without a paddle

ko phi phi, though very pleasing to the eye, is a very touristy place. everything about the island caters to westerners, and there is very little remaining thai authenticity. almost all the restaurants feature identical, "westernized" menus of burgers, pasta and pizza in addition to their thai offerings. and all sorts of package tours are available - for scuba diving, snorkeling, sunset cruises, anything you'd want to do to keep yourself occupied - which, while convenient, tends to standardize everyone's experiences. but yeah, it's still a nice place, so we deal with it. but whenever there's a way to do something against the grain, i'm happy to give it a shot.

thankfully, mike, nick and myself were of all the mindset that shelling out $20 to board a crowded tour boat to visit ko phi phi lai was for suckers. we're young, fit guys, and figured we were more than capable of getting ourselves there, via kayak.* that way, we'd not only get exercise, but set our own schedule and spend as much time as we wanted at each location, as opposed to being shipped around by some thai guy who was following a master schedule. the only problem was, by our best estimates**, the island was a few miles away, and would take a lot of time and energy to circumnavigate. we decided to rest up that night, and get an early start the next morning.

naturally, we woke up, dressed, and stepped out of the place sometime around noon. going to bed early on ko phi phi isn't a legitimate option, especially with all the swedish girls out on the town. countless buckets of sang som eventually led us to a fine little place called "reggae bar," which featured a full-sized boxing ring, and free drinks for anyone willing to fight their friends. they had me at full-sized boxing ring. actually, it's a muai thai ring, but subtle differences mean very little to someone who's both drunk and energized.***

sure, i hadn't thrown a punch in years, and i was already way too intoxicated for a free bucket to have been of any use, but something about seeing that empty ring just made me want to get in there and start swinging fists. maybe i have some aggression to work out, or maybe it's 'cause i'm one of the biggest people in the country, i don't know. anyways, i spent ages coercing nick to get in the ring with me, and by the time he agreed, the lights came on and they told us we'd have to wait until the next night. crap! i'm not sure if i'd be able to get that drunk again that soon.

naturally, you can understand why we weren't up at the crack of dawn to begin paddling. when we finally made it to the docks, we found out they only had 2-man kayaks available. despite numerous recounts, our hung-over selves kept coming up with one extra person. rather than shell out an extra couple of dollars to put one of us in his own craft, we opted to triple up.

as it turns out, kayaks are a horrible place to be the third wheel. well, all places are, really. steering our rented craft was next to impossible. hell, keeping it afloat was hard enough. the kayak turned whenever it felt like it, as opposed to when we wanted, picking any random direction and fully committing itself to it. after taking nearly an hour to make it a half-mile to the nearest beach, we decided to have one person swim, or at the least hold onto the boat while in the water, in order to make any progress. it took us a couple hours to make it to the southernmost point of ko phi phi don, and by then it really didn't seem practical to try to navigate the open sea to the other island. sure, we visited some great spots on the way that other tourists rarely see (a small lagoon, a cave that was completely hidden from site, monkey beach, which, yes, featured monkeys, and another beach we dubbed "rubbish beach" for obvious reasons), but we'd fallen far short of our goal. oh well, we still didn't need to take a cheesy guided tour. we could just wake up early the next morning and hire a longtail boat to take us where we wanted.

when we woke up the next afternoon (remember the movie "groundhog day?" life on ko phi phi is a lot like that), we trudged our way to the docks, and found a guy to take us all around the island in 3 hours' time. we also had mike's friends shaun (uk) and shannon (new zealand) joining us. sure, we weren't getting there under our own power, but we'd still have our own boat to use to explore the place and take us wherever we wanted.

or not. as it turns out, our longtail boat operator was one of the worst, most heartless, scamming asshats in all of southeast asia. the trip started out fine, and our first stop was in a breathtakingly beautiful lagoon on the eastern side of the island. limestone karst formations rose high above the turquoise water, and we really felt isolated there, from the rest of the tourists and the rest of the world. after less than five minutes of jumping off the boat and taking in the scenery, the boat captain (he doesn't really deserve the title "captain." he's just the schmuck who had his hand on the engine lever) told us it was time to move on. "oh well," we thought. i'm sure the other parts of the island are equally beautiful. and if not, we could just come back, right?

our next stop was maya bay, where "the beach" was filmed. living in l.a., i really can't be bothered to check out a location just 'cause someone saw it fit to film something there, but this really was a beautiful place. the boat guy told us we had an hour to snorkel, a few hundred meters from the beach. this seemed like a lot of time, and i'm not sure why we were letting this guy determine how to spend it, but oh well, we went along with him.

the snorkeling was nice, but when we felt it was time to move on, we asked to go to shore on the actual beach. once there, a local guy in a "staff" t-shirt came up and demanded 200 baht ($6.67 or so) for access. that seemed a little high for someone with no real credibility, so we jumped back on the boat and told the guy we wanted to go back to the first lagoon.

no deal.

apparently, it would cost us an additional $15 to go back to that first, beautiful lagoon. wait a minute: we'd hired out the boat so he could take us where we wanted, but he was calling the shots. now, he was insisting he'd only travel clockwise around the island, and we were due to go to the next point of interest. we begged, pleaded and argued, but there was no way around it with this prick.

while we were disappointed when the boat took off and continued around the island, we were even more upset when he chose our next destination: a non-descript, shaded corner with no beach that he determined was yet another snorkeling point. wait a minute: we'd already had our fill of snorkeling. besides, the water at this new place was filthy. there was plenty of trash floating around, not to mention a thick oil slick. apparently, paradise was tainted, and this guy was only making it worse.

we mentioned that we wanted to move on, but he wouldn't budge. we said we wanted to go home early, but he still wouldn't take us. he informed us that, like it or not, we were to wait out the remainder of our three hours floating amongst the garbage in this unnamed part of the island.

talk about a buzzkill. here we were, having so much fun, and this selfish prick had to ruin it by more or less forcing us to his will. sure, we could've shelled out the $15 to go back to the first lagoon, but why give in to him? doing so would just empower him further. some of us were considering far more threatening measures. after all there was one of him (and he was small), and five of us. five angry people who felt absolutely cheated. it wouldn't have taken much to overpower him and even leave him stranded amongst the floating rubbish, but i don't think any of us wanted to risk running afoul of the law in thailand. angrily, we waited our time out, with some of us swimming, some trying to snorkel and some just stewing in our own juices on the boat. the ride back to ko phi phi don was a long, silent one, filled with plenty of stinkeye for the captain.

i'm sure the boat guy (all the boat guys, actually) pulls this scam every single day. and i'm sure more than enough people are willing to deal with it and shell out the extra money to go back to the parts they actually want to see. but you know what? the $15 dollars we kept in our pockets did far more damage to this country and our impression of it than that money could've possibly done in his pocket. i returned to shore feeling absolutely violated and cheated, by yet another lying asshole. there are so many people in this country looking to take advantage of tourists, to squeeze an extra couple of dollars (or cents, even) out of them. boat guy, your dishonesty makes me lose faith in EVERYONE in your country. sure, the locals may be full of smiles, but behind those smiles are devious plans to take advantage of visitors in any and every way possible. i was upset after the first few times people pulled scams (or tried to pull them, at least). but now, after boat guy, i feel like the innocence is lost. i can no longer trust anyone here, for fear that they're trying to fuck me over.****

i hope it was worth it, boat guy.

that's all i'm gonna say regarding ko phi phi. scammers aside, i enjoyed it. however, i do have a lot more to add on the subjects of trust + respect when it comes to the locals. hopefully, i'll post something soon, as well as updates on the week or so that i've been in laos.

-sg

* the thinking man's boat.
** looking at a single, most likely not-to-scale cartoon tourist map.
*** buckets are to thailand's tourist areas what cocktail glasses are to the rest of the world. traditionally, they feature a mixture of sang som, red bull and soda. and btw, red bull in thailand is much stronger than what we're used to.
**** or in the case of the prostitutes, fuck me, THEN fuck me over.