Meeting People

Posted by Chris

Well Ryan and Heidi are cracking the shits at me for trying to make them do another blog entry, so I will do today. After a very extravagant hotel breakfast we caught the free 9am minibus to the airport. We went through security check (they have security as soon as you walk into the airport here) and walked downstairs and found a cheap ride of 400 baht to the Phuket pier for our ferry to Phi Phi island.

We arrived about 10:15 and then realised the stupid ferry didn’t leave until 1:30, so we had nothing to do except cain some beers. Finally on the boat and Ryan and I were on the top poop deck socialising up a storm. I can’t remember all the names but there was Noah from the states, Macca and Reece from Melb and a couple from SA. Lots of drinking and socialising in the sun and by the time we were landing at Ko Phi Phi, Ryan and I were quite sauced.

After checking into the Phi Phi Banyan Hotel and going for a quick swim, I split up from the others so I could go exploring. I eventually ran into Noah and the two Melbourne boys at a bamboo tattoo parlour and they were getting crazy, possibly unhygienic tats. Tattoo’s done with bamboo take forever so I eventually left there and found a packed movie bar for dinner. I watched “The Beach”, had a Massaman curry and met some new friends from Poland, Ralph and his wife who’s name escapes me. By the way, Ko Phi Phi is the closest populated island to the beach in that movie – we should be going there tomorrow.

The movie bar closed and everyone cleared out, so the poles took me to the club on the beach called “Hippies”. The place was going off and we watched some fire twirlers before I got a poke in the back from Ryan, who had just shown up with Heidi and Danae. They were all very drunk from numerous “buckets” (apparently one of the buckets didn’t have enough vodka in it, so Ryan sent it back for more) and cocktails.

[Heidi intercept: While Chris went off “exploring” the rest of us lay on one of the beaches and sat at the Marly bar and had a couple of cocktails. It was happy hour, which in hindsight seemed to be most of the time on Koh Phi Phi. We then went via the back streets following the tsunami evacuation route, and came across a local food stall and had one of the best pad thais of the trip (or pad thighs, as it is commonly called now, due to is eventual location on me and Danae). And best of all it was only 50 of the baht ie. A$2, wahooey! Then we hit some of the bars which were surprisingly empty at this stage, and had our first bucket. Now I’d heard about these before, but never seen them, and they actually are just a bucket! Like one you take to the beach and build sand castles with! Anyway they fill them up with whatever you want basically, for a nice price too. So Ryan, Danae and I went around some bars enjoying the cheap cocktails and beautiful location. We stopped off for our first Thai pancake too – Ryan and I had an awesome banana and cheese one! Mmm mmm mmm! We ended up at Hippie’s bar and met an Irish guy, Peter. He had owned a guesthouse on Phi Phi before the tsunami, but now still just came back often. Surprisingly he was one of only a handful of Irish people who don’t drink. Still he cracked open one beer with us, perhaps his second in 4 years or something he said, and we hung out with him for most of the rest of the night whilst taking in the awesome fire twirling and dancing on the beach in front of us.]

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Ko Phi Phi is probably my favourite place so far. It has just the right amount of party nightlife and the scenery is just amazing with sheer cliffs plunging into the ocean and lots of palm trees.