Koh Phi Phi (Thailand)

Mid April 2006

I arrived at the recently tsunami-hit island of Koh Phi Phi not really knowing what to expect, but having read that this once-beautiful island was now trying to encourage tourists back I was happy to go and find out what it was like. The first thing I realised about the effect of the tsunami was that it had really delivered visitors into the hands of the guesthouse touts!

Guesthouse touts meet the ferries and try to persuade you to stay at their establishment. Having looked at someone's guidebook on the ferry, I had decided to give a place called Charlie's Guesthouse a try. However when myself, Eleanor and Otterlie, (two English girls I had met on the ferry), got off the boat and asked about Charlie's Guesthouse, we were told "Oh no, Charlie's destroyed by tsunami, not there now!". Having taken this piece of local knowledge at face value, we then bargained with the person who had given it to us for rooms at another guesthouse she was offering. Then we three and our bags, all balanced on a moto-taxi, were taken there and what should we see on the way? Yup - Charlie's Guesthouse, very much standing and open for business! The oldest trick in the hotel tout's book is to tell you that the place you intend to go to has been knocked down or has gone out of business. It's just so much easier to pull when half the buildings on the island really have been knocked down.

However, the place that "hadn't been knocked down" was actually very nice, as were the people who owned it, so we stayed. We then set about planning the next couple of day's activities; a boat trip and snorkeling, some rock climbing for Eleanor and some scuba diving for myself and Otterlie.

When you looked around Koh Phi Phi, you could actually see plenty of evidence of the devastation of Boxing Day 2004. There were "high water" marks on buildings, indicating how much water the main port village of Ton Sai, (where we were staying), had been under: along the port shore there was still a huge amount of concrete debris which had clearly once been buildings: there were some areas where there was evidently still a problem dealing with sewage: and some of the rebuilt buildings had plaques and descriptions of how the reconstruction had been the direct result of aid from various parts of the world.

The place where we regularly had breakfast, (good coffee, excellent carrot and raisin muffins!), had been rebuilt by aid from a community somewhere in France, and from the photos on the walls evidently some of the French people had even come over to personally labour in the reconstruction. Incidentally, this place had what we dubbed "The Nicest Toilet In The World"; see the picture that I was moved to take of it. It had a jungle of plants, nice "water features", a pebble floor.... full marks to the French for the latrine! Just for the record, I also have a picture of "The Worst Toilet In The World", which I was moved to take in the public convenience at a temple in Varanasi, India. I'm not going to inflict that on you though.

Our boat trip took us to several lovely snorkeling spots on various islands that make up Koh Phi Phi, along with some beautiful beaches including Maya Bay which was used as the location in the film "The Beach". Of course, it is now a big tourist attraction, (by definition, since my own tourist boat trip had taken me there!), and the place was swarming with people. It is also a national park, and they charged 200 Baht per person to land there. No-one on our trip had been told that, and several people hadn't brought any money since the day was supposed to be totally inclusive, so we all boycotted it and stayed on the boat! Looking at it from the shore, I don't think we missed much.

The lunch stop took us to Bamboo Island, which has to be one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. Unpopulated white sand, clear blue water and a whole range of fish that come right up to you in the shallows. Next stop was Monkey Beach, named after its indigenous inhabitants. These were a huge hit with the steady stream of visiting tourists, who bought bananas from the nearby vendor and took great delight in feeding them to the monkeys. I wasn't that excited; perhaps after India, where monkeys really are literally everywhere living wild in town and country, I was suffering from "monkey fatigue". However, I did note how these monkeys were fat and sluggish, constantly being fed bananas and lord knows what else by their visitors. They no longer have to leap around in the trees for their victuals and have become sedentary floor dwellers; simian beach potatoes.

I'm not sure about this business of feeding wild animals. In India I saw wild monkeys accustomed to getting food from humans turn aggressive when a human didn't give them food, (although this lumpen lot would be too fat to threaten much more than a lairy belch in your direction). More seriously though, what is with the clueless tourists giving the monkeys the remainder of their can of fizzy drink? Do they think that the monkeys brush their teeth at night to get rid of the coating of refined sugar and acid? Are they going to return to the island and bring veterinary dental care with them to undo the damage? (Wow. Having just re-read that, how much do I seem to care about dental hygiene in monkeys...?!?).

The scuba diving was fun, Otterlie and I had an English divemaster who was so laid-back we thought he might doze off underwater. It was a good pair of dives, and nice to get back under again! This diving is going to be a major habit, I think...

So that was Koh Phi Phi. We limited our time there to three nights, partly because we all had other places to be, but also partly because it is actually quite expensive. It always has been, but now since the tsunami and the need for re-generation, understandably they need the money more than ever. So while Eleanor and Otterlie took off for northern Thailand, I headed to Kaoh Lanta and my delayed diving trip, living aboard a boat in the Andaman Sea...