Traveling to Koh Phi Phi is a Ferry Good Time

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Traveling to Koh Phi Phi is a ferry good time

Unlike our trip to Kohh Lanta on our speed boat, this time we traveled with the common people. Twice a day, ferry boats leave from Kohh Lanta to take the 1 hour trip to Koh Phi Phi, laden with sunburnt people, beat up backpacks and a few unwieldy rolling suitcases. After grabbing breakfast at the hotel - they actually made American pancakes with maple syrup, Mike and I were sooo excited! - we loaded up our packs and headed to Reception to check out and wait for someone to pick us up and take us to the ferry. It seems the hotel had “forgotten” that we had booked the ferry ride through them the day before and were obligated to get us a van/taxi to get us to the docks - so they improvised, we think. Ten minutes later a pickup truck showed up with little bench seats on the sides of the bed and not much else. Apparently, our chariot awaited! They threw our packs into the bed, we climbed up and hung on for dear life as the truck barreled toward the docks. It was hot and we were a little rattled, but we did get to add yet another form of transportation to the list . . . and they got us to the ferry on time.

Once we got on the ferry, I was so happy to see that there was an under-deck area that you can sit in for the duration and it even had A/C. Truly great. All the sun worshippers laid out on the upper deck and looked to catch a few rays, but we were happy and cool down below. Mike got into a conversation with a fellow traveler - a Canadian guy about our age who was on a 4 month trip through SE Asia. He was a sales manager in Calgary but, needing a break and realizing he wanted a change in his life, was planning to look for something new when he got back. We continue to enjoy meeting people who are taking career breaks like us and learn how they decided to make the break and what their plans are for both travel as well as when they return home. We’ve gotten some really good travel tips this way and hope they keep coming!

Phi Phi - where the weather is hot and the tourists think they’re hotter

When we arrived at the PP pier on Tonsai Bay, we couldn’t get directly from our boat onto the dock. We had to walk/jump from our boat onto another one and then another one and then up a ladder and finally onto the gangway onto the dock. When you’re doing this baggage free, it is no big deal - with our 20 and 25kg of baggage respectively on our backs, it took on more of a stunt level maneuver to make it upright (and not splash into the water between the boats!). The deck hands on the 2nd boat actually grabbed my pack and pulled me onto the boat but Mike was on his own; sometimes it’s nice to be a lady!

Koh Phi Phi is everything that Kohh Lanta is not - busy, commercial, full of little shops and bars and dive companies and lots of young backpackers. Kohh Lanta was kind of sleepy in its comfortable family oriented way. Lots of little ones playing and wide sandy beaches dotted with sandcastles and stray beach dogs. When you get off the pier into Koh Phi Phi you are immediately confronted with a whole lot of everything - taxi/boat/hotel reps trying to get you to come with them, smells of food and all sorts of people. There’s one main street that you walk down to get to any of the hotels and guesthouses and it’s continually bumping with people.

We checked into our hotel which (unfortunately) is right in the middle of this town - a decent place, if small, with A/C, a two-story motel style setup with a postage stamp pool and clean rooms. There’s no beach frontage, but plenty available in a hot, 5 minute walk. This is one of the 1st places that I wish I had known more about before booking - farther away from town there are cute bungalows by the beach that look great. Classic risk/reward decision - to minimize risk, we booked ahead with limited information but guaranteed accommodation. Alternately, we could have not booked anything, waited to get here and walked from place to place and (hopefully) found a bungalow that would be close to the beach, away from the crowds and have A/C. Or, we could have found nowhere to stay and would be completely out of luck. It’s a gamble!

We’re only here for 2 nights and 1 ½ days, so we’ve kept it pretty low key. We’ve wandered the streets, done a lot of people watching and even more sweating and taken some pictures of the beautiful blue green water in the bay. Koh Phi Phi was seriously damaged in the Tsunami, but has fought its way back valiantly and is in full swing again. It’s still a bit jarring to be walking along and looking at the ocean and then come around a corner and see a giant pile of wood and stone that clearly used to be a guesthouse or restaurant. We’re both really impressed at the PP people and how they’ve recovered so well and continue to attract tourists as the most visited island in Southern Thailand.

One thing we’ve enjoyed about the commercial development of PP over Kohh Lanta is the availability of yummy Western food. I had a great ½ of barbecued chicken last night and we’ve even gotten some decent pizza and pasta. While pad thai and green curry is a great Saturday night restaurant choice in the USA, we are both up to our eyeballs in Thai food at this point and drool hopefully at the sight of a french fry.

Quick aside - grammar, spelling and syntax continue to be highly amusing to us in Thailand. The Thai people valiantly try to present menus and signs in English for tourists and on the whole do a very good job. Sometimes however, their efforts run amuck. Mike’s dinner last night came with “friend fried” which turned out to be French fries instead of a much more dubious sounding side dish ?!? The massage place across the street offers Thai massages that will heal anything that ails you or “just you feel great help”. You can figure that one out . . . .

Koh Phi Phi is definitely a backpackers haven, the main activities here are (in our perceived order): lay on the beach and get burnt/tan depending on your genetics, scuba dive or snorkel, drink copious amounts of beer and mixed drinks and, for the truly adventurous, rock climb/cliff dive/shark dive. All of which can be done optimally in the smallest of bikinis (girls) or shirtless with boardshorts for guys.

We have seen more skin on PP than in all our travels in SE Asia combined. The women all not only lay around, but walk the streets, in very tiny string bikinis that don’t leave very much to the imagination. On the beaches, despite the fact that Thais are quite conservative and this island in fact is majority Muslim, many girls just leave their tops off altogether. It creates an odd experience where it’s hard to ignore it and not stare but it feels strange and uncomfortable too. Luckily, most of the people are at least attractive who make this decision to let it all hang out =) The Anglo guys (USA/Canadian/English/Aussie) are in fine boardshort form with lots of tanned six-packs on display. The French and German men, however, let it all hang out a bit too much for both of us. The perfect example is the guy walking along the street in a very small Speedo and nothing else . . . except for a big towel draped around his neck. Why he couldn’t have wrapped it around his waist escapes me - but boy, do I wish he had! In the case of male swimsuits, less is not more. Ick.

Due to the heat, we haven’t really spent significant beach time but have relaxed a good amount on the balcony of our hotel room, venturing out mostly at sunset or later. I’ve developed some particularly attractive sunburn blisters on my knees to complement the sunburn and lingering bug bites on my legs, so laying low sounds great to me. Mike sweats more than I’ve ever seen from him, outside of when he’s eating something spicy. Anyone who’s ever seen him at a Mexican restaurant or chili cook-off knows exactly what I mean =)

Tomorrow we take a ferry to Phuket and then a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where we’ll be for the next couple of days. Back to bright lights, big city for us!

Hope you’re all doing well - have a great weekend!

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Comments

[Schiller]

authorship
a) Kel's headlines and subheads are better than Mike's - "Ferry" good time - nice b) I believe it was just the last journal that Mike claimed to do "all" the writing for the blog. Kelley, make sure that the isn't hogging the spotlight.