Last Call

Today was our last full day before we would begin the long journey home. It had been a fairly active trip, climbing up and down ruins in Cambodia, hiking through the jungle villages in Laos, all in high temperatures and high humidity. But there was one last hike, and that was up to viewpoint. Even though Riley’s foot was doing well, Kim and Riley decided to sit this one out, which is probably good as it took me two attempts before I remembered the way up.




I headed out and thought I was on the right track when I found the water reservoir, as I seemed to remember seeing this last time. Turns out I did see this last time, it just was not on the way to viewpoint.


A lot of things have changed on Phi Phi and I assumed this was just another one of them. I asked a few locals if this was the way to viewpoint and they all agreed it was, and it would turn out they are kind of right, just not in the correct context.


I spent 45 minutes walking up some paved road in the heat of Thailand, once again sweating through my clothes. Passing through the village were all the locals lived.


The only good thing about it is that locals pay considerably less for their Singha beer.


And now I was starting to second guess myself. Last time it could not have taken more than 10 minutes to get to viewpoint, but maybe I forgot this like I did with the ferry travel time. I came this far, I might as well keep on going. At least I was seeing some new stuff, well kind of.


This seemed totally wrong, but then I found someone who I could communicate with. It turns out this was kind of right in that they built a long windy road to go up the backside so they could drive people to the top to watch the sunset, and I just spent the last hour walking up it. However, the original steps, which only take 10 minutes up the front side, still exist, you just have to pay 20 Baht to the hotel that has now purchased the land. A price I would gladly pay to catch the sunset. I headed back to meet Kim and Riley.


We had been on the move from the moment we left Seattle. We all decided to enjoy the last few moments in Thailand on the sandy beaches overlooking the clear waters.










We headed in to town for lunch and found this guy with what appeared to be a pet eagle.


This guy appeared to have a pet monkey, or maybe it’s just a U.S. congressman.


So many choices for lunch.






I asked Riley what he wanted, he said he wanted to move here. I said “no, what do you want for lunch”. But maybe I should have said "OK, I'll notify school and start looking through the real estate pages".


We hung out until later that afternoon when I would take the express lane to viewpoint for 20 Baht and Kim and Riley would continue to relax on the beach.








Thanks to the express lane I was at viewpoint in no time and took in, well, the view.




Low tide.




The sun was slowly falling.








I headed back to the beach to grab a Singha beer, burry my feet in the sand, and watch the last few minutes of daylight. Reflecting on what a great this trip was, how lucky am I to be here, and even better to finally be able to share my passion for travel with family, Kim and Riley. As the darkness filled the skies, the sadness also filled my heart. Just as this day was over, soon this trip would be over as well.






I headed back to the hotel to turn in. I knew that there would be little, if any, quality sleep for the next 48 hours between the various flights and waiting in various airports. Which I still can’t figure out why because we actually got to Seattle before we left Thailand.




VIDEO: Thailand Day 5