Koh Phi Phi

Hi

The next morning I was up at 7 as the boat left for Koh Phi Phi at 8am. I nearly ended up going back to Krabi as the guy in the travel agents gave me the wrong colour sticker. It's so basic that the whole traveller transport system around Thailand is organised using different coloured stickers. Anyway, realising I was on the wring boat, I jumped onto the Phi Phi boat and we were off. It took about 1 1/2 hours and then we arrived at the pier greeted by only 1 accomodation tout instead of the usual 100. I soon realised this was because Phi Phi now has a serious lack of accomodation due to the Tsunami. I wandered around for a bit finding that most were full and, since it was so early, people hadn't checked out yet. I decided to head for one of the dive shops and ask there as they can sometimes help you find a place. They were really nice and let me leave my bag there and said they would check out the guesthouses for me. I assumed this meant they would ring round but it actually meant a Thai girl would run round Ton Sai and see who had rooms available! I felt bad as it was so hot and really busy but she didn't even break into a sweat! All the one that were available were really expensive - about 1000 Baht which is 4 times what I have been paying. This is due to the people of the island needing to recoup the lost income from the Tsunami. I remembered reading about a place called The Rock that was supposed to be the cheapest on the island so I headed there. Luckily I just got the last room for 400 Baht, possibly the smallest room in the world, I struggled so I don't knwo how any regular sized human would have coped. Once I had put my bags down there was literally no floor space. It was better than the 16 bed mixed dorm in that heat though! Once I had settled in I went to book a dive for the next day and since they had been so helpful I went back to the same dive shop. I booked a dive which went to one of the best dive spots near Koh Phi Phi Ley (where the beach was filmed) and got measured up for my gear. Once that was booked I headed to the beach. The beach was nice, very lively and full of Scandanavians again. Ton Sai beach is quite small and full of lontail boats so it's no the most picturesque but you can get a boat across to some of the other beaches nearby which are alot nicer.

That evening I headed out for some dinner and then met up with Matt and Tom, a couple of lads who were staying in the Rock. We went to the Reggae Bar which is probably one of the livliest pubs and they were advertising Lady boy Thai boxing that evening so we got front row seats, ordered drinks and waited for the fun to begin. Before the Lady boys came on they were asking for anyone out of the crowd to get in the ring for free buckets. A couple of western lads got up and changed into Thai boxing shorts and head guards and started sparring. They had trained in Thai boxing so it was much better than the drunken street fighting I was expectng. There were quite a few fights on that got sillier and sillier as the evening went on and more and more drinks were served. It was a laugh, we were having bets on the winners for drinks and I did quite well from it. Then the lady boys got up and I was crying with laughter, some threw proper punches, but most fought like girls, slapping and scratching and throwing out rabbit punches, it was hilarious.

I headed to bed earlier than the others as my dive was at 7:30 and left them heading upstairs to the dancefloor, I walked back wondering why I didn't book an afternoon dive?!!

Lots of love Jules x x x