Koh Phi Phi - the tropical paradise where tan lines begin, and buckets never end!

The humble abode!
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After a not too long of a ferry ride, I found myself in Koh Phi Phi, a place that I had heard a ton of great things about! Needless to say I was pretty excited to arrive! For all those who don't know much about the island, it's a relatively small island where there are no cars or other vehicles! In fact, there are hardly any real roads! You get everywhere by either walking or taking a long tail boat around to your destination. Me and Jason got off the ferry and headed to find a place to stay right away. That's the other thing with Koh Phi Phi, it tends to fill up pretty fast, and many a weary traveller have found themselves SOL for a place to stay. Some may not consider this a problem as there is ample beach space to chill out on, but I'll tell you this much, I don't think you would want to sleep on a place where the tide moves about a mile each day, and little crabs scurry about underneath your feet! Anywho, we were going to head to Long beach, which my Lonely Planet book had told me was the center of the backpacking circut on the island, but we headed to a beach a bit closer and found a place with only ONE room left! So we snapped it up for 200 Baht each! Sounds like a great deal, but trust me, when you see pics of the accomodation, you may be a little less impressed! But in the end, you spend very little time in your room, and having a hut in the jungle is actually pretty cool! Plus this place was the only one on this tiny strech of beach, so it's almost as if we had a private beach! So anyways, the point of this rambling paragraph is that I had a place to stay and didn't have to sleep with the crabs...

The perfect way to start every morning!
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The room wouldn't be ready until 6:30-7pm and it was only 5pm, so there was a bit of frisbee and volleyball on the beach and then finally I got to put my large backpack down again! That night we walked to Long Beach through the jungle to check out the scene. We actually found that it was super quiet and I only saw a few bungalo operations, the rest were basically resorts, so in the end it may have been a good choice not to stay there. After some supper and a drink I crashed pretty hard in the little hut. That's the thing about getting up with the sun, you're ready for bed as soon as it sets!

While neither of us said it to the other, there were times when both of us thought we weren’t going to make it!

I always had wanted a monkey as a pet, until they growled at me!
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The next day was a bit of an exploration day. There was definately some suntanning and book reading and then me and Jason walked onto the main beach to check things out. I think the best part about Phi Phi is that it is the first time I’ve felt completely relaxed since being here. Even though I’ve seen some beautiful things, Phi Phi is the part of Thailand that I’ve been dreaming about, less hustle, more chill and the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen in my life! This day was actually me favorite of my trip so far. After wandering around the town a little bit, me and Jason rented a Sea Kayak and decided to do a little sight seeing on our own. We kayaked to a place called Monkey Beach. It is named for one reason, and that is because it has a ton of nice trees on it….Ok I’m lying and like the name suggests, there’s Monkeys to be seen! We got as close as we could to them to get some good shots, until they began to growl at me (who knew monkeys could growl??) and then I backed off! The next stop after Monkey Beach was a place called…ok I don’t remember what the beach was called, but it was supposed to be the best place to watch the sun set. We came up to this little secluded beach where there were only a few tourists on it. After a few minutes, everyone left but us so we popped in the iPods and watched the gorgeous sunset! I tried to only take a few photos as everyone tells me I’ll have a million sunset photos by the end of my trip, so I limited myself to 4…ok I took 7 but then I filtered through and managed to delete 3 of them. I swear I tried real hard. Then I realized that this trip is not supposed to be about limitations!

A picture perfect pose just off Monkey Beach
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Here’s where the story gets pretty funny. The guy who rented up the Kayak told us that we should leave right after the sunset to make it back by dark. He also said to aim for the red flag near the beach to find our way back. Oh, he also said watch out for the large sharp rocks that will be pointing out of the water because the tide will be out. What he neglected to mention was that it would get pitch black about 30 seconds after the sunset, that the tide would be against us the whole way back making it almost impossible to paddle through the large waves, and that the tide would in fact leave over a kilometer of bare sand and large rocks for us to carry the kayak through. We seriously paddled as hard as we could for over an hour trying to make it back to the beach. We were traveling beside a large limestone cliff and I watched as 15 minutes of hard paddling moved us only a few meters through the water! While neither of us said it to the other, there were times when both Jason and I thought we weren’t going to make it! Not that we weren’t going to survive, but I seriously thought we were going to have to swim to an empty beach and camp out all night until we were found! FINALLY we made it to the giant rock field. Only after we were standing next to the red flag were we able to see it, so I didn’t really think it served its purpose well at all. We picked up the Kayak and carried the bloody thing through the treacherous land, until the people who rented us the thing in the first place found us and took it off our hands. It was then that we found out they had been so worried they had sent a long tail boat out looking for us! It was actually kind of nice to know that they cared about our welfare, especially in the land where you can do anything and never once be asked to sign a waiver or buy insurance! After that ordeal, we needed some drinks and food so we indulged. After a few drinks (which you can actually carry around in the street with you which was nice indeed), and getting lost in the endless streets of little nightclubs, it wa bedtime and I was out like a light!

Liz, the professional Sea Kayaker!
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The next day was also pretty good. I took a tour of both the Phi Phi islands and saw all the sights. The tour took us back to the monkey beach, to a few coves and then to the famous Maya Bay. This bay was used in the filming of the Leo DiCaprio film The Beach. Honestly, it was a bit overrated, mostly because I expected my breath to be taken away and instead, I saw a giant beautiful beach full of tourist boats and Japanese photographers with fanny packs J There was one cove however, that left me breathless. It’s called Phi Leigh Bay I believe and it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. There were no beaches, but we did get out and have a nice swim in the crystal clear green water. We also got to do a bit of snorkeling each place we went, which was great until the little sea lice started stinging us! Now I have all these little red marks on my legs, but it was definitely worth it to be underwater surrounded by amazing colored fish!

Seriously the most beautiful Sunset I have ever seen.
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On this tour I met a group of 7 Australians who were an absolute blast! So much so that me and Jason met up with the 6 girls, 1 guy later that night. We went to the Reggae Bar where I saw some Thai Boxing for the first time! Just another example of how you can do anything in Thailand, they were offering free buckets to anyone who wanted to try it! Two of the girls we were with had actually done it the night before and one ended up with a bloody nose! I’m not going to lie, I thought about it and then realized that #1. I’m not a boxer and I’m not into bleeding for fun and #2. …no that’s pretty much what stopped me right there!

All I'm gonna say is that I better have some muscle after hauling that bloddy thing...
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We did a bit of club hopping and I had my official introduction to …..drumroll please… the Bucket! They sell these drinks in actual plastic buckets that have Thai whiskey, coke and redbull in them. Best part is, they sell them everywhere, 2 for 1! So I had a few buckets as a warm up and then challenged one of the girls, Kate to a bucket drinking competition. I would like to announce that I did Canadians proud that night and I finished mine in 30 seconds flat, while Kate’s was more than ¼ left! I got a few impressed stares and did my best to shrug it off like it was nothing (we Canadians have to maintain our modesty you know).

It's a good look for me I think, with the snorkel and all
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After the bars closed, we did a bit of late night swimming and exchanged emails. I think I will have some great company in Sydney when I get there! Somehow in all of this I lost my sandals and some wonderful Thai man gave me his size 11 Crocs to wear home! I actually still have them on my feet and I’m going to buy some new attire as soon as I’m done.

That’s about all I can think of to say right now. I’m off to Krabi and then Railey by myself tomorrow. I’m super excited for this leg of my trip because I’ve heard wonderful things about these places. I’m going to do some rock climbing and chill by myself for awhile. A little self-reflection sounds good to me! Thanks for continuing to read and I’ll write again soon!