Ko Phi Phi
I took one of those packaged snorkeling trip + lunch deals with a travel company. It was…interesting! The boat had room for 619 people and there were 619 people, about 590 Asians, a handful of Indians and like 6 white people. Funny thing, white people don’t stick together!
There’s 2 parts of Ko Phi Phi (ko pee pee)- Don & Ley. The boat stopped at Don to drop some people off and then on to Ley for the snorkeling. The scenery is stunning.
Ko Phi Phi Don from the boat
Ko Phi Phi Ley and the snorkeling area. This beach is where they shot the DiCaprio movie The Beach, which I never saw.
Ko Phi Phi is beautiful, and a hot, crowded mess at the same time. After the lunch, I started hunting for a hotel. Everything I looked at was pretty expensive. Then I went to one of the booking agents that have pictures of all the hotels and prices. Mistake. It looked like 1000 bhat was about the cheapest thing I could get with A/C, from what the guy showed me. I was kind of tried of looking at pictures so I just went with one of the ones he picked. 12 minute walk to get there wasn’t bad, a guy moved my bags on one of those big carts.
But, the place was a dump. It did have A/C and wifi, but I overpaid for it. Turns out “the pool” isn’t actually onsite. It’s a 10 minute walk, which I did. When I got there, there’s a sign that says I would need to pay 30 bhat to use the pool! I didn’t get in, just laid out in the hot sun for a bit until I couldn’t take it. Anyway the place looks like crap, paint falling off the walls, stains everywhere, light fixtures broken and not nice owners of the place.
After a nap, I headed into town and walked around a bit. Suddenly, I felt CRAZY tired, and started moving really slowly, then I had to sit down. The temps aren’t that much hotter than Bali (about 90 here), but I’m having a tough time with the heat so far. I grabbed a gatorade and some coconut peanuts (yep these are to die for), and sat for about an hour, but it wasn’t helping much. I grabbed dinner (Taco Tuesday!!!!), and could see from the looks around me that this was a party island. It was getting louder and louder and tons of people were getting ready to hit the bars- while I was getting ready to hit the bed!
Ladyboys get a discount but they still need that other X chromosome to save big!
Made it back to my guest house around 9 and did a couple emails and was ready to pass out. Grabbed the sheet and pulled it up and….WTF was that????? Pretty sure a cockroach just ran across my bed. Great! I searched all over the room and the bed for it, but I couldn’t find it. Now, I’m exhausted and I’ve got a roach running loose in my room, and the music from the clubs is blaring into my room at this point I turned the bathroom light on, put my headphones on, and was in and out of sleep all night. Never saw that roach again but I could hear loud neighbors late at night.
This morning I headed out on a hike to the viewpoint. Wow. Worth all the hassles.
Ko Phi Phi East side
On top of paradise
Ok about to catch my boat to Railey Beach (rock climbing place).
I just talked to some Canadian girls who got totally ripped off on their room too, worse than me. The agent was even telling them they’re stupid! I’m noticing a huge difference from Bali that I didn’t expect- this constantly trying to rip tourists off just rarely happens on Bali!
Just Added! Video blog (from Ubud) : http://www.freedomlovin.com/2012/03/23/nusa-lombogan-to-ubud/
Dude, as Mike queried last post about you unwittingly signing up for The Amazing Race, it seems now that it’s transformed into stand-up (and toss-and-turn) comedy! I really hope you didn’t order a plate of LadyBoys on that BBQ menu, though the price didn’t look too bad. That cockroach joke killed it for me too, man, though the roach seemed to have survived. They actually don’t eat much, and I think you might even be able to get your revenge on his kinfolk at an exotic (or maybe just normal) snack shop around those parts.
Why don’t we see coconut peanuts in Amerika!? I hope for goodness sake that the Gatorade was the low-carb kind, mister HMFB. 
Now don’t be capsizing in any tourist over-laden boats, OK…unless of course it’s just a spontaneous plan to put your triswim skills to use in order to get back to shore and blog about seemingly being in the show Survivor next. The next logical step would be to go A/C free; otherwise, you might get voted off the island.
There’s no such thing as low carb in Asia man! The other night I ordered Red curry pork and the waitress says “With rice?” (they charge extra for rice in thailand, not like bali). I said no thanks, and she looked it me like I had 3 heads. “NO RICE??????” I said no thanks again and she gave me a laugh…when she brought the food she said it out loud “Red Curry Pork….no rice”. Haven’t seen the insects for sale yet! Lots of sate, pancakes (yep they’re amazing), and juices.
I might try no AC tomorrow again. It’s a little rough but not impossible. It doesn’t help that April is the hottest month in Thailand!