ko phi phi was my next destination, and it involved a lot more fun and a lot less makeup-smeared fists. first off, a little history on ko phi phi...the name is pronounced "pee pee." this is a small attempt on the part of the thais to make up for the fact that the island of phuket is not pronounced as hilariously as it looks like it would be. "poo-ket" is more like it. but i digress.
ko phi phi consists of two islands: ko phi phi don, the northern one, and ko phi phi lai, the less northern one. don is populated, while lai is more of a nature reserve. don consists of two large rock formations connected by a narrow isthmus.* each side features a long crescent of white-sand beach, and the town lies between them. smaller, less accessible beaches lie scattered amongst the rest of the rocky coast. together, these islands are considered to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. sadly, it was also one of the hardest hit by the tsunami. approx. 4,000 people lost their lives here, and 70% of the structures were destroyed. numerous restaurants + shops featured pictures of the aftermath, and it's very heartwrenching to think about the tragedy that occured everywhere around you. most of the casualties were tourists, and from the looks of the place, young ones, too.
behold, the narrow isthmus!
but i didn't come here to mourn. i came to take in the views and get loaded, not necessarily in that order. actually, i didn't go there with the plan of partying, it's just something that happened. when in rome...
the trip from krabi to ko phi phi was great. on the boat, i met mike (canada) and nick (wales), and we ended up rooming and hanging out together for the next 4 nights. while on the boat, we also met dan lavigne (canada), one of the wildest, craziest senior citizens to ever roam the planet. dan is an anomaly of a mystery of an enigma of a man. with an appearance and gait reminiscent of a thin rodney dangerfield, this outspoken, self-declared genius, poet and troublemaker wanders the globe consuming any chemical he can grab while spreading his ultra-liberal rhetoric. his numerous stories left us in a state of shock and awe. i was afraid to interrupt him or question his veracity for fear that we'd miss out on other tales of life on the wild side. according to dan, he's made + lost a fortune twice, been stabbed four times, overdosed on cocaine in honduras, and has the governments of canada and the u.s. trying to track him down for his aggressive anti-tax paying measures, which he promotes via the web. and those were only the stories he had time to tell us on the brief boat ride.
once we hit land, me, mike + nick set off to find a place together, and were barely able to keep dan from tagging along. he's interesting, for sure, but i didn't want to be the one to give him mouth-to-mouth when his reckless lifestyle caught up with him. it's a good thing he was in more of a tranquilizer mood that day, or we wouldn't have been able to shake him. he's remarkably mobile for a 67 year-old drug fiend.
ko phi phi is a bit more expensive than the rest of thailand. more tourists = more gouging. we were willing to shell out a bit more for a room here, but even with the three of us together, i still paid twice as much as other places. as usual, the room we found seemed nice at first (3 beds, fans, hot shower, toilet with both a seat and the coveted "flush" option), but then the ol' thailand surprise reared it's ugly head. an ugly head supported by an abdomen, thorax and eight of the hairiest legs this side of the israeli volleyball game.
from the picture, it's hard to get a visual reference for how big this guy is. imagine if, for some strange reason, you were to grab him with your fist...his legs would still extend about 1-1.5 inches past either side of your hand. this was by far the biggest arachnid i've seen outside of a science classroom. needless to say, we weren't too fond of our uninvited 4th roommate. even dan seemed like a safer option at this point. luckily for us, he was gone by the end of the first night (the spider, not dan. i still encountered him a few more times). unluckily for us, we had no idea where he had gone. all the searching in the world wasn't helping. every night, we waited in fear that he would swoop down from the ceiling to take one of us away.
oh, and if the spider wasn't enough, the bathroom also featured permanently yellow water in the toilet, an increasingly funky odor none of us felt responsible for, and a spray nozzle powerful enough to rip the ceramic tiles off the floor. remember how they don't use toilet paper out here? well, the two other options for cleaning yourself are pouring a bucket of water on the offending area, or using said spray nozzle, which is just like the one on kitchen sinks back at home. this fancy place featured the latter, which i've actually become accustomed to (spraying saves precious t.p., after all), but why this nozzle was powered all the way up to 11, i'll never know. it hurt to use, and it had so much force that i'm sure i had water gushing out my nose and ears every time i pointed it towards my starfish.
bathroom atrocities aside, the place was fine. our first night featured a wide variety of alcohol, consumed with a wide variety of people: russians, canadians, norwegians, swedes and those are only the ones i remember. if i could just say one thing about the swedish women: holy shit. they were ALL beautiful. well, 9 out of 10, but those odds ain't bad. in a land where every tourist is sunburned and scarred from insect bites, motorcycle accidents and encounters with coral reefs, these blonde beauties walked around with perfect, flawless tanned skin. holy crap, how do they do that? i thought the asian girls were sexy; i'd all but forgotten about them when i was on ko phi phi. and yeah, with good reason: there were more swedes than thais on the island.
well, that's enough computer time for me. more adventures from ko phi phi to come, to be followed some day by all the adventures taking place north of the border in laos.
maya bay, ko phi phi lai, where "the beach" was filmed.
view from a porch at the top of ko phi phi.
-sg
*is there any other kind of isthmus than a narrow one? i think not.
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