The Other Side

Days 206 – 209, Friday 13th – Monday 16th March 2009 (Cath)

While we were in the area, we thought we’d pop over to Koh Phi Phi and see how my favourite little tropical island was going. I absolutely loved it the first time I came to Thailand and was interested to see how it had changed – years of development, then the tsunami, then several years of rebuilding later.  

View from the ferry, Ao Nang to Koh Phi Phi Don

The fancy pier was new (last time the big boats stopped further out in the bay and we all transferred onto smaller ones to bring us to shore), but the very, very tempting, gorgeous, stunning water looked familiar!

High tide 

Same

Our bags, taking a break on the longtail boat from Tonsai pier to our accommodation

It’s about time our backpacks made it into the blog – they’ve been our trusty and constant companions. Mine’s the blue one, and Al’s (well, really his friend Virginia’s, since she kindly let it come with us) is the red one with the huge black thongs attached.  Those thongs were very popular in Africa – lots of people offered to trade Al some wood carvings in exchange for his shoes (it’s obviously a bit hard to find a pair like them in the shops in Malawi), but he clung onto them, so they’ve made it the whole way around with us as well. Meanwhile I have gone through two pairs of Havaianas. 

Our balcony!

We splashed out a little on our accommodation (mainly because it was a last-minute decision to come here, so there were no rooms at the Viking backpacker place we’d heard good things about, and we wanted to have somewhere booked so that we could focus on doing nothing for our last few days). If you ignored the smell from the pipes just outside (which should be pretty easy for you to do, assuming you’re not using your computer anywhere near raw sewerage), the place really was lovely. It was just far enough away from the busy part of the island that it felt quiet, and just close enough that we could walk along the beach for twenty minutes and find a bit more action, and tastier food.

We thought a hotel pool on an island like this was a really unnecessary touch. But with cushioned sun lounges and a ready supply of cool drinks, it successfully tempted us away from the beach on the first afternoon. I was also intrigued by the poolside chalkboard, which read ‘NEVER SCUBA DIVED? TRY IT FREE HERE TODAY’. I had decided a long time ago that if I ever tried diving, I’d do it in a pool before getting into the ocean, so I thought I might just take this chance while my schedule was otherwise completely clear. Unfortunately there was another couple having a lesson at the time, so I had to wait. Somehow we managed to pass the time, swimming, reading, sunbaking and napping – it was a struggle – and when they had finished I had almost convinced Al to join me. The instructor (Pierre, whose French accent made us think of him as an older, less sleazy version of Brendan Fraser’s character in Along Came Polly) did the rest of the convincing, so suddenly Al and I were all kitted up with weight belts and tanks and standing in the pool, learning how to breathe underwater and not drown.

As you might know, I love almost everything about swimming, while Al’s never really been the underwater type. And I’ve snorkelled a lot, with no difficulty. But I really struggled psychologically to put my head below the water and breathe through the SCUBA mouthpiece. Al was much more able to stay rational and trust the equipment, so he and Pierre were crouched underwater for a while signalling for me to come under, while I kept bobbing down, almost getting my face underwater, then standing up again. But eventually I just did it, then struggled to keep myself calm through all the ‘your mask has been knocked out of your mouth! Don’t panic but get it back as quickly as you can or you’ll die!‘ underwater run-throughs, and finally somehow found the guts to tip myself into a horizontal position and start doing slow laps of the pool, kicking my flippered feet. It turned out to feel a lot more comfortable than squatting in the shallow end. I still felt restricted by the weight, and by not being able to lift my head up to look around, but Pierre assured me this was only because the gear I had on was way too big. ‘That’s good’, I thought, ’so now that I almost feel comfortable in a pool, that means one day when I feel comfortable with a reputable company in Australia I might actually be able to go diving in the sea’. After a couple more laps, taking in the view of the hairy white legs and beer guts of a few big German men, I was feeling satisfied. 

But for some reason, just as I had taken off the SCUBA gear and was enjoying the safety and warmth of dry land, I had a carpe diem moment. A few minutes later I was ticking the box next to the basil chicken I’d chosen for lunch on my diving trip the next day! I spent the night making Al reassure me it would be OK, and that I could pull out at any time if I felt uncomfortable. The day of swimming, sleeping and sunbaking he was looking forward to sounded lovely to me.

Fire twirlers – your Phi Phi bar is nothing if it doesn’t have at least one of these performing each night

The boat to Phi Phi Ley the next morning – the other couple booked on the diving trip had cancelled, so it was just me, the Frenchman and the driver.

I once again had trouble getting my head under water at first. I told Pierre I was going to come under, then come back up and get totally comfortable, then come under again for real and keep going. What actually happened was that I went under, went just a little bit further under, got into a horizontal swimming position, and then Pierre showed me on his watch that we were already at 3m. I felt surprisingly calm and started to enjoy the surroundings. Then Pierre showed me his wrist again – 12m! Wow, maybe I’ll actually be able to do this, I thought. Apart from a few moments when I found it hard to equalise my ears despite my best nose-squeezing and yawning efforts, it all went very smoothly. I did get very focussed on the ear equalising, and I’m sure I was doing it at least four times as often as necessary, but at least I didn’t get any pain afterwards. And that really was my only concern at the time (although later I did think it may have been silly to dive in just bathers and a t-shirt, with no stinger suit, once I knew the kinds of things that were down there)! It helped that I knew I was the only bumbling novice my instructor had to worry about. 

I absolutely loved the feeling of swimming for such a long time in the underwater world. It felt the way flying felt in a dream I once had – it was surprisingly comfortable. And the diving scenery was much more exotic and spectacular (partly since in the dream I was flying just a few metres above the ground, following a road). It was easy to forget how far down we were – there was so much going on around us that the surface above seemed irrelevant. It looked choppy and noisy up there, but around us was calm and quiet, apart from the noisy bubbles we breathed out. As impressed and excited as I was when we found the underside of our little boat (which had moved to where the driver knew we would finish), resurfacing really felt like I was coming back to the reality I had known and leaving behind a whole other, wondrous world. 

Fresh from seeing a black-tipped reef shark, some lobsters in their holes, a black and white-striped sea snake, a few pairs of clown fish, a lionfish (or leopardfish?), lots of other lesser-known but equally beautiful fish, and coral in almost every colour of the coral rainbow. All except that peachy-orangey-pinky colour lipstick manufacturers call ‘coral’, strangely.

Lunch stop – the basil chicken was deliciously spicy. We picked up about three supermarket bags full of rubbish from this tiny beach, and took them away with us. 

Just around the corner was Maya Bay, where The Beach was filmed – not quite deserted anymore. We didn’t stop.

My second dive was a little bit further around the island, more exposed to the waves than the first one. By the end, I was getting quite tired and ready to come back up, but I certainly couldn’t complain about not getting my money’s worth. It had been one of my favourite mornings of the trip, and it was capped off by discovering Al just sitting down to lunch at a table by the beach, so I could describe it all to him while he ate. I’m not sure he loved hearing about it as much as I loved reliving it, but he seemed to enjoy his food.

Night storm – we sought shelter in a pancake stall and bought a ‘milkshake’ (=ice-shake) as thanks

A couple of ladies sought shelter from the lightning in this PHONE booth, holding UMBRELLAS. Hmmm.

We found time for a bit of rock scrambling the next day.

Surveying the bay

The white pontoon in the background was apparently built as a floating restaurant – someone’s ‘good idea, wrong place’ according to Pierre

We managed to fit in a quick swim back at ‘our’ beach before this storm hit

Then walked to this bay on the other side of the island, avoiding nasty-looking pieces of corrugated iron blown loose by the wind. The rain set in, and we found an indoor table for a leisurely lunch and drinks.

Finding this lookout in time for sunset was not as straightforward as we expected. At one point, totally lost, we were relieved to see some other people coming along the path behind us, so we waited for them. Our relief was shattered when they said ‘oh, we asked some people and they told us to follow you!’

We got there eventually, but we never did find the Tsunami Memorial. The signs seemed to lead us in circles. We learnt not to trust signs.

This sign just made us laugh. But we still don’t trust that a lady can walk on water, like that one on the right, even if she does have a pole.

Breakfast on our last day in Thailand

Al’s final (and possibly his 23rd?) Thai massage

Kids at Tonsai Pier

Koh Phi Phi is certainly not suffering from a lack of tourists. The central part of it is more highly developed than I thought possible after the devastation the tsunami must have caused. Lots of shops and restaurants in town had a framed ‘after’ photo on the wall showing the extent of the damage – the whole middle strip of the island was almost completely wiped out. But apparently it took so long for new safe building guidelines to be developed that people started rebuilding anyway, in their desperation to get their lives back on track, with the result that now a lot of areas deemed unsafe are once again home to densely packed, fairly ramshackle structures. At least most of the actual housing for the community seems to be on raised land, mainly up the hill where we eventually found the lookout. The most poignant reminder of the day we saw was a tree with colourful ribbons, like the ones usually attached to the prows of longtail boats here, tied around its enormous trunk. It was near the bottom of the hill, and we wondered how many people it might have saved.

And suddenly it was Monday, and time for us to go. We caught the ferry to Phuket, then shared a mini bus from the pier to the airport, where the driver gave us an elaborate and fun handshake goodbye after seeing us high-five each other (in a corny but ironically cool way, you know) for completing the trip. 

Home time.

Days 203 – 206, Tuesday 10th – Friday 13th March 2009 (Cath and Al)

The taxi drivers are on to a good thing at Phuket airport.

We were actually staying in Krabi (Cath had been to Phuket back in 2001 and it wasn’t on the top of her must-go-back-there list), but Phuket was the only place in the region we could fly into using our round-the-world ticket, and the Lonely Planet told us we should be able to catch a bus from there to Krabi. So, all prepared for but not looking forward to a cramped and hot 4-hour bus ride, we ignored all the ‘transport?!’ touts in the airport foyer and tried to find out where the bus stop was. 

It turned out we would need to get a taxi to the bus stop on the main road to make it in time for the next departure. So we joined a few other backpackers at the official taxi rank, insisting to the drivers that we didn’t need a taxi the whole way to Krabi, just to the bus stop. We couldn’t help feeling we were being sucked in, and I’m pretty sure we were all looking at each other thinking ‘we might be gullible, but these other people haven’t found a better way to get there either, so at least we can all be suckers together’.

Ten minutes later we were zooming along the road to Krabi in the taxi. The driver was very persuasive, let us feel we’d driven a hard bargain, and turned out to be quite an entertaining singer. And he had air-conditioning. I wonder how many backpackers ended up on that bus!

I did regret our decision at times – mainly the times I looked at what was left in the wallet, or when I looked at the road and saw how close we came to having head-on collisions or taking out pedestrians in the emergency lane – but it was hard not to give in to relaxation, with the bright sun soaking us, tropical green plants whizzing past and limestone cliffs appearing. Even the Thai pop videos on the in-car DVD player were making me happy.

True to his word, our driver got us to Ao Nang more than two hours earlier than the bus would have. We were staying further west of Ao Nang, on Noparat Thara beach, but we had time to stay in town for a bite to eat. That first Thai lunch could best be described as a flavour explosion. We had missed sauces and spices and vegetables so much! I felt like all I ate in Hong Kong was noodles, rice, batter, dough, and a bit of potato. Basically beige, with a touch of soy sauce and chili. But here things were green and red and delicious and people realised that stuffing things with meat wasn’t the only way to make them tasty. Paradise.

And then a lovely and quiet Thai-speaking man came and picked us up and drove us to P.A.N. Beach Bungalows, a family-run collection of wooden bungalows lining each side of a rectangular paddock, with a small open-air restaurant and bar at one end. And at that end happened to be a white sand beach, an expanse of turquoise water, and an island in the bay we could walk across to at low tide.

Our bargain basement bungalow!

(One of the cheapest on hostelbookers – great find by Al)

The only reason I was still wearing my jeans was that it was physically impossible to fit them in any of our bags by this stage, and this was a quick photo before we unpacked and totally messed up the room. There was no electricity during the day to power the ceiling fan, so it was time for cold showers (again, no electricity – but they may as well not bother with a hot water tap in this climate), and then a bit of exploring.

Low tide

We walked over to the island, avoiding sea cucumbers underfoot (which Al kept referring to as ‘Sea Turds’ – gross), and trying to shoo off a mangy dog who seemed to want to play but needed to work on its social skills (it kept barking and rushing at my feet, and I’m not usually scared of dogs, but I really thought it might take a playful bite).

Reading in the hammock on the porch

Nap, swim, read, nap, swim, read – aah, there’s the turquoise water we were expecting!

Eat, drink, play cards

The restaurant served really tasty Thai meals, which were good value considering how isolated we were, and the family were really welcoming – the set up seemed to be that dad did the driving, mum ran the front of house, and the kids manned the desk and waited tables. A guy who seemed to be either a cousin or a young uncle ran boat trips, and even though our plan had been to just continue the nap/swim/read/eat cycle, we were convinced to join him one day and disrupt our relaxation with some snorkelling. 

Yellow and black stripy fish were everywhere, looking for a feed

Hong Island – that little gap is the only connection between the interior of the island and the sea outside

We were the only boat in the Hong Island lagoon, surrounded by the karst cliffs – our voices echoed

Lunch stop

After lunch (honestly, I was wearing 50+ sunscreen) 

Night out in Ao Nang, the place to go for Al to have a Thai massage and for me to have some very classy tropical cocktails

Nopparat Thara was really the perfect place to be for us right now. I know this will sound ridiculous to read from home, but we had really needed a holiday! We got one, and with it we got our travel-mojo back.