Bye Bye Phi Phi

Laura and I are about to head to the ferry to go back to the mainland, where we will spend a night at the unfortunately named Golddigger's Resort in Phuket and then head out tomorrow for Bali. We'll spend our first night in the party town of Kuta, as it's near the airport, and then head up to Ubud as per Elizabeth Gilbert's suggestion, and stay at the Ubud Inn. We plan on living it up Eat, Pray, Love style for a few days and giving our over sunned backs a rest before heading back to the beach, perhaps on the northern coast of the island.

Our day around the undeveloped Ko Phi Phi Leh proved to be another beautiful one. Our longboat driver, Chai, brought us to a few different bays, including the "ludicrously popular" (Lonely Planet) Maya Bay. We ended up not staying there for too long, but enjoyed the snorkeling in one of the neighboring coves. We saw some electrically beautiful fish amidst the limestone cliffs and coral. On our way back to Phi Phi Don, we stopped at Monkey Beach where tourists were causing a bit of a feeding frenzy with bananas, chips, and white bread that they fed to the monkeys. Our guide called them "sea monkeys" so that's the best I can do to identify them, but they were, for the most part, mild mannered, minus the one that looked a bit disgruntled when I went to take his picture and I realized through the screen on my digital camera that he might charge me if I didn't step away. Step away I did.

The next day we all decided to take an unexpectedly strenuous hike to the middle of the eastern part of the island up to the Phi Phi Viewpoint. We learned up there that the island used to have much more extensive vegetation covering before the tsunami. However, the vista that captured both Loh Dalum Bay to the north and Ton Sai Bay to the south was still quite breathtaking.

There we met a man named Paul from England and his Finnish wife, Anina (sometimes goes by Annie). Paul visits the island frequently to dive, though hadn't been back since 2006. Before that he'd been many times, including December 2004 when the tsunami ravaged the island. He was in his first floor hotel room at the time when both walls "exploded" around him and water rushed in. His first thought was that the floor of his guest house had fall out from under him, thus landing him in some sort of sewer. He realized that wasn't the case when he found himself with his forehead pressed against the concrete ceiling of his room and the water rising up to his chin. He was able to latch his fingers into some sort of groove and held on until the water receded a few minutes later.

Paul was outside when he heard verbal warnings of "another wave" coming. He thought it best to resume his position as the water rose again, this time a little higher. By his account, he had just enough room to breathe, though said that his life literally flashed before his eyes and he was sure he was going to die. By the time the third wave came, he had made it to the roof of a nearby building. He was evacuated the next day to Krabi Province, but lost some friends, local and farang (foreign), although he traveled alone. He said he returns to Phi Phi to seek closure, and this was the first time that his new bride was able to come with him. We talked to the couple for a bit longer and then parted ways.

We took a wrong turn at some point on our mildly treacherous hike down through the jungle to the eastern shore of the island. We were planning on going to that side of the island, but we ended up much farther north than we had originally anticipated. When the path finally lead us to sand, we had arrived on Ran Tee beach, a choppy departure from the still bays of the main land strip where we were staying and of Ko Phi Phi Leh. After enjoying a quiet few hours and a pleasant Thai lunch, we got a taxi boat to take us back around to Ton Sai Bay.

This morning we packed up and said goodbye to Alex, Becky, and Laurie as they head to Ko Lanta and we head back to Phuket. I have booked my ticket from Cambodia to Australia for a couple weeks from now, but in the mean time and really looking forward to our time in Bali and then Cambodia. Laura and I are trying to stay stress free as we realize we are avoiding various disasters like the devastating fire in a Bangkok club and an earthquake in Jakarta. Not to worry...we are staying very alert and out of nightclubs.

See you in Bali!