Ko Phi Phi
We left Railay on a 9am on a large 175-person passenger
ferry after an entertaining two night stay.
Ko Phi Phi (pronounced pee-pee) was a place I had heard about for years
for its otherworldly blue waters, white powder like sand beaches, and also for
being made famous by the 2000 film titled “The Beach” starring Leonardo
Dicaprio.
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| The passenger ferry just before we boarded. |
We arrived in Ko Phi Phi at the main terminal after a 2-hour
boat ride and quickly headed for a restaurant as we we’re starving. After having a nice $2 meal at a sit down place,
we grabbed a map in search of the hotel Caleb had pre-booked for 2 nights
called the Banana. A staff member at the
restaurant pointed to the map where she claimed the hotel was, a 15 minute walk
away. When we arrived at the place she
claimed was it, we asked another local and they pointed us in another direction
and said “15 min that way”. This
rerouting went on for another 3-4 more encounters with locals before we finally
ended up at the Banana. Unfortunately,
this was the Banana BAR, not Banana HOTEL!!
At this point, I’m about to kill Caleb for picking the
dumbest possible hotel location on the island, a place no one knows. Normally, I would love to walk around, it
would be a welcome way to spend my time, however it was 90 degrees out, 95%
humidity, and I was carrying a 40lb backpack with me. Fast forward another half an hour and we
finally manage to make it to our hotel, a full 2 hours since first getting off
the boat and it was only 10 minutes away.
Fabulous. Luckily, it turned out
to be nice.
It’s now around 1:00pm and Caleb decides he wants to take a
nap. Our room is wonderfully air-conditioned
and we soon have it down to sub-arctic temperatures. I decide to go on a walk by myself and check
out what this tropical paradise is all about.
Ko Phi Phi isn’t a large island and on foot, you can see most of the
main places within a few hours. Poking
through the little nick nack shops and grabbing an occasional chicken skewer or
banana shake, I meandered my way around most of it when I happened to cross
paths with some familiar faces. The
Norwegian girls from Ko Tao! We’ll two
of them as one had flown back home as her trip wasn’t quite as long as the
others. We chatted for a few minutes and
we agreed we’d have to meet up at some point later in the evening and exchanged
phone numbers.
I went back to our hotel to shower and went down for a quick
nap. By the time we got going, it was
after 8:00pm and Caleb and I headed to town to grab some dinner. We stopped at one of the nicer looking
restaurants in town as they are the only ones that typically have air
conditioning. The rainstorms in this
part of the world can be unlike anything I’ve seen before. 15 minutes into our dinner, thunder and
lighting began occurring and a torrential downpour ensued. Safe in our protected environment, Caleb and
I sat quite entertained as we watched hundreds of others scramble to find
cover, the foreign girls holding coats over their head as not to mess up their
hair.
We finished our meal and headed out in search of a place to
have our haircut. I had convinced myself
that I was going to let my hair grow for the duration of my trip but as I learned
in college, I just can’t pull it off. I
walked into a nice looking storefront hair studio and was eagerly greeted by
three lady boys all clamoring to cut the American guys hair. First time for everything right!?!?. 45 minutes later and with no instruction, I
received one of the better haircuts of my life and had quite a few laughs to go
along with it!
One thing I knew for sure I wanted to do while in Thailand
was watch a live Muay Thai fight. I had
come across a place earlier that offered free ringside seating if we purchased
multiple drinks so we headed there. The
fights started at 9pm with a bout between a couple of white guys from
Australia. The amateur fighters were
promised a bucket of booze if they stepped in the ring, anyone could jump in
and people did. At one point during the
first fight, I noticed a group of two attractive girls my age sitting a few
rows back and decided to approach them and ask them if they wanted to come sit
up at the front and have a drink. They
thanked me for the offer but then each held up a pair of boxing shorts, THEY
WERE GOING TO FIGHT! Nothing is more
entertaining than watching two hot girls punch and kick each other and soon,
their battle ensued. It was more like
watching a pillow fight but none the less, I was amused.
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| First fight of the night about to begin! |
The main event was between two Thai fighters that started
around 11:00 PM. During the course of
the previous fights, I struck up conversation with a guy from Canada next to me
who looked and spoke like Dave Chappelle.
The main fight began and it was nothing short of spectacular. The athleticism these men had and the blows
that they could withstand were truly remarkable. I watched them battle it out for 5 solid
rounds before the winner was declared.
Some say that they make the hits look harder than they are and that most
of it’s staged but I’d like to believe the opposite since I had such a fun
time!
The Dave Chappelle guy, Caleb, myself, and a couple of
people who had joined our group decided to head out to a beach bar. On the 10-minute walk there, I again heard my
name and it was the two Norwegian girls, Silje and Stine. As I spoke to them, I turned around and
realized I had lost the other guys I was walking with. The Norwegians, a few girls that they had
met, and myself walked in search of them.
After some time of searching, I gave up and danced the night away with
my new friends. At around 4:30 in the
morning, we had all had enough and headed back towards our respective
hotels. The girls wanted me to see the
place that they were staying in as they had complained how crappy it was
throughout the night. As I walked into
their concrete box, an overwhelming odor of hot, non-air conditioned, humid,
moldy air hit me square in the face. It
was atrocious. After they showed me the
below photo of the spider they found near their bags earlier in the day, I
decided the only polite thing to do was offer them Caleb and mines place to
stay.
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| This would give me a panic attack! |
I helped them grab a few pillows and led them the 15 minute
walk back to our place, all the while chuckling to myself with the thought of
Caleb waking up in the morning, rolling over, and seeing two blonde women
sharing the bed with him. After our
first air-conditioned night sleep in several weeks, we felt rested and
rejuvenated when the two girls and I awoke around noon. Caleb had got up earlier and exactly how I
had thought, was rather pleased when he opened his eyes.
We all got cleaned up and headed to the beach to rent some
kayaks for the day after grabbing a quick bite to eat. The girls, then Caleb and I each grabbed a
double kayak and ventured a few miles around the island to some secluded beach
where we all snorkeled and marveled at the crystal clear water and marine
life. Swimming in the ocean here is much
different than that of the Pacific. It
has a much higher salt content and therefore, makes it nearly impossible to
sink. With normal breathing, you can
float half way out of the water, truly a unique experience.
After three and half hours of kayaking and being in the
intense sun, the four of us headed back to shore. We grabbed a quick bit to eat
together, and said our goodbyes, unsure of wheher we’d meet again. Caleb and I decided to take it easy that
night as we had both had a rough one the day before. We instead, went and spoke to a local travel
agent about getting to our next stop of Langkawi, Malaysia, an island off the
very northwestern tip of the country.
Travel throughout Asia is cheap in general, long bus rides are basically
free, but the great part is you have a lot of different options depending on
your budget. Caleb and I had three
options. The first and cheapest was a
slow passenger ferry back to Krabi where we had come from, followed by a 9 hour
mini-bus ride for a grand total of 12 hours.
The price was about $20 US. The
next was a larger 200 passenger medium speed ferry that would get us there with
stops in about 8-hours for $40. The
third, fastest, most convenient and most expensive option was hiring another 10
passenger cigarette boat for about $120 that would take us to an island called
Ko Lipe about 90-minutes away from our destination where we would spend the
night, then hop on another cigarette boat in the morning to get us to
Malaysia. The total travel time on this
one would be 4 hours.
Now I know people are always on different budget levels when
traveling, but if you can safe a little extra, these pricier options not only
A) Safe a TON of time which is precious, but B) they are experiences in and of
themselves, so worth it. We decided
again on the high-speed Go-fast boats, purchased our tickets and headed to bed.
We had just had an amazing two nights in
Ko Phi Phi!
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