back. My hotel is on Khlong Nin Beach which is about two thirds down on the West side, facing the fabulous nightly sunsets. The beach is long and quite wide with a steep drop off into the water and a large rise between low and high tides and the water is slightly cooler and more refreshing. Its not as pretty as Phi Phi but I think that is because the beach is more “open” and the sand is darker and grittier. There is virgin rainforest in the National Park on the southern tip of this main island and a bunch of “Bounty advert” perfect little islands to the South that I intend to visit on a couple of day-long snorkel tours. I am here for 10 days altogether including Christmas.

The hotel is quite funky with lots of chill out areas filled with floor cushions and low tables. Given that my creaky knees are useless for sitting on the floor, I was pleased that the main restaurant also has a few tables with normal chairs, but I have occasionally been using the Thai cushions in the internet hot spot area - these are the ones that fold up like low chairs or out like loungers and are shaped like giant toblerones. There is a nice lawned area with two bamboo and rattan hammocks which I love, but cant quite manage to get in or out of gracefully. There are plenty of sunloungers but unfortunately they are built of wood box frames and are fixed, so you cant move them around to stay in the shade of the umbrellas. Thankfully there are a few fellow English-speakers amongst the majority Scandinavians.

Another sign of old age hit me on my first trip to the hotel pool, which looks modern with black tiles and a nice sloped walkway around the outside where the water flows at about an inch deep, which is perfect for sitting in to cool down. It doesn’t have any steps in or out and is chest deep at its shallowest, therefore to get out you have to heave yourself up onto the sloping ledge and then stand up. I managed to heave me out, but left behind my bikini bottoms. After scrabbling to cover my modesty, I then had to stand up which involved at last a 3-point manoeuvre and a bit of grunting. I think I will have to pick the most unpopular times to go to avoid an amused audience - perhaps swimming at night would be fun.

The main hotel public areas are between the beach and the road that runs down to a Sea Gypsy village. The rooms are all up the very long hill behind the road amongst the jungle. I have a cottage which looks like an old shack from the outside but is very nicely appointed inside, even though its a bit basic. The jungle is quite thick around the cottages and you get lots of weird noises at night and quite a bit of scratching sounds too, but I have convinced myself that these are birds not rodents. Mosquitoes are a problem here too, so I constantly smell of Deet.

All the staff seem nice here but there is one waiter guy who is very funny and randomly shouts out the names of drinks as he passes you, e.g. “margaritas!” or “tequila!”, with a huge grin on his face and he runs around at 4pm whispering Happy Hour in your ear. This is amusing but its his name makes me smile every time I see him, as he is called Ecky and I keep wanting to add Thump afterwards as per The Goodies.famous Ecky Thump sketch. This wont mean anything to you if you are not from UK, under 40, or if you have never seen this Goodies sketch.

Lastly, in answer to a recent question - the heat-retaining characteristics of the sand seems to be a direct correlation to the colour and consistency The pale (almost white) powdery sand is quite cool to walk on even at the height of the day, whereas the gritty darker sand gets so burning hot you have to : 1. make a complete plank of yourself and scream like a girl as you try to get to cooler ground; 2. be a 50 metre dash world champion ; or 3. wear sandals. My style actually combines 1 and 3 above.

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Comments

[joy]

again nice to see you relaxing getting fed up with you its cold and icy here but you probably know that and are wetting your self laughing have a great christmas x x x joy

[JUNE BROADLEY]

CHRISTMAS TIDINGS
Hi Lainey, Having been outside again to feed and thaw the birds drinking water and have come in to read your blog, you can well imagine how it's feeling to read and see your beautiful photos of these exotic places your visiting. Your timing has been immaculate for travel and we wish you a very HAPPY EXOTIC CHRISTMAS Love June xxx