Living the Good Life: Koh Phi Phi

After some consideration, we decided to make Koh Phi Phi our next stop. We had heard mixed reviews from different travellers we had been talking to, but decided we would make our own opinions.

We jumped on a ferry in Krabi and within a couple of hours we were cruising into the harbor. Upon arrival there was the usual 100 people yelling at you trying to get you to stay at their place of work. We had already booked a room, so we ignored them like usual and walked on our merry way. When we got to our hostel, we were told that they were full and did not have any room for us. Not the first time that has happened. At least these ones helped us find a new room that was the same price.

Phi Phi Pier

Once we got settled, we went for a little walk around the place. Koh Phi Phi is kind of a party island with restaurants and bars galore. There aren't any cars on the island. Still lots of people running around, the streets are narrow and everything is just jam packed in. There was a plumbing issue somewhere in the streets that resulted in grey water funnelling down the streets and the aroma of crap in the air. So it was a good start!

Long tail engines

The next morning we headed on a longtail boat out to Koh Phi Phi Lei which is where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. Our first stop took us to a beach full of monkeys. People always feed them there so they hang out waiting for handouts. While we were there, there were some dumb tourists that were teasing the monkeys with food that was causing monkey fights and also putting themselves in danger. At one point a monkey jumped on this guys back and one of the Thais had to scare him off. It was kind of a gongshow and we stayed clear of the other people.

Next, we headed over some pretty rough water to Koh Phi Phi Lei. There aren't any places to stay there anymore and it is a national park. The first bay we pulled into was quite stunning except for all the other boats. There were huge cliffs rising up in all directions out of the water. We jumped in for a swim to cool off. Next we headed around the island to Maya Bay aka "The Beach." It was a very beautiful spot but the amount of boats was actually hilarious. Longtails, speedboats, diving boats, and larger passenger boats galore. We stopped a bit away from the rest of the boats and did some snorkelling which was alright. I was definitely on high alert of watching for boats while we were in the water.

We had stopped around half a mile from the beach to snorkel, so after that we headed to the actual beach. Once we got closer there was more people and more boats than we could have imagined. It was literally the busiest beach we have come across. So much for the secluded beach that is portrayed in the movie. There are speed boats that come out there for day trips from different towns on the coast so it's a freaking zoo

After dodging the people for a bit, we found a quieter part of the beach to try and relax. I noticed a family come out of the water and walk past us with a plastic bag full of something. We watched them for another minute and then realized that the bag was full of sea cucumbers! Now remember this is a national park and nothing is supposed to be taken out of here. Before I know it, Roberta is up stomping over to the family. Now there was a bit of a language barrier but I could tell by the look on their faces that they knew Roberta was scolding them. A park official came over quite quickly, and the sea cucumbers were returned to the sea. As you can tell, it was quite the relaxing little outing....Not. After both the monkey incident and the sea cucumber incident, we didn't have a lot of hope for humanity.

The rest of our stay was quite uneventful as I was lucky enough to get a stomach bug....again. I didn't venture too far away from any porcelain, but Roberta did go on a little hike to a lookout point.

We did venture out one night to check out the fire shows on the beach which were actually much better than Koh Tao. I also got up one morning to watch the Super Bowl which ended up being quite the game.

Fire Show Koh Phi Phi, Thailand - YouTube

Even though we had about a week left on our visa, we decided that we would start making our way over to Cambodia. We bought ourselves a ferry/bus/overnight train ticket to get us back up north to Bangkok instead of just flying. It was cheaper and we wanted to experience the overnight train as well. We took the ferry to Krabi, then jumped on a bus to Surat Tani, and got on the train there headed for Bangkok. The train was a couple hours late as per the usual. It took around 11 hours to get to Bangkok. The beds were ok and overall it was a good experience. The bathrooms had a pipe curving down to the tracks which was interesting to say the least but other than that it was all good.