We have an early pick-up so breakfast is rushed. It is going to be a long day. Our transfer arrives and we have a chat with a couple from Melbourne. They have been to Thailand a couple of times. This time they have the three kids with them, (5, 8, 12 so old enough to enjoy the holiday!), but are doing Phi Phi alone J That is the way to do it!
We arrive with hordes of other transfer vans. This tour company seems popular, and the reviews speak fairly highly of them. Fin hire for snorkelling is 100bht. Sash, (one of the people we met in the van), recommended we hire a pair as the snorkelling areas are large and make exploring the waters a bit easier and you get a bit of protection should you brush against an angry sea urchin. (Obviously won’t protect your face but your feet are all good)
The tour operators round everybody up. A short Thai man with bleached blonde tips pulls up a patio chair and climbs up.
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| Miss Coco Chanel holding a sea sick tab. TAKE ONE ONLY!! |
I notice immediately his hands are being held in a very camp manner, like me when I get drunk I guess. He announces....
(I will try and type it how it sounded. Think drag queen with a Thai/Asian accent and you are there with me)
“Oh-kaaaay Oh-kaaaaaaayyeee. Evvry botti listen to meee. This wayee, this wayeee! Welcome evvry botti to the too-arrrr”
The whole group takes a seat and directs their attention to this funny fellow.
“Maaai name eez Miss Coco Chanel” (like Chanel No.5 lol)
“Toodaay we gotoo Pee-Pee islands. Yeaaassss. Eeeeeeeif you get the sick frum seeeeaz you take one peel...” (waves around a sea sick tablet)
“...eeeif yooou take too.....(comic pause, hand on hip)....seee you tomorrow. Goootniiiight!”
Shit, these sea sick tabs must be pretty good. I think about taking two just for laughs...
“Eeeif you take thrrrreee.....(bigger comic pause, thrust hips out)...holidaaaaiee ovurrrr!”
At this stage everyone is in hysterics. We are all pumped to get on the water and hope that Miss Coco Chanel is our guide for the day. They gave us stickers for group 1, 2 & 3. We were group 3. Fingers crossed.
“Eeeeeeif you hab steeekarr number tree. You have loverly Fai-yo”
A short Thai girl runs up, gives everyone a ‘wai’ and sawasdee kaaaaaaaaaaa....:) We all say hello back.
“Eeeeeif you hab the nuber tooo. You arrrr wit Joker!”
A lanky Thai boy waves and bows with a big smile.
“Eeeeeif you hab number wan....(biggest comic pause of all time with a huge cheeky lady-boy grin)...you have Miss Coco Chanel and you have goot time, long time!”
The crowd erupts with applause and we shuffle off to the marina with our guides. Phayo, (say it just like Miss Coco did. Fai, like eye and oh like the letter ‘O’), seems pretty cool. She immediately refers to us as brother and sister.
“Hello mai nice brother and sister. You are our family today.”
We get the run down of the tour and load up on the boat. We miss the shaded area of the speed boat because we are gawking at the marina and still laughing about Miss Coco. It’s all good though we packed the 30+ so we sit up the front.
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| Titanic it aint...because that was a different DiCaprio movie... |
We are told it will take one hour and a half to an hour forty to get to the first spot. “The Beach” Yeah, the same one from the movie The Beach. Phayo jokingly says “you know Leondarrrdo? Yeasss, yeasss he it my boyfriend. We meet up hia” The big Thai grin lets us know she is bullshitting. I love Thai people.
Here is the background on The Beach...
Its real name is Maya Bay. It is a small bay on Phi Phi Leh, (That is the name of the island where the beach is situated) Stunningly beautiful, (minus the tourists it would be), it is sheltered by at least 100m high cliffs on each side of the bay. If you have seen the movie The Beach then you know where we are and what it looks like. If not from above it would look like a letter ‘C’ except the ends of the C almost meet. Water funnels in and out through here with the tide. It is very sheltered from the outside ocean. The main beach is about 200m long. There are other small beaches and cays between the high rise cliffs but most are only visible at low tide.
Now the movie, lol. Originally a book by Alex Garland. Fox bought the rights to the book and signed Leo DiCaprio to play the lead role in the movie. Maya Bay was perfect...only Fox decided that the perfect beach needed some palm trees and less vegetation. WTF? Environmentalists went nuts saying that removing vegetation would degrade the beach and result in erosion. And rightly so as this little ecosystem was very delicate. After filming, Fox replanted the vegetation and bamboo fences put in place to hold up the sand until the plants took root. There were very strong tides and a storm following this and the sand flowed down from the beach and killed a lot of the coral.
There was a bit of debate as to if it was a result of the replanting failing or just natural erosion. I agree with the environmentalists, it was a bullshit move to tear out the bush that had held the sand from the sea for hundreds of years before they arrived.
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| Bay view from Maya Beach |
Off my high horse! Oh and back on it again. We corner the entrance to Maya Bay, it is looking pretty stunning so far with the high volcanic cliff faces bearing down on us in the rough and choppy August seas. When we make it around the corner we find about 30 tour boats already anchored up at the beach. The beach itself is full of people.
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| I waited so long for a clear photo of the sign and this crazy little bitch pops up out of nowhere! Randomly funny though.. |
I was a bit disappointed in this but I guess I really should have expected that a place this beautiful would be overrun by visitors. I find out that it is best to get here really early, like before 7:00am or after 5pm. Note to self. We wander a little on the beach. Take some photos. It’s funny because I took shots that cut out most of the tourists then included them in the next shot. Kind of like paradise one shot, Schoolies Gold Coast the next!
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| Packed out beach. It was madness but had it moments... |
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| Much better looking without the peeps |
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| This was great to watch, Asian guy molding a penis on another Asian guy... |
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| I'm like the kid out of "The Sixth Sense" that always sees dead people. (only I see penis not dead people...) |
Back into the boat we go and it is a 10 minute trip around to Pi Leh Bay or the lagoon as Phayo called it. Again this is a bay like Maya Bay only smaller and tighter entry and much less busy. The water depth ranges from a few meters right down to about 20 meters. We pull up gently, no wave action like outside the bay. The water is calm and fairly clear. One of the deck hands motions for us to take a dive from the front. The fist guy up is a bloke from New York living in Korea. Straight in without warning. So I step up next.
Phayo is waving from inside the boat saying “No! No! Wet a minute! Wet! Wet!”
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| The Lagoon. It was nice and peaceful here |
The deck hand says jump...lol I find myself at the bow of the boat, will all eyes fixed upon my Moby Dick white chubbiness. I Dive in. I get about ¾’s the way to the bottom from the dive before I try to equalize my sinuses. 20m deep my arse Phayo, this is like 30 – 35m! I pull out of my dive to the bottom and pop up in time to see the tour boat leaving with everyone waving and Phayo yelling out “Goootbaiiiii!!!” Funny bastards. I have a quick chat to Mr NY-Korea while we swim over to where the boat weighs anchor. We both agree it was deeper than 20m there haha.
Vicky joins me for a dip. It is beautiful. Azure waters, cool but not cold. 100m cliff faces surrounding us. Quiet and serene. Japanese family with life jackets to laugh at as they float away and get dragged back by deckhands. The only sounds are laughter and the deep roar of a long-tail boat taking off.
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| One of the random Japanese that floated away from the boat. Plus a hidden beach between the gap. |
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| The limestone walls were impressive and massive. |
We clamber back into the speed boat and set off to Yong Kasem Bay. On the way is the “Viking Cave”. This is a big cave where swifts, (a bird), make their nests. Do you know bird nest soup? Now you know where it comes from. A lot of bird nests come from Thailand.
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| Viking cave! People live around the place to protect it from poachers in the off season |
This giant cave houses many a nest for swift. It is lined with bamboo and rope for the harvesting of nests. They call it the Viking Cave due to some paintings on walls resembling Viking ships. The paintings are supposed to be ancient, really ancient according to local stories. They are more likely, (apparently), to be a couple of hundred years old if that. But the name still sticks. The bird nests are made from the saliva of swifts. The season to harvest is February to April. It is August so no nests are taken legally.
Phayo tells us about the swift. They fly in and build a nest with spit. They take great care to make a crescent shaped cup against the cave walls. Only once a nest is complete with the swift mate and lay two, maybe three eggs.
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| Swift and spit nest. Worth so much money and I still can't work out why... |
The locals that harvest them don’t discriminate between full nest or empty during the season. Many eggs are discarded. Phayo said it makes her feel sad because the bird makes a neat and tidy nest and then can’t have any babies. She would like people to stop taking the nests. Plus Phayo doesn’t understand why the Chinese would pay many thousands of baht to eat bird spit/spew! I agree with Phayo.
The next little island we hit up for a snorkel is Phi Phi Don. So now you know both of Phi Phi Islands: Phi Phi Leh is smaller with Maya Bay and Phi Phi Don is larger, inhabited and has monkeys...apparently! Our snorkel spot is to be just outside or Yong Kasem Bay, (monkey bay). It is pretty choppy on that side so the boat pulls up in a nice shallow coral drop-off. In we go.
The water is full of fish. I try to film some with my hand held underwater camera but I am so hopeless with it! There are Damsel fish in scores, Wrasses galore and heaps of clams. Their lips where blue and green mostly. Some pink and brown. Before we know it the snorkel is over. Normally we would be able to enter Yon Kasem Bay to check out the monkeys but the tide and choppy seas prevent entry. Phayo says we will try and see some monkeys on the way to lunch. They are a no show but most of us a pretty happy to get some grub and shade.
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| The snorkel location was great. |
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| I think in reality, we'd all be effed if it happened on the day. |
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| Long tails ready to go! It was a quite bay even though it was populated. |
Back into the boat.
We call in to see the monkeys and they are hanging out in the trees and on the rocks near the water. I was pretty surprised to see them jump into the water as well. Our deckhands tossed bananas to them and they caught them, peeled them and gulped them whole! Very cute looking but Phayo tells us they are proper wild monkeys just used to seeing people. They still bite! From what I could tell they were all Long-Tailed Macaques, the kind the Thai people used to train to collect coconuts from the trees. (We will learn more about that on one of the safaris I think...)
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| I swear it looked like this monkey had more feet and legs... |
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| She had a baby monkey. The Japanese group went nuts for it..."kawaiiiiiiiii!!!" |
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| Showing off his twig-dick. Cheeky little....monkey haha |
Koh Kai is next up. Koh meaning island and Kai meaning chicken. They call it this because the tip of part of the island looks like a chicken head. I don’t know how they worked that out from land or boat, from the air it kind of looks like a chicken or rooster head...kind of J
I am not sure this would be classed as an island if it didn’t have the bar and toilets in the middle. It is little more than a sand cay with rocks at one end and some think bush/jungle in the middle. Either way it is pretty cool. The side we arrive on is copping the full force of the on-shore winds. This side is lined with beach chairs and beach umbrellas, (for hire of course). We land and leave the group straight away for a walk around the island. We find that once we leave the main beach area and get to the other side the wind is buffeted to a stop by the small thicket of jungle and offers crystal clear water with little more than two or three people there. I guess it is empty here because there is more shade less sun and no bar or beach umbrellas...people are weird. This was the paradise in the ocean we saw in the brochure!
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| Windy one side.... |
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| Calm on the other. Literally only rocks separating the two sides |
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| Paradise. I could have stayed all afternoon |
I take a dip while Vicky takes some photos. We are only disturbed by Phayo bringing a platter of pineapple and watermelon and the camera guy documenting the day of the tour guests. All too soon the call is made for us to climb aboard and head for home.
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| Vicky did warn me not to dive in the shallows.... |
The trip home was more fun than the trip to Phi Phi. It was choppy in the morning but we had the wind behind us and the waves were crossing. This time we are hitting a head wind and the sea was surging a little. It made for entertaining jumps and bumps. Like rollercoaster without the harness.
Arriving at the marina, we can hear the other speed boat and deck hands singing happy birthday to Miss Coco Chanel. Turns out it was his...um..her birthday today. We have a photo together for the dvd before leaving for the hotel. Tonight we will have a big meal and some drinkies at Fat Mama’s.
There are a couple of people already at the bar from Western Australia. I sit down and we order up some drinks and food. The food is crazy good again. Tonight behind the bar we have Jeaw, Jit, Dee and Nuch. The games are on and another group of Aussies arrive, they appear to be regulars as well. They straight up order tequila shots. This place is about to get silly...
There is a bell hanging from the bar. If you ring the bell you buy everyone at the bar a round of shots. It will cost you 1000bht for the shots. Your choice of shots. I ring it and order another round of tequila, lemon and salt. It was great. Then someone else rang the bell. B-52’s all around. Then again someone rings the bell B-69’s...shit Jaew just rang the bell himself and shouts the bar shots! Somewhere afterwards Jaew sticks a box on his head and starts to shuffle dance.
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| Everyday I'm shuffling! |
Then we all shuffle dance. I opt to shuffle dance on the bar top tiles. How I didn’t fall I will never know. Perhaps it was the power of shuffle...
I try to give a lady from Brisbane a lesson in shuffle dancing. Hilarious given I can barely do it myself. Around this time Jaew introduces me to Cointreau and Red Bull. Strange mix I think to myself. In Thailand the red bull is not fizzy and does not come in a can. Instead it is a treacle like bright yellow liquid in 100 – 150mL brown bottles. Kind of like the old medicine bottles.
Just promise me if you go to Fat Mama’s order one for yourself first drink. It will keep you going and going and going!
As the stupidity gets stupider...we take our leave. I talk to all the shop owners on the way. I may have mentioned in a previous post that the suit tailors are either from Nepal or India and they sure are. Before leaving the drinking strip I hit up the Pink VW Kombi bar for a zombie. I order a shot but instead they give me a whole cup for the price of the shot, repeat customer privilege! It is awesome but really, really strong.
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| The Kombi selection. |
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| The Zombie = death in a cup. But tastes great! (White rum, golden rum, dark rum, apricot brandy, pineapple juice, papaya juice, 1/2 part 151 proof rum dash grenadine!!!) |
I get that feeling I will regret it tomorrow...maybe even that night! I buy a pair of leather slip-ons from a big guy who poses for a photo with me. He tries to sell me music but I am too drunk to pick. I dance with a group of tailors and shirt vendors on the main drag. Vicky is making a beeline for the hotel as she has to pee and can’t wait for me dicking around.
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| I teach him bad things. He hugs Vicky every time we see him for the rest of our stay... |
Hotel again, hotel again. Vicky passes out almost immediately. I get changed into new clothes, (I still can’t remember why), and pull out the laptop to do some typing. As I sit down I realise typing will not be possible as the brain was spinning like mad! I get undressed and flop into bed, one foot on the ground to get the room to stay still. It works just long enough black out.
The next day was nothing really to write about, as it was one of the few free days we had to do pretty much nothing or everything. Good thing too because I could barely drink water. Vicky wanted greasy fat burgers so we hit up McDonalds. I told Vicky I would sit outside and wait while she ordered. That was until I got a breath full of open drainage grease trap...I thought I was going to hurl. I duck inside and find the smell of Macca’s to be no more comfort than the street. This better go away quickly. Vicky and I shop for a bit. We see some friends from last night. The funniest were the group of tailors and t-shirt shop owners. Straight away they see me and point, “Hey it’s dancing man! Dancing Man! You want a suit dancing man!” They all start shuffle dancing. One short Thai fellow does a great impression of me dancing drunk. Vicky is amused. I am still drunk for sure. We go back to the hotel and hit the pool. The sun between 12 noon and 3pm is insane with no cloud cover. So the frangipani that line the pool provided cool comfort. By 5 I have sobered up enough to venture out again. It has been a nice day apart from feeling a bit seedy. Fat Mama’s gets a visit and three Chang’s later I am feeling awesome.
Tomorrow will be our safari day in Phuket. See some elephants, ride some elephants and learn a bit about rice and rubber! I thought it better not to have anymore drinks so we give the pink kombi a wide berth.
What a day! See you on safari J
I’m out - Chris
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