Journey to Koh Phi Phi

Today we would get up and say goodbye to Railay Beach, catching the morning ferry to Koh Phi Phi Island. There is no dock on Railay Beach and the ferry cannot get very close. When it is time to load and unload they find anyone with a longtail and begin to ferry people back and forth to the ferry.


This proves especially fun when you get to climb out of the longtail on to the ferry as they bang up against each other as the waves pass by.


Once everyone was where they wanted to be we took off, leaving Railay, not Riley, behind.


While they do an excellent job with air travel, their ferry travel could use a little work. It’s pretty much a guarantee that it will be considerably late, or what the locals would call “Island” time. You may also read that once or twice a year one of these sinks. Which is not really surprising as they are largely overloaded with both bags and people, all of which go on the top deck adding to the problem.




We headed out in to the open water and it seemed to be taking more time then I had expected. It was seven years since I had taken this route and thought it was much shorter, in fact I even checked the departure and arrival time and something was not adding up. Turns out it was my math not adding up and the ride was in fact 1 hour and 45 minutes, not the 45 minutes that I calculated from the times. But hey I'm on vacation.


But then we started to see land again, one of which I was pretty sure was Bamboo island.




Then I saw Phi Phi Leh and knew we were close. Koh Phi Phi consists of two islands, Phi Phi Don, where everything is, and Phi Phi Leh, which is a national park and not allowed to be developed. If you have seen the movie The Beach, then you have seen Phi Phi Leh.


We got to an actual dock and everyone pawed through the bags in order to locate theirs. We then headed to Bayview, a place I have stayed before. It’s nothing special, but’s it’s clean, has a good location in that it is quiet but not too far from town, and it has amazing views. Here is our bungalow and if you look close you can see Kim waving.


Here is our view and semi-private beach.








Kim and Riley were so impressed with the crystal clear water and smooth sand beaches that they had on their swimming suits before I could check the mini bar for a Singha beer. I changed and we headed to the beach.








Hey Riley, want to try and swim over to Phi Phi Leh?


Actually that’s way too far so let’s just stay here.


Just around the rocks is Long Beach, so after swimming a while I said let’s go check it out. I’ll go back and get our bags and meet you there, just make sure you go around the rocks and not over them as they can be incredibly slippery and very sharp.


I was coming down from the ridge with the bags in to Long Beach and found Kim carrying Riley piggy back style out of the water, wondering what kind of a game are they playing. I think Riley was still a little upset about not getting to swim in the secret lagoon and went for a shortcut over the rocks. He slipped and sliced his foot open. Thus the piggy back ride in order to keep his foot out of the salt water. When I saw it I knew it would require stitches, in fact a few longtail captains came over and after seeing it said “doctor, doctor”. They pulled out some little vials of something that was labeled in Thai, I had no idea what it was and asked for a bandage instead for now. There was a hospital on the island and Thailand actually has better medical care then the U.S. In fact you may have heard the term “medical tourist”, these are people who fly from the U.S. to Bangkok for medical treatment as it is considerably cheaper (even with the airfare) and you have private rooms with private nurses. Riley was not too keen on getting stitches and wanted to keep the vacation going. So I decided to close his wound Vietnam style. I had some iodine sanitation wipes that I used to first clean his wound. Once that dried I pinched the cut closed and dripped super glue across the top to seal it. And once that dried I applied a few Stei-Strips on top. Sorry, in all the excitement I missed getting a before picture.


You may be thinking “Is that safe?”, “What if it gets in to his bloodstream?” Superglue was actually invented for this purpose and handed out to solders during the Vietnam War to dress field wounds. Plus, I have used this on myself in the past and I’m mostly ok. With Riley recovering I headed back to Long Beach to snap some pictures. Along the way I saw this sign and thought, they really should have one of these on Railay Beach.


I finally got back to Long Beach.








Just beautiful, but it looked like a storm was moving in.


I headed back and found Riley itching to go, so we headed out to walk through town, and then make our way to the other side of the island.


We stopped at my once favorite place, Carpi deim, right on the beach with great views, great food, cold beer, and a killer selection of Chillout and Buddha Bar mix. It saddens me to say that this is no longer the case as the bar, while named the same, was bought by the hotel next door. The only part that is still the same is that it is still right on the beach.






But we were still having a great time, and how could you not in a place like this. Last time I was here it was a few years after the tsunami wiped out the island, so there were not many people here. However word is out and even though it was the low season this place was packed. I guess I’ll have to find a new paradise to retire.


While the island is more built up and there are more people here, I’m pretty sure this boat is in the same position it was seven years ago.


World Cup fever had penetrated the island as well.




We walked through town, which I remember having three main roads, now has five with two more being built.




Along the way I spotted a painting of a longtail with Phi Phi Leh in the background that I really liked. I talked with the artist but we could not come to an agreement on price so we moved on.


We got to the other side of the island and there was no question that it was low tide.








We found a nice place on the beach that reminded me of the past days of Carpi deim, so we grabbed some drinks to cool off.




They had a very public bathroom, but I think this was because they did not want it open to the general public, you need to have a few beers on board to avoid stage fright from the hecklers passing by.


We found another great beach side bar, complete with pool table.


Including the traditional Thai bar stool, labeled based on your current state of consciousness. You first sit where you think you need to sit, then later someone will help you to the appropriate chair.


We played a few more hands of hearts and watched the sun go down.








Yeah it was great to be back in paradise. With all these people this might not be a bad place to retire as I could even make a little money on the side running longtails.


We decided to give Riley’s foot a break and passed on swimming this evening.












After another mind blowing sunset we went in search of food and found the Pirates House which had something for everyone.




Pizza for Riley and of course Fanta.


After dinner we sat down on the beach to watch more fire dancing, double checking that we picked the appropriate chair.






The dancers on Railay Beach were much more refined, older, and more mature. The dancers on Phi Phi are younger, in fact you would call them kids, and are still working on perfecting their craft. Well maybe, they did all like to play carelessly with fire though.




It can actually be a better show in that there is much more danger.






Much more fire and much more room for error.


This looks like it could be good.


Nice, toss that guy in the ocean and I’m sure he will be fine. That was awesome, can you send in another little Thai guy that bursts in to flames.


Yeah, now we are talking, the whole place is on fire.


After an exciting evening we headed back to our side of the island to call it a night.


But the party would not have to end as many shops in the village will sell you a “to-go” bucket.




And if you are not just thirsty but also hungry, you can also get food to go.


Wow, what an another amazing day on this trip, and this was a travel day for us, we still had two more full days here. Even though so much has changed, it still felt right to be back. We made the long walk back and drifted off to sleep as Riley informed us that he thought his wound felt squishy and perhaps opened again. No problem, I have lots more Superglue.

VIDEO: Thailand Day 3