Pronounced pee pee.
Famous for being the island used in The Beach, the movie.
What can I say, this place is totally gorgeous. Trouble is, thousands of people want to flock there now every year to see it and will probably be the ruin of it. Heaps of speedboats are coming in and out of there every day, polluting the water for one thing. And there is a snack bar there, where you can buy pringles for gods sake. And you can't stay there, you only go on a tour for a few hourss. So I'm sure people could do without their pringles for a day. And it has the dirtiest toilets I've ever seen. One look and I marched back to the beach and told everyone that if they wanted a wee to go into the water and do it, because I wasn't letting anyone near those toilets.
So its a shame. But I still went.
We headed off on the roughest speedboat ride you could ever imagine. Its an hour long trip. Our tour guide, Jong, who was fond of telling long and involved stories, told us that if the weather was bad it could take 2 or 3 hours to get home. Of course we all laughed and he said – no, not joking. That was the moment I wished I hadn't come.
He also told us that we were not to joke with the monkeys at out first stop, Loh Dalum Bay. Because they could bite you and then you would need THREE BIG NEEDLES to prevent rabies. But of course people ignored this and fed the monkeys bananas. Not from our group.
Kimba and I were sitting on a rock while everyone was looking at the monkeys and this kid comes up to us and thrusts a framed photo at us. Wooden frame, shells, Phi Phi Island on it, and a photo of Kimba in it. WTF? And we sat there looking like idiots for a minute and I said – thats what you're wearing today. So they'd taken photos of people stepping off the boat, developed them somwhere in the next ten minutes, framed it then were selling it. Enterprising little bugger.
So we bought it.
Then there was snorkelling in crystal clear water. I myself have a fear of swimming and don't put my head under water. But I did have a try. Which ended in a mild panic attack that I spent the rest of the day hoping wasn't going to end up framed and for sale somewhere.
From here we set off for Phi Phi Don for lunch. I didn't like this place much. It was like this lovely little island that had been packed full of tourists and buildings. But a long way from anywhere. Dodgy toilets there as well. A lot of places in Thailand you can't put toilet paper in the toilet. You have to throw it in a bin beside the toilet. This was one of these places.
If any of us were ever going to get food poisoning, this would've been the day. I ate a lot of dodgy looking chicken while I was away, but even I didn't eat this stuff. There was this guy deep frying bits of chicken. Outdoors, in 100 degree heat, then sitting them in a bowl for people to eat, buffet style. But what concerned me was that before the chicken was deep fried, it sat in this enormous unrefrigerated bowl, in the heat, already cooked. Hmmmm. I stuck to the thai side of the buffet. They always had thai side and western side.
Here is Kimba with her beer. When you order a beer in Thailand you always get a longneck.
Then we headed off to Viking Bay. You could not find clearer water than this. We got to swim here off the boat for a while. Hard to imagine Vikings coming to Thailand. They must have been bloody hot.
Now this was interesting. People live in this cave. They get a 5 year permit from the government to live there and collect birds nest for birds nest soup. After that, someone else gets to live there. They climb these bamboo ropes to collect the birds nests. And when the men climb, the wives can't brush their hair because they believe that if they break hair strands its like the bamboo ropes breaking and the men will fall.
And then it was on to Phi Phi Leh, where The Beach was filmed. What can I say, more beautiful water.
And then it was time to head home. Which thankfully didn't take 2 or 3 hours.
Everywhere we went they had pineapple and watermelon. And water, always lots of water and juice.
Thats Jong. Hi Jong. He wants to come to Australia one day. He used to work on a rubber plantation and couldn't speak english. We learnt a bit about the rubber making process and I'm glad he got out of it becuase the money sucks.
It was hard to believe this was christmas eve. I don't even remember where we ate dinner this night. Christmas just sort of goes by there.
Oh and that woman up there on the end of the row in the black bikini. She was really sea sick. Someone leant over at one point and whispered in my ear – the woman in the black is going to spew. She looked really bad.
So glad I don't suffer travel sickness of any kind.
another aimless blog 
nice photos! and really interesting about the cave and the inhabitants!
Those monkeys scare me, I certainly wouldn't risk being bitten.
First time I went snorkelling I was kind of freaking out, because it was in shallow water, which was lapping around my ears and head, plus having to breathe through my mouth, I almost had a panic attack too. But it was so cool to see that I concentrated on my breathing and calmed myself down and it was really fun. Of course, that was in Hawaii so of course it was beautiful too!
Beautiful pictures!
pee pee island looks amazing – nice to there now since our weather is so cold ; )
that was interesting – I picked up little snippets of information everywhere like that
I bet – it looks awful in USA at the moment. We went from hot weather to hot weather, but they have a much nicer heat – here you think it could suffocate you if you went outside
I can't swim to start with so it was always going to be a problem, but I think it was the flippers that freaked me out the most. They felt really wrong, but he said I had to have them because of the sharp coral.
that monkey had his teeth out as well but people kept getting close to him
They are great pictures.
Amazing photos!
Well all the toilets over there took a bit of getting used to. And they were all low. When I got back home and sat on a toilet a felt like I was up way too high!
Hey! I was close by! Well… at least I was at similans! š Beautiful photos! And yeah don't you just love the see through turqoise water everywhere!
And it was just the right temperature as well, the water. And the weather. Summer there must be pretty hot and humid though!
first Phuket… and now Phi Phi…
The whole no toilet paper in the toilet would take some adjusting too. I don't think I would enjoy going into a bathroom that had a bin of used toilet paper… esp. at a place that had questionable food. Yikes! Does the bin at least have a lid?
That aside… it .. again.. is beautiful!
It looks like an amazing vacation!!
I love the viking bay photos! The jumping into the water ones…amazing!
lol, by the end of the holiday I was tossing toilet paper in bins without a thought – no, no lids on the bins though – there are little hoses with shower heads in all the toilets for dealing with messier problems but I just don't know how you manage that without making a huge mess of everything, shoes, floor, undies, everything