Day 5-7: You down with Kho Phi Phi?

We started heading back up north today (Sunday 5/15), after spending a few days wandering around the islands in the south. Admittedly the bulk of the past week has been spent in buses, taxis, and boats. Still, we spent some time in Kho Phi Phi, which may be familiar to you as the island from this Leonardo DiCaprio gem: http://youtu.be/MfKRrTBnQUs

Kho Phi Phi. It's surrealistically stunning, a spectacle of nature against the backdrop of a party paradise. The island is apparently the not-so-secret meeting place of hundreds of attractive white twenty-somethings from all around the world. And they came to play. So the tiny sacred island is a bustling tourist-driven marketplace by day and becomes a lit up dance party by night, blaring my favorite Ke$ha and Rhianna jams and featuring fire-dancing competitions and girls in bikinis. Meta and I opted to avoid the dude-bros with fresh "authentic" Thiland tribal tatoos and tan skinny scantily-clad girls who no reasonable person would want to stand near while in a bathing suit, purchased a couple beers at the 7-11 and found a nice rock on top of a hill to sit and watch the party from a safe distance. Then we passed out in our fan cooled bungalow (twelve dollars a night) at around 11 pm (of course). It was our first night of sleep since arriving in Thailand and we slept beautifully. We had running water for a cold shower. Our pink mosquito net matched the silky sheet that came with our floor mattress, and once we used a plastic bag to cover up what appeared to be some sort of animal's poop in the corner, it was really quite nice. We were awoken at about 4 in the morning when the party babies returned to our bungalow neighborhood. Fortunately, we were so exhausted that we more or less slept through the screaming, hysterical laughter, and of course drunk crying, which proved that the party was as great as it looked. We decided to check it out the second night.

We woke up (again) early, around six, to hike up to the featured Kho Phi Phi viewpoint, and were greeted by several disheveled party-goers finally heading home to sleep. "Good morning, ladies!" a shirtless Australian boy slurred as he passed "And good night." Perfect.

The hike to the viewpoint is actually thousands of steep stairs and then a winding uphill path to a mountaintop. We reached the top, found a cozy rock to sit on, and prepared to take in the incredible view of the two Phi Phi islands separated by an isthmus and framed by incredible craggy bluffs covered in greenery. Seriously, it was unbelievably breathtaking. Our reverie was delightfully broken by a trio of still-awake still-drunk Irish medical students who had made an impressive drunken ascent up the thousand stairs and promptly became our new best friends for the next few hours. Seriously, we fell in love with them. Absolutely starry eyed smitten. Clever drunk hilarity at it's finest. The magic cannot be properly put into words. Included among addressed topics: the finer points of beach furniture, what exactly is an isthmus, and amusing dialectical differences between Irish and American English (the words fanny, front-bum, and fag were all used liberally). The Irish boys convinced Binoi, the old native islander who lives on the mountain, to pose for pictures with us. He seemed reluctant at first but was swayed by their charm and in moments was making jokes in broken English and laughing uproariously. Beautiful. We eventually had to part, as Meta and I had a longtail boat tour to catch and they, some Zs. (Uhhh.) Anyway, we promised to find each other later on the beach, but it didn't happen. The ones that got away, really. Meta and I have talked at length about moving to Ireland to be with them. Borderline obsessive, maybe.

Right before our boat tour I broke my sunglasses which gave me the opportunity to buy a pair of the ubiquitous knock-off Ray-Bans that seem to be a trademark of South Thailand. Every tourist has a pair and I was pleased to join the ranks. And actually, I bought two pairs. And honestly? I might have a third before this trip is over.

Boat tour:
We boarded the traditional-style Thai longboat and headed out onto the turquoise seas. Our driver wasted no time plowing through the waves, which needless to say, left us all drenched, as one might be on a Six Flag log plume ride. First stop: Monkey Island. And yes, it is what it sounds like. We pulled up and got 10 minutes to crowd the beach and hang out with monkeys living there. They were obviously quite used to tourists and seemed to revel in the fact that they could control us all. Some liked to randomly chase unsuspecting tourists, seemingly out of sheer sadistic pleasure, which, to be honest, I (meta) was really glad they did They didn't chase us, but we got to watch. We also stared open-mouthed as we watched a monkey walk up to a tourist, take her water bottle away, turn it upside down, bite a hole in the bottom, and proceed to drink the water out of it. These guys really have it down.
Next, the boat took us to go swimming in the most gorgeous cove one could ever imagine. And to make the moment even more perfect, we did so in the company of a hundred or two party kids and to the sweet, sweet sounds of MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This".
The third boat stop allowed us to snorkel among beautiful tropical fish and coral, and Meta had the fishies eating discarded fruit out of her hand.

The final boat stop took us to Maya Bay, wich was talked up the most on the mainland do to the movie filming there. The printed ads for many boat tours showed actual photos of people on the boat with one person sporting a grossy over-sized Leo DiCaprio Photoshopped head. And really, why wouldn't they? When we pulled into the bay, we had to brave crashing waves and brutal rocks to access the private beach of Leonardo DiCaprio fame. This was accomplished by dumping us about 100 yards from the rocky cliffs and having us swim through rough waters to a make-shift "web", which we were then supposed to latch onto, pull ourselves up, and climb over and through. The crashing waves and rocks are real, and both Meta and I sustained minor injuries during this part of the tour. Badass. Of course the beach is beautiful (REALLY beautiful), and of course swarmed with above mentioned drunk college kids. They left us there to do whatever for about an hour then we all headed back to the opposite side of the bay with the masses to once again fight the angry waters and locate our respective boats. It was great to line up with a hundred other kids, jumping one by one off a rock into the violent waves. Meta accurately observed that we were like lemmings, all in the name of seeing the beach from the movie. After taking the treacherous swim back to our boat, waterlogged and exhausted, we were rewarded by our first and only WHISKY BUCKET. We'd heard tale of the watered down thai whisky-cola concoction, served in a large plastic bucket and is a favorite among the southern beach tourist scene. We'd even seen bikini girls drinking from buckets decorated with hello kitty. A real treat.

We spent some hours on party beach. Ate delicious pad thai, drank cheap beer, admired the fire show. It was lovely, but ultimately party beach just isn't our scene. Never found our Irish friends. Went back to quiet poop bungalow around 11pm, just the way we like it.

On our morning ferry ride back to Phuket we decided that it was high time we learned our 1-10 numbers in Thai. Having picked up a flyer in Kho Phi Phi titled "Thai Languages is Fun!", we made quick work muttering the sequence to ourselves and quizing one another. (*The flyer also includes useful phrases like "I am drowning" and "sexy girl"). After mastering 1-10 forward, backwards, and random order (we're faily smart), we made an extensive pros and cons list debating which of two other islands would be our next destination, having heard wonderful things about both Kho Tao and Kho Suamai. After spending almost an hour going back and forth, we realized that we already only have two weeks left of exploration before spending our final week in Bangkok. Armed with this newfound sense of time, we made the swift and unanimous decision to fuck the tourist islands and head north. We arrived in Phuket, booked a night bus to Kanchanaburi (a more rural northern town with a national park filled with waterfalls and monkeys), and spent the rest of the day in Phuket among the tanning whites and English advertisements. We saw the Big Buddha and our first temple. The Big Buddha is an uncomfortably enormous sculpture of the (mostly) the Buddha's head overlooking the entire city. Interestingly enough, this mega-Buddha, which is still under construction, was for the king's 80th birthday in 2007. There was already a very large golden Buddha on the mountain top, wich is the original "Big Buddha". But now that there is the overwhelmingly large Buddha dwarfing it, it would be silly to call the golden one "big". The wat (temple)associated with these large statues was really neat. Cats and monkeys ran around and we even met a poodle who wore a dress. Her owner was quite eager to show off her tricks. I have a video. Also, we played the gong after watchingt some real pros doing it. We, however, were less successful at getting any sound out of it, as it seems to be an aquired skill of rubbing the metal just so. It was our first wat visit (first of the goal of 20 on our Thailand checklist)and we were a little unclear on protocol as far as picture taking and insense burning. Fortunately a man (monk?) in attendance put us at ease and encouraged us to take photos and kneel to worship the Buddha.

Later, on the way back down the mountain, we made friends with our taxi driver and showed off our new counting skills. He was impressed. We had him drop us off at a beach in Phuket to spend one final day soaking in the sun and being lazy. To celebrate our last day in the south, I sought out beachy drinks served coconuts. A couple hours of that scene, and then back to the bus station to board another night bus to Bangkok. Oh the night buses *sigh*...