Phi Phi

There are two Phi Phi Islands, with the smaller one (Phi Phi Ley), being the one that was used for The Beach movie. The Thai government wanted to keep at least one fairly untouched, so no 'development' is allowed on Ley; it's all restricted to the bigger island. Both are still stunningly beautiful. The larger island is basically 2 parallel sets of hills joined in the middle by arcs of sand. This creates 2 bays and 2 main beaches (though one is now primarily just a harbour), with a small town in the middle. I took this photo from a viewpoint on one of the hills.


From this, you can see why Phi Phi was hit so badly by the Tsunami - such a thin, flat strip of land. It's only really beginning to properly recover. Over 2,000 people died on the island, the majority of which were tourists hitting the beach first thing. There are now warning signs around the beaches. However with the advice consisting of "run to higher ground", I'm not sure how much good they would really do. At one end of the main beach there is a memorial garden for the victims of the Tsunami. I'm not usually one to say this or that really affected me in any great way - I'm almost perpetually and frustratingly underwhelmed. Perhaps that's why I came travelling. But anyway, walking around this beautiful little garden, decorated with various things that were washed up by the Tsunami, and then seeing the wall with plaques of names of some of the people that died, and photos with notes from relatives... Well, it was very moving. I think it's added to by the fact that there's still a lot of obvious work going on in the clear-up. It makes it all very real rather than just some abstract tragedy. But, as I say, there were plenty of tourists on the Island when I arrived, and it was getting busier and busier, which is what the Island and the people need more than anything.

The Guesthouse I found on the Island was called Ban Thai, and I mention this because the woman that ran it, Mrs Lee, was an absolute legend, and I highly recommend staying there if you get the chance. She's like a mother hen looking after her brood - she runs a tight ship and keeps everyone in line, but goes out of her way to do everything she can to help you out. She learns everyones' names and always asks how you are and where you're off to. When I arrived she was bollocking this Israeli guy for being late, and when I checked in she told me, "don't be stupid" and put loo roll in the toilet. Wouldn't dream of it Mrs Lee.

Every evening I ended up at "Hippies Bar", where I met more and more Irish every night, with pretty much everyone going off to Australia. With all these Irish around me talking about how Australia was the land of opportunity, was the place to go for a better life, how they didn't think they were going back, it was like being taken back 100 years ago to when the Irish flooded to the States.

With the Coup in Bangkok a curfew had been set in place, which I hadn't had the opportunity to notice at Railay. It meant that no music was allowed to be played after 12 for the next 2 weeks. They could serve drinks, but couldn't play music. This seemed pretty pointless to me, as people still stayed out till the morning regardless of the lack of music.

spent one of the days here on a boat and snorkeling trip around the Islands with 4 Canadians and an English girl from my Guesthouse. Had a really cool day relaxing amongst some of the best scenary I'd seen so far. We went to Shark Point (which was sadly devoid of sharks), Bamboo Island, Monkey Island (where I wanted to resume battle, but they weren't up for a fight. Cowards), and finally Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley. Unfortunately we arrived at low tide, but it was still pretty spectacular.

Mrs Lee woke me up on my last morning on Phi Phi to make sure I caught the 9 O'Clock ferry back to Krabi. She'd organised my whole journey down to Malaysia. She wished me a safe trip and I was on my way.

written by  olliejohnson on September 21, 2006 from Krabi, Thailand
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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