koh phi phi

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on my day off (sunday) 8 of us from camp went to koh phi phi on a one day tour.

now don't get me wrong: tours are an excellent way to see a lot in a little amount of time. i think that anyone who has gone on that beijing tour has to agree.

however, if you've grown up in a place that thrives on tourism and you are pretty familliar with all the gimmicky stuff, this kind of tour leaves something to be desired.

we took a minivan from camp to the dock, and then got on a yacht from phuket to koh phi phi. the yacht was 3 levels, and the top level was covered in lawn chairs for laying in the sun. the boat took about an hour, and passed by several beautiful little islands. there are actually tons of tiny islands around thailand. some of them had such sheer cliffs, that it would have been near impossible to get on to them, if not for a few scattered beaches. one such beach was the location for the film "the beach." the tour guide over the loudspeaker announced this with a weathered tone of voice and you could almost hear how many times he had said over and over, "and look off the left side at the beach we can see where leonardo dicaprio, titanic man, has the movie "the beach," all in one exhausted breath.

we stopped once to go snorkelling for an hour. as wonderful as it was to get into the water, there wasn't all that much to see. coral. a few scattered fish. some trash. again, this shows that i have been spoiled by snorkelling in HAWAII and seeing things like turtles and eels on a somewhat regular basis.

when we got to koh phi phi, we were ushered to a restaurant (listening to our tour guide's dutiful tour guide jokes, long since devoid of any humor: "you get off the boat, you wait for me. you don't know where is the restaurant. i come here every day, i know. you come with me.") and we were fed some suspicious food and then set free on this island for 2 hours.

of course, it was the touristy mecca. a woman had a monkey and let it sit on you to have your picture taken for a hefty price. various shops sold useless trinkets that all say "THAILAND" on them. travel agents and restaurants and and internet cafes joined in the festivities of this tourist trap, all proclaiming that they had best prices, etc.

nearby was a cool little beach. the water was turquoise because there was nothing but sand, and it was so shallow so far out. we walked out for 10 minutes and still only got maybe hip-deep in water. it was gorgeous, and we were there for an entirely too short amount of time. it is the kind of place you want to have time to sit and soak in the beauty, maybe have a nice conversation at night and listen to the water. 2 hours just didn't cut it.

all in all, though, it was a pretty nice trip. of course i wanted more time, and i don't like tourist things, but i didn't know if i'd go to koh phi phi if i didn't go that day, so it seemed that this was better than nothing.

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Photos

koh phi phi
the cute little SHALLOW beach where we hung out.