The Beach The Sequel

After The Beach was filmed here, Ko Phi Phi became the island paradise that everyone had always dreamed about. Strikingly beautiful lagoons, scenic hills, long white sand beaches, emerald and turquoise waters, dense tropical forests. Unfortunately, once a place has been advertised in a movie and numerous travel brochures, you kind of know even before getting there that some of the beauty you were expecting to see would be gone - destroyed by the droves of tourists and travellers all coming to seek their own paradise and the property developers cramming in the resorts to cash in on the area's popularity. The 2004 tsunami also caused alot of damage apparently with virtually every standing structure tragically destroyed in the bay areas.

Despite all this, Ko Phi Phi is still beautiful and definitely worth going to. There are alot of tourists and travellers (a ridiculous amount of Europeans - mostly Brits - you can tell as they're the ones with the beers in their hands at mid day and crowded in the bars for the Premiership games! Also, they're the ones the swearing comes from!), the beach fronts are lined with budget accommodation bungalows and everything is more expensive here than mainland but Phi Phi is still a gem in terms of a holiday destination.

Ko Phi Phi is made up of two islands - Ko Phi Phi Don (where all the resorts are) and Ko Phi Phi Leh (main location for filming of The Beach - and luckily no bungalow operations there so property developers have not been able to ruin the sheer beauty of the island).

Despite the problems that we had in getting accommodation - our 35 quid a night grand deluxe bungalow (we decided to splurge and treat ourselves) at the Arayaburi Resort turned out to be a great last minute find. The beds were big and comfy with real duvets, the bathroom was a proper one and we even had a balcony with a sea view! Actually, it was really a nice hotel rather than budget accommodation! My only complaint was that the bungalow was abit of a long and uphill trek to get to from the reception - by day, we had to watch out for the centipedes (either crawling along or being half eaten by the army of ants) and the falling coconuts (I had images that I would be hit on the head by a falling coconut! Man, I get through China not having my organs looted or kidnapped to be a wife in the rural villages with my foot tendons cut so I can't run away or being robbed at knife point on the sleeper bus just to be hit on the head by a bloody coconut falling from the tree! That would be sheer bad luck wouldn't it??!!) and at night the path was so dimly lit (probably so that you couldn't see that you were stepping on the half eaten ant infested centipedes!) that we were like burgulars scurrying around with our blue and white flashlights!

Actually, the bugs were abit of a nightmare. I'll tell you a funny story. We came back to our bungalow at about 1am one night after a good boogying and drinking session down at the local bar. As the toilet at the bar was of the scoop variety (yep, a barrel of water next to the toilet bowl for you to water down your deposits - nice), I was looking forward to relieveing myself in our luxury bathroom. But you know what happened....I walked into the bathroom only to be confronted by....horrors of all horrors....the thing you dread most as you switch on the lights....the monster of all monsters....the biggest frigging spider you could ever imagine!!!!And I am not bloody exaggerating! I'm usually ok with most bugs and I definitely don't bounce or scream for no reason - but I tell you, I screamed and frigging bounced out that bathroom! As Michelle didn't look like she was gonna get off the bed anytime soon - yep, we both hate spiders - and I really badly needed to pee, I decided to be brave and managed to dump the dustbin on top of the spider to contain it. For added measure, we placed a bottle of water on top of the bin and slid it along so we could close the bathroom door and leave it with a note as a present for housekeeping the next day (plus a big tip for them when we left!). So we calmed down abit and again I went into the bathroom hoping to relieve myself. I walked in and what did I see crawling up the sink , another frigging big spider! I almost had a heart attack! So for a second time, I screamed and bounced out of the bathroom. Poor Michelle was having a heart attack by now what with my screaming and the spiders!!!

What followed was a series of calls in this order - 3 consecutive calls to reception (who did not pick up), 2 calls to house keeping (who did not pick up), a call to front desk (who did not pick up), another call to reception (who finally picked up!) and a conversation which was along the lines of:

Us: Hi, we are calling from room three zero five....room three zero

five.....three zero five...

Reception: Sigh...Yes, we know you are three zero five.

Us: We've just gotten back and there's a huge spider  .....spider...huge spider

...big spider.....yes, BIG BIG spider in our room...help, can you help us,

please HELP us.......thank you!!!!

So at about 1:30am in the morning, two security men dressed in black with flashlights and a dog arrived to be greeted by two shrieking girls standing on the bed and ..... a huge spider...I don't think it was the emergency they were expecting! The spider that had been in the sink had crawled up the wall by now and so what followed was scurrying in our bathroom as the two security men knocked it down and was trying to stamp on the spider as it scurried across the floor as two girls continued to shriek! Finally the security men caught it and picked it up ... yes, picked it up by hand .... oh and BLOODY tried to show it to me ...to which I recoiled (bounced backwards across the room for the third time that night!). I then told them that there was another one in the upside down bin to which he replied 'never mind'...what the hell 'never mind'!!! So I kept pointing to it and they got ready again to catch the second one. I swear to god, they were just as scared as we were but just trying not to show it as they were planning a strategy to catch the second spider - one got ready to stamp as the other got ready to lift the bin. As we waited with our breaths held, the security slowly lifted up the bin....and...um,..no spider.....they looked inside the bin....still no spider! What!!!! So it was the same damn spider who managed to escape the bin! What the f##K??Was that possible!!!! Did we get the houdini of spiders or something???? So as the security guards laughed into the darkness with the one spider and our tip, no doubt going to have a good laugh or our behalf and no doubt telling every single colleague, we quickly used the bathroom (never peed so quickly in my life!) and kept the door shut for the rest of the night!!!!!

Our trip in Phi Phi was not ruined by the spider though. Phi Phi really is beautiful despite the hordes of travellers and tourists. We took a long tail boat day trip which took us around  Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh, stopping off at all the beauty spots.

• Monkey Beach -so called because not surprisingly there are actually monkeys which bring the island lucK

• The two strikingly beautiful lagoons of Phi Phi Leh - Pilah and Maya Bay - the latter of which was the primary location for the filming of The Beach
  

  Fire Spinning show at the Apache Bar
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• Viking Cave - which takes it's name from the primitive images of Asian junks and other ships on the walls painted by fishermen in the last 400 years. The cave is also a collection point for locals for swifts nests used in the  chinese delicacy of swift's nest soup!

• Bamboo Island - an isolated island with white sand and clear crystal blue waters.

Maya Bay and Bamboo Island were my favourite - it was so beautiful especially once the one day tourists had departed. The snorkelling was absolutely amazing with the coral reefs and the brightly coloured fish.  I had never snorkelled before and since it was in deep waters, I kept my life jacket on for added measure. Unfortunately, it just made me look as though I had fallen out of the boat instead!

(Oh and another bug story - on our day trip, we were provided with lunch - fried rice in plastic containers that our guide had packed onto the boat earlier. Anyways, we arrived at Bamboo Island and he handed us each a plastic container - I looked at ours and saw ants crawling on them - I was almost too afraid to open up the container and I was right, I opened it up and came face to face with a whole army of ants crawling in and out of my fried rice - eugh! We told the guide but there was nothing he could do. Our containers along with another 2 girls were the ones with ants in as they had been at the bottom of the box in the boat - but you know what - despite finding ants in her rice and initially giving the box back, one of the girls started eating it anyways when she realised that she had to go without food! I'm sorry but we really couldn't stomach it! I would rather not eat than to eat ant infested rice. As Michelle went to walk around the island to see if she could find us food, the girl who after finishing her container of ant rice, turned round and asked if I was going to eat mine. I looked at her as though she was crazy and said 'no, there's ants crawling in and out of the rice!'. To which she asked if she could have it! Come on! 'Yeah, sure' I replied and looked on as she flicked the ants off the top with her spoon and then proceeded to eat it with her friends! I bet they were laughing at us that we had no food and had to go hungry but we had the last laugh as Michelle came back with pot noodles and a huge bag of crisps! Even somewhere as deserted as Bamboo island had a shack of a shop that sold food!)

The town of Ton Sai is small but with plenty of restaurants and bars. We made friends with all the local waiters - unintentionally though. It's now confirmed that we look Thai - both locals and fellow travellers think we're Thai and the local waiters all took a shine to us...in fact, it became alittle weary constantly being hassled as we tried to enjoy our Tom Yum soups and our curries every night.

Our favourite bar was the Apache Bar - there was a fire show there every night at 10:30 where people performed acts with fire on chains and sticks/poles to music. The music was good too and we enjoyed having a drink and a dance there. One of the waiters there also took a shine to Michelle....he would fan her to cool her, offer her the best seat in the bar and even, quite frighteningly, come up close and smell her hair!!! (we were abit worried at first as he slid up to her and we were wondering what the hell he was going to do!) Haha, I told her that I should offer her up for 10,000 baht!!!! Haha!!!! To which Michelle was quite offended, surprisingly not that I tried to sell her for the night but that she was only worth 10,000 bath (what's that about 1300 quid - that's alot!). I told her that that's cos she's a novice. I mean, if she was an amateur I'd sell her for abit more obviously!

To be honest, as much as we liked the Apache Bar from the beginning, we did worry that we would not be able to return there after the first night. Like I said the local men really took a shine to us and tried to dance with us and offer us swigs from their bottles of Thai whiskey. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to take the hint when we politely declined and tried to move away. In the end, we had to constantly move from one end of the dancefloor to the other to avoid them. It didn't really help though. We would John Travolta dance move it across the floor to get away from one wierd long haired drunk local only to find ourselves almost crashing into the arms of the first one!

Though, I have to admit, it was quite funny at one point when one of the local guys offered us a swig of his bottle of Thai whiskey and Michelle smiled 'no thank you, we have our own' . The guy then got abit of a shock as this innocent looking girl unzipped her handbag on the dancefloor, took out our own whole bottle of Thai whiskey, unscrewed the top and took a huge gulp from it! And no, we haven't become raging alcoholics - alot of the bars sell whole bottles of Thai whiskey/rum and we just didn't want to leave it on the table whilst we were dancing!

Oh and just about the best chat up line ever. On the first night, a group of chinese men (who had been on the same boat as us from Phuket )happened to be there as well. Recognising us, one of them came to speak to us in Mandarin. Obviously we had no clue what the hell he was going on at and when he realised this, he tried to get the words out in English instead. After waiting patiently and politely for what seemed like eternity...he finally came out in broken English with "you......are.....two.....women"......I almost split my sides laughing.......I knew what he meant....he meant that we were two women alone at the bar.....but it just came out so funny and I could hardly control myself as I replied with as much of a straight face as I could ...'yes, we are two women...why do we not look like two women! It was hilarious! The poor guy got abit embarrassed probably because by this point, we were almost crying with uncontrollable laughter, went back to his table and didn't speak to us again for the rest of the evening! Oh dear!

It was also at the Apache Bar where our love affair with fit gay guy began. Whilst Michelle's waiter lovingly gazed at her, Michelle was lovingly gazing ....right past him at this (and I would have to concur) really gorgeous guy - think clean cut boyish handsome with a hint of oriental blood in him the way Keanu looks. Ok, the reason why I call him fit gay guy is that he was just so good looking that there was no way he could have been straight! Oh and he was wearing a real tight white sleeveless top which showed off his well fit bod! Yum yum! I mean, he's not on the same level as my fit Italian (come on, did you see the photo of my fit Italian!) or the friendly German (did I ever mention the friendly German that I met in the internet place at Bangkok station whilst we were waiting for our Chiang Mai train - tall, tanned, blond with a gorgeous smile and nice strong arms and oh, just so nice and super friendly!) but this guy comes a close third I can tell you. Unfortunately, we never got a chance to speak to him at the bar as we lost him whilst we were trying to get away from the locals on the dancefloor.

Oh and just for reference...plus the fact that I am still very childish despite my increasing age....there is actually an island called Poo Island just by Phi Phi......haha haha....Phi Phi and Poo right next to each other....haha haha...haha...I'm almost wetting myself laughing here....LOL..wetting myself...phi phi..haha...get the pun???!!! Haha!......