Phi Phi part 2

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So our stay on Koh Phi Phi Island continues and after 7 weeks of living, working and partying here it’s starting to feel like our home. We have made some amazing friends and explored the island some more. For those of you who have never been to Phi Phi your missing out, for those of you have…you have been to paradise! It has it all, amazing beaches, friendly people and not a car or moped in sight. The island is linked together by a maze of cobbled streets. So small it would be very hard to get lost (Although we have witnessed several drunken people walking around in circles) everywhere you go you see friendly and familiar faces and all of us who work/live here are like one big family. Tourists come and go daily and the pier is rarely quiet. Over the weeks we witnessed a notable change in the nationalities of arriving travelers. When we first arrived the island was taken over by English students and teachers who have now gradually filtered out and now the island has been taken over by the Israelis and the Irish.
Finally after 22 days on Phi Phi Island we made the long trek up to see the viewpoint. Waking up early at 9 am (well for us, when days normally start no earlier than 11) we headed up the steep steps that also serve as the tsunami escape route. We were determined to make it all the way to the 3rd viewpoint, but sadly only managed the 2nd, but had still beat our previous record of viewpoint one! 100’s of steps later we surfaced at the top, very sweaty, after walking through some woods, we were greeted with the amazing view of phi phi island in all its beauty. The view was like a postcard, clear blue sunny skies, turquoise sea and perfect view of both sides of Phi Phi. After catching our breaths and taking some photos, we made the long trek back down that was so much quicker we headed for breakfast of muesli, yoghurt and fruit (our one and only attempt of being healthy).
After the girls and Lewis left the island we continued to work at banana bar. With Danni eager to do her open water course we decided on our first night off to wander down to P.P Aquanaunts the dive shop that our Rastafarian boss had recommended as I had finally decided to attempt scuba diving. Thinking we were going down just to have a chat about it, I ended up signing up for PADI open water course and started the theory the next day. This was a slight problem after 7 weeks of my brain not really being used; I had to put it back into action… So that night as we watched cops on TV, I swatted reading the first chapter of my book and completing the knowledge review.
Meanwhile we had made friends with an Essex girl Fran who was travelling by herself; she had just finished her open water diving course too and was staying on the island for a few more days before moving on. As I was doing my diving and couldn’t drink and Zoe needed the money Fran worked a few nights at banana bar, when I was completing my course as early mornings and revision.
My diving experience was amazing and so much fun...I could write a whole blog about it, so I will do a summary of it…I swotted for 3 days and finished all the theory; as I had a stinking cold that had been brewing as everyone else had got thai flu before me! Then very eager to actually go and dive the day had come, waking up at 7 am…the rain was pouring and I thought I would arrive at the dive shop to say we weren’t going; I was very wrong! So heading down to the boat we got on and starting setting up all the scuba equipment the waves got bigger and the boat rocked more, we had to head back inside. Thinking to myself how grateful I was that Chris (my diving instructor) had given me an anti-sickness pill that morning…as we headed for phi phi ley over the 2 metre waves.
We arrived at the dive site and finished setting up our equipment and put our wetsuits on. By this point I was incredibly nervous and needed Zoe to be with me for support; as the other people on the course with me were a french couple who had each other. With all the equipment on we got into the water, inflated our BCDs and headed towards the point we were to descend. When we descended I had really bad trouble equalizing and had the worst pain ever in my ears, but Chris was with me and very supportive. I also was buddied up with his fiancé Charlotte who helped me a lot through the whole dive. Once down under the water the experience was amazing, seeing all the aquatic life…feeling very strange that I couldn’t turn to someone and say how cool it was! I had one blip when I popped to the surface and really freaked myself out, crying and with a nose bleed it felt like forever until Chris came up and calmed me down. We went straight back down and continued exploring seeing lots of beautiful fish…
The next day I got up bright and early again to finish the course with my 3rd and 4th dives, but as we descended I had the worst pain ever shooting through my forehead and couldn’t equalize at all. So I had to go back to the boat and wait 2 hours to get back whilst they finished the first and second dive 
We struggled being separated for 4 days after living in each other’s pockets for the last 2 months or so, and the fact that the weather was horrible also didn’t help with matters. Working without Danni was not the same. I would spend my days sleeping, seeing what the rest of the world was up to on Facebook and watching movies on my netbook while Danni was out diving in the rain. Danni felt the strain also when she suffered a few anxieties attacks and needed me to give her a little slap to snap her out of it! This was also made worse by the fact that I am medically unable to dive due to all my ear problems as a child, my asthma and heart murmur and the fact that I was slightly jealous.
The island gradually got quieter as it was nearing full moon party time again, and everyone left for Koh Phangan. All of the teachers and students we had met had to get back to school and university…so there would be some days we could go to the beach and there would be only us and few other people on the beach. The streets would be completely empty at nighttime, some of the restaurants closed for a week and less people arrived.
So a week later and with my cold completely gone I got up bright and early to finally complete my course, feeling nervous and like I may have forgot everything in a week we headed down to the boat. I set up my equipment with my new instructor Danny over seeing what I was doing…then we discussed the dive and what skills I had left to do. Again the weather was quite bad and the sea choppy, but once we made it to the dive site it was fine. This time when we descended I was fine and equalized easily; which I was happy about as I thought I was also going to have problems after my last dives. Once down I had to finish off my skills to pass the PADI course, then we went exploring. We saw loads more amazing sea life and the visibility was much better than last time. Danny my instructor was determined to show me a stingray so as we swam back and forth a few times, we finally saw one swimming along the ocean floor. We then headed for an artificial coral reef that was made out of concrete squares for the coral to grow on; it was amazing how all the fish didn’t seem bothered by the divers swimming around them. The dive finished and we only just got back on the boat in true phi phi style it poured down with rain, marking the end of my course. With the dive over and finally completing my PADI open water course. I felt very excited about the next time when I would dive; although forgetting that I had just added a very expensive hobby to my list of interests!
Finishing my diving course we went back to banana bar together to start work again, but as the island had been quiet for a while it was clear our bosses were getting slightly stressed. During the month or so we had worked there we had noticed tension between the managers, in particular Deco a horrible Irish guy, who was always drunk who used to make digs at us all the time and on several occasions had come to blows with Abel. With no customers and a lot of staff, often we would stand on the street and not talk to someone for ages. After only 10 minutes of turning up to work this particular night, our Rastafarian boss Abel came towards us with our bag and shoved it at us telling us to finish work. With no explanation we finished work and returned the next day for a reason…he said nothing and the next we knew Abel had left the island and we stopped working at banana bar.
We had been to Paddy’s place several times for dinner and got chatting to the Irish owner Paddy and his Thai Manager Ooo and they had both offered us work but being loyal to Banana bar we had always said no. Paddy had left the island for a week and shut up over the full moon week and we kept bumping into Ooo who begged us to come and be her promo team. We bumped into Nicholas the Swedish bar tender from banana bar on several nights out and he had told us to come back to banana bar to work so we were in two minds and so did what we always do, made a pros and cons list for both, and the end result was that we would give Paddy’s place a try! It was less hours for almost as much pay and we would not only get free drink but also a free meal each day. So for 2 weeks we were Paddy’s promo girls! Ooo who had been so lovely to us before soon turned into a completely different person; she was rude, obnoxious and weirdly jealous when we spoke to Paddy. Watching Paddy and Ooo work together was highly amusing, they fought like brother and sister and we almost felt stuck in the middle. Paddy, a 34 year old Irish man going on 20, a massive stud, he constantly told us of his female conquests and Danni and I became his wing ladies on nights out chatting up girls for him. He was a very funny guy, and made our continued stay in Phi Phi eventful.
Working on our new street corner at Paddy’s place meant we were able to make new island friends and break our way into the dive world. It was on this corner that we met Rob from Essex who had already been travelling for 16 months and had been to Oz for a year on a working visa. He was funny, full of banter and had some good tips on Oz for us. We had also become close friends with Susan the Thai lady who runs the travel desk at our hotel and also worked for Sharkys sports bar. Every Thursday she would shut up the bar and this became ladies night. Although we missed our dear friends Lewis, Cel and flick, we got back into a daily routine.
We went on our second Thursday night out but ended up getting stood up by Susan; later finding out she was unwell. We ended up chatting to Kirk who ran the Phi Phi party boat and who we had chatted to before as he had worked at both Banana bar and Paddy’s place. We chatted and ended up heading down the beach to party… After already planting the seed of getting piercings earlier on in the day; we stopped off at a piercing shop to get our tragus pierced! With Zoe thinking she would chicken out if I went first she sat down and had hers done with ease. When it was my turn he couldn’t pierce it and had to do it twice, the pain was fine and didn’t really hurt I think Zoe felt more pain for me watching…
As our time in Phi Phi drew to an end we became sad to leave our ‘island home’ but excited to explore the Philippines and meet Danni’s friend Albin. We had everything booked and arranged, a 2 night stay on Railay beach, a night train back to Bangkok and 2 nights on Khaosan road to party and shop. We arranged our last night out in Phi Phi which of course had to include our Supergirl and Wonderwoman costumes. As we were the only 2 wearing fancy dress we needed some help from a bucket before we left our room. We had a great night, went to all our usual haunts, said our goodbyes and took far too many photos….
The next day we awoke to an email from Danni’s dad with the subject title being ‘Typhoon’. Alarm bells immediately started ringing and we got straight onto the internet to look at the news. It wasn’t looking good….Even the capital city Manila had been badly struck and all of the islands we were going to were severely flooded and there was the threat of another bad storm due to hit the following week. We were in 2 minds what to do so decided we needed a little help from our parents, after 4 no’s we decided against putting ourselves in danger and to stay put in Phi Phi so we could continue working and try and account for the money we had lost out on.
Paddy’s place was due to shut up for a few weeks and coincidently news of Abel’s return to Phi Phi turned out to be true when we received a call from him as we were lying on the beach. He begged us to come back to Banana bar and the Banana crew welcomed us with open arms and lots of buckets. So we were back to where we had started, the dream team (minus Lewis) but his with replacement Rob the new dream team was formed.

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