Phi Phi Part Deux

10.2.08

First really early start since I contracted the dreaded ‘lurgy’, it’s 9.30AM and I’ve just polished off a tasty banana pancake and a cappuccino at my guesthouse’s balcony restaurant. I’ve been rewarded for my promptness by receiving my usual table with excellent views of the ocean as well as an unusually strong wifi connection (hooray!). I’ve eaten a few times here the last few days, having found some of the food to be excellent (french toast; pad thai - the most popular, ubiquitous Thai dish that’s fried noodles, chilies, veg, meat and crushed nuts to you and me) whilst others disappointingly average (anything that relies on vegetables - they’re definitely not fresh, unlike anywhere else I’ve been in Thailand). The problem may lie in the size of the island: it’s pretty tiny and thus likely that a lot of food is brought in from the mainland. Amongst the hundreds of palm trees, white sand beaches, tall mountains and shallow bays, I haven’t spotted one rice plantation yet.

Having said that, I’ve only seen about a quarter of the island. It’s not very large - a few miles across - shaped like an anchor on its side - the thin strip that is the town of Ton Sai contributes the central cross-section of that anchor, my residence is on the south-eastern tip of the anchor. Access to parts of Phi Phi appear very limited, at least on first impressions. The last couple of days - since I’ve felt well enough to crawl out of bed - I’ve hired a snorkle and flippers from my guesthouse (100 baht) and set off south and west along the coastline in search of MY beach (as inspired by the film ‘The Beach’).

On Friday I walked down to the aforementioned ‘small beach’ near my resort, wearing nothing but my scuba gear, trunks and a waterproof pouch that strapped around my neck (I’ve been carrying this around since I started my trip and I’ll be damned if I don’t use it once). Padding straight into the sea, I skirted the many broken rocks that I’d walked over a few days previous, this time swimming all the way to the ‘Last Paradise’. It was definitely worth doing: I took in all sorts of beautiful corral, some arranged like deep thickets of trees, others wide as giant pancakes and flat too, though always ‘scale-y’, firm and rocklike to the touch. Most of the corral that I saw took the colour of sandstone, though some distinguished themselves by appearing bright blue.

The variety and NUMBER of fish stole the show: of all shapes and sizes, some absolutely tiny, no bigger than a finger nail - these would be swimming in great schools, comprising of hundreds of them - whilst others were large - larger than my arm - and lightning silver in colour, with thin as stalk bodies and extremely long noses. A lot of the fish were striped yellow and black and about the size of my hand. I’ve had to look this up and so am glad to tell you that I crossed paths with many ‘regal tang’ fish, as played by the forgetful character in Disney’s ‘Finding Nemo’. Occasionally I witnessed enormous flat fish, but they seemed the most shy and kept to the bottom of the reef, far from my probing eyes. Fortunately, I didn’t see any jellyfish nor sharks - though I’ve been told of a popular scuba area, known as ‘Shark Point’, where they pop up frequently. According to the locals, they’re totally harmless, so I may take the time to check that out today.

I found after half to a full hour I’d be pretty exhausted, especially as I came close to the mainland, the waters became shallower, the reef closer and my attempts to avoid brushing up on nasty, black, spiky sea urchins lining the seabed became more strenuous. However, this has proven to be okay as none of my journeys so far have taken any longer. Yesterday, having found a hidden shortcut between my bungalow and the ‘Last Paradise’ (involves cutting across through a broken fence of sorts into the top of another neighbouring resort and then through beautiful woodland down a narrow track to the intended bay), I set off from there instead, heading further south along the coast. This was where I encountered a stunning edge to the corral shelf: where the reef ended abruptly, a sudden drop of countless metres into the dark depths of deep ocean. I eventually made it to another beach, known as Ao Lo Moo Dee (as an aside, you can see a map of Ko Phi Phi here: http://www.travelfish.org/map_detail/thailand/southern_thailand/krabi/ko_phi_phi/57 - my resort is number twelve). This beach was beauty personified - my own, perfect Idaho - over half a kilometre long of pure white sands, surrounded by nothing but bamboo and coconut trees, cliffs at either end of the bay and stretching back someways onto the island, almost completely empty (bar two couples I met who’d made they way over via kayak), devoid of guesthouses (!!) and featuring a single bar at the far end of the beach (I was informed that this was ‘Jungle Bar’, though I didn’t have time to check it out).

Today I’m going to head down to the nearest diving school (one of hundreds that permeate this island) and check out the going rates. One of my ears is still blocked though, which I’m  a little concerned about. Heads up, we’ll see what happens.