Kho Phi Phi---THE BEACH

It is true. Staying in Patong Beach, the mecca of all kinds of debauchery, is like slumming in Beverly Hills. That means, no budget hotels here. Good thing is that there’s this super duper clean and cool gay guesthouse which has a dormitory type room for Baht 400, including breakfast and use of internet. It’s a gem already, considering its location which is 5 minutes walk to the beach and walking distance to all the homo and hetero bars. And because the main tourist attraction here is not Patong Beach itself, but the islands nearby, the best way to go island hopping is to register at local tour agencies which abound everywhere, like every ten meters—you’ll see one. And don’t pay the price printed on the brochure. Haggle up to 40-50% of the original price. Yeah, it’s a lot but that’s just how it works in a small town where the influx of tourists is the lifeblood of the local economy. Ok, enough info already. This morning, the van picked me up around 7:30---exactly the same time I swallowed my last piece of breakfast. We picked some more people and we arrived at the pier around 8:30. Then, at 8:50, we were told to try on our plastic fins for a hundred baht rent if we want to go snorkeling. I was not sure if I would do it. I don’t know how to swim. But after some really quick thoughts, the curiosity in me prevailed. I tried on one and paid. At exactly 9 a.m., the speed boat started to turn on its machine and sailed on slowly while our tour guide explained the itinerary of the day. He’s one cute, tiny, little guy with funny antics to make us feel relax so we won’t feel the heavy waves of the Andaman sea. It worked for us adults, but two children puked due to sea sickness. And Bobby, the tour guide, instantly offered sea sickness pill and surprisingly, 8 adults asked for it, too. :))

Our first stop was at Maya Bay in Kho Phi Phi island. This is where the backpacker movie of Leonardo di Caprio, THE BEACH, was shot years ago. It was awesome. The karst stone mountain / island beautifully sits / floats there as if in Nirvana. It is blissfully panoramic when I climbed on a small elevated hill to get away from the madding crowd.

We stayed there for 30 minutes only to give way to the next batch of ferry boats loaded with tourists.

I didn’t swim here though. I thought, I have seen so many beaches / islands as beautiful as this in the Philippines. But, only tourists some know about them.

Here’s the boxed text from the Lonely Planet: THE PERFECT BEACH There’s a rumor that the island described in Alex Garland’s backpacker classic, THE BEACH was somewhere in the Calamian island group. Garland set the book in Thailand, but admits that the REAL ISLAND was somewhere in the Philippines. He lived in the Philippines for a spell and set his second novel, THE TESSERACT, in Manila.

From there, we went around the island but it was high tide in the area so we need to go somewhere safe where we can go snorkeling.

The tour guide says that it will low tide soon in an hour so we need to change our itinerary by going first to the Viking Cave. We didn’t get out from our boat here. It seems scary and the ferry cannot dock on it. We floated here for 20 minutes to take pictures and talked about it.

We then headed to the Monkey Bay. Here, we literally fed the monkeys but we were told NOT to TOUCH them. We can just throw or feed them food but never do any physical contact or else they might go amok. And if that happens, just go into the water. Monkeys can’t swim and are afraid of the water. How true?

Yeah, it's me in an odd monkey pose.

And also, monkeys eat everything we threw at them---bananas, dunkin donut, watermelon, chips, pineapple, bread and apple. And they’re fun to watch!

After feeding the mammals, we speeded up for 20 minutes or so until we find a place safer for snorkeling---at Loh Samah Bay. I was still afraid. I let everybody first dipped into the water and observed how they did it. When I was the last one on the boat left, our tour guide and speed boat operators asked me if I’d go down. I was pressured. I just can’t tell them I’m scared. So, I put on the life jacket and my yellow fins and dipped slowly… holding both hands to the rail.

And the rest was fun. And fun it was that the school of fish really loved me. Of course, I fed them with a slice bread. They were sooooo greedy that they bit my arms and fingers. What the….. :))

After that really first cool snorkeling experience of mine, we got off at Koh Phi Phi Don Hippy restaurant for our lunch. I was expecting more seafood but there were only two---fish fillet! The others were pasta, chicken curry, vegetables, eggs and soup.

After lunch, I brought with me my camera stand for my cam whoring around the island.

This is our boat. When it was time to go after lunch, we need to push it since it was low tide and everybody was heavy already. All men were told to get off to push but I didn’t. I’m just a tiny little creature and I didn’t it will matter. But after pushing hard for 15 minutes and nothing happened, everybody were ordered to get off, except the children. And it worked. We have to walk 500 meters from the bay though.

After an hour of high speed in the Andaman sea, we reached this tiny island of half white sand and half karst stones. We stayed here for two hours for just relaxing, napping, snorkeling, sun tanning and of course, cam whoring.