Koh Phi Phi part one

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Arriving in Koh Phi Phi we were excited to return to Paradise, our favourite place on our Thailand trip in 2009. The water was clear and turqouise and the scenery still looked amazing. After paying a 20baht towards the beach clean-up fee when getting of the boat we headed off to The White, Our home for the next 6 weeks. The streets of Phi Phi were a lot busier than before, but the ambience of the place remained the same and The White was as nice as ever. It felt good to know we could unpack our stuff, settle down and have some kind of routine for a while. Our Good friend Lewis was arriving in 2 days and we couldn’t wait to be reunited with our 3rd musketeer! Shattered, that night we decided to have a chilled one so headed off for some dinner and bumped into Rebecca who we had met on the boat trip over. She talked us into having our fish 'massaged' by fish. After a good clean and scrub down we emerged our feet into the fish tanks, the Thai lady kept shouting "they tickle, they tickle..." but for Danni’s and I it felt like pure torture and after several attempts of me removing my feet from the tank, Danni decided to hold me down, and after a few minutes it was semi bearable. We decided to chill out and detox until Lewis arrived as we knew it would be messy from then on so spent our days at the beach, enjoyed nice meals and took advantage of our long awaited air con and cable tv. We discovered the Fox Crime channel and it didn’t take long for our cops obsession to begin, before we moved onto Girl cops of Memphis. These would be our favourite programmes for the next few weeks and came in very handy during the 5 days of rain we later endured.
The day had come, Lewis was due to arrive. Being the losers that we are we made him a sign to welcome him from the pier with, his boat was delayed and we ended up waiting an hour and a half in the blazing sun and got chatting to a PE teacher from Brighton called Ross who had been waiting even longer than us and whose friends never arrived. It was an emotional reunion and within minutes it was like we had never been apart and the banter begun again. He was meant to be staying in the rock dorm but it was full for the next 2 days so we said he could stay in our room and we would sneak him up and down. This proved very interesting when the 3 of us broke the bed whilst watching a film, when we got the hotel people to come up and fix it Lewis had to hide silently in the bathroom for half an hour; somehow we got away with it! We headed out that night and our first venture after dinner was Jordans Irish bar, famous for its buy one get 2 free bucket offer! We had only been in the bar 10 minutes when we spotted Cel and Flick some girls we had met in Haadrin, we were so happy to see them as we had been gutted we didn’t get there contact details. The drinking games begun and the buckets flowed. Afterwards we headed to the beach and ended up at Slinkys, where we quickly claimed our dancing table, not just for the night but the rest of the week with the girls it was ours!
The next day we made it our mission to find jobs, we had our hearts set on working at Dojos or Jordans but they already had a full staff team so we came across Banana Bar which had been our favourite Mexican restaurant on our last trip. We got speaking to Abel, the rastifarean owner and he agreed that all 3 of us could have a job and start that evening which is where we worked as the Reem Team for the next 2 and half weeks. Lewis promoted the rooftop bar and cinema that showed a film each night at 7pm, The Beach and Hangover 2 were constant fixtures on the weekly timetable, whilst Danni and I promoted the Mexican Restaurant, having eaten there many times before we were able to recommend our favourite dishes.

The day had come for the 21 stitches to come out; so walking down to phi phi hospital with Zoe, Lewis, Cel and Flic in tow (with cameras) we made it. After signing in, the receptionist shouted in Thai to one of the nurses; who were all sat around eating food. She ushered me and my followers into a room which overlooked the beach and told me to lie down on the bed. The stitches slowly came out and trying to put on a brave face as Lewis filmed the whole procedure; it ended and the scar looked beautiful. As I had hoped when the nurse stitched the wound up in Koh Phangan and I suffered for 7 days without having a shower or going in the sea; the wound had healed perfectly! With the whole ordeal over the dressing was redress again and I thanked the nurse profusely, we headed off to get some food. We went to pee pee bakery which does amazing breads and cakes; but our favourite being french stick with cream cheese! Very yummy!
A few days later Nick, an ozzy guy who Lewis had met in Laos and again in Haadrin arrived, so the 2 boys and us 4 girls formed the wolfpack and needless to say the next few days were messy! The weather took a turn for the worse and for 5 days solid we were pretty much confined to our room watching Girl cops and making mad dashes to go and find food. The rain didn’t stop us working and our boss provided us with umbrellas, although promoting a roof top bar in the rain proved rather difficult, and more often than not he let us finish early and provided us with extra free booze. Lewis had now moved into the dorm and made friends with a group of lads which left us girly time with Flick and Cel. It was like we had known them forever; they got me and Danni, just as the Ozzy girls had.
Despite the rain we had some awesome nights out with the girls, finishing work and heading down the beach to Slinkys on our bench to dance the night away…well dance until half 1 when the music suddenly dies when the police come round. We would all head down to Stones bar were there were cushioned mats on floor were we all chilled out, with most nights ending with a giant piece of pizza slice and for some pancake too! The girls spent one night working the streets with us, helping us to promote Banana bar….we worked until the rain didn’t stop coming and got to finish early. Although as soon as we had got to the beach the rain stopped and we partied on the beach with the wind blowing in our like we were in a cheesy music video!!
It was only just over a week but we had all became so close that when the time came for the girls to head off for Vietnam we really didn’t want them to go and even contemplated going with them after our failed attempt at begging them to stay in Phi Phi. Saying bye to the girls at the pier was emotional we made them a sign so they could remember us, we said our goodbyes and made pacts that we would stay in touch.
The day after the girls left the sun came back out; it was time to top up our faded tans. We spent the next week working at Banana bar with Lewis and spending the days down the beach improving our tans and taking in the beautiful scenery. When the sun shone down on the sea it was a luscious turquoise blue colour that made it very inviting; although as the days went on the sea got warmer and it felt like taking a bath! Whilst we spent our days down the beach, Lewis spent his days abusing our aircon and sleeping! As the days went on it was noticeable how the island got quieter, all the people we had met had been and gone, the beach wasn’t as busy and everyone spoke of heading to the next fullmoon party soon.
We had many eventual nights out with Lewis and spent our time outside Banana bar playing toys guns or cars with JJ. JJ was a little Thai boy who celebrated his 2nd birthday recently, his parents owed the Tara inn which was right next to were stood handing out flyers. He slowly got to know us and was boss us around pointing in Thai telling us what he wanted us to play. With his infectious giggle even Zoe fell in love with JJ and we all decided he was by far the cutest kid on Koh phi phi!
The day came round far to quickly for Lewis to leave, we made him posters on the back of wonder woman and super girl pictures so he would never forget us. We were dreading saying farewell but luckily when we got to the pier his boat was already there and a Thai lady was shouting at him to get on quickly so the goodbye was short and sweet but none the less upsetting. Although Lewis will not admit it we saw a few tears in his eyes behind his sunglasses, and both of us with our eye filing up behind our raybans headed back to our room. And then it was just the two of us again……

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