Island Life

The Phu Petra villas may come with an adorable floral welcome on the bed; but the bed sucks. Hard as a rock. Hardest bed either of us have ever slept on. After a crappy night of sleep for both of us we got ourselves together for the day and grabbed a disgusting breakfast from the included resort buffet. It was by far one of the most disappointing meals we’ve had this entire trip, except for the meal on the EVA air domestic flight. The only saving grace for the meal was the beautiful scenery and the company of my amazing boyfriend. With the tranquil villas and grounds, Phu Petra has the potential to be an amazing resort property, they just need to get a real chef and work on the details.

Just after 8am, our transportation arrived to pick us up for our four-island tour. Our chariot was a scraped-up, silver, pick-up truck with bench seats in the bed. Fancy! We spent about 45 minutes roaming around town picking up people at their assorted hotels. A family of five had been the stop after us and at one point we met up with another truck in the middle of the main road and they transferred the family between trucks; our driver scooping their toddler up and carrying her between trucks himself as she almost walked into traffic. That’s one way to get people to follow you, just carry their kid.

Arriving at the entrance of the Hat Noppharat Thara-Mu Koh Phi Phi National Park, a giant sprawling expanse along the beach was filled with thousands of people and tour operators. It was 9am when we finally arrived and were led to a table staffed by three women who collected our national park entrance fee and told us to report back at 9:40am for our tour. What? Another 40 minutes? Had we known any better we would have just arranged transportation ourselves and gotten there at 9:30. We killed time wondering around and taking a couple pictures of the beach at exceptionally low tide.

At 9:40am sharp, a large group had gathered and the tour operator, Bibi, started laying down the law. He apologized that he had to call each group one-by-one to ensure everyone was there, and then had to call each group AGAIN to tell them which of the five boats they would be on. We stood around as he completed the roll-call for the group of well over 100 individuals. He went through the basics of the day, most importantly, at each stop the “guide” would give you a time at which the boat was departing, they would only wait FIVE minutes, and absolutely no longer, before they would say “Bye bye” and leave you behind. Good to know!

Finally, we were led to a cluster of boats and our sandals were taken from everyone and put into a giant mesh bag as we boarded. The shells were sharp and jagged beneath my feet and the rickety little ladder onto the the boat dug in. Crammed in the long boat with 24 other people, I was skeptical of this excursion. As the boat left the shore, the water finally started to turn blue.

First on our four-island agenda, was the Phra Nang Cave Beach on Railay Bay. I was later disappointed to realize that this was not in fact an island at all but rather a beach only accessible by boat due to the surrounding cliffs. Talk about false advertising! But whatever. Phra Nang Cave Beach is famous for it’s Penis Shrine. That’s right, there is a shrine containing a plethora of penises in a cave. Apparently the locals believe that the spirit of a shipwrecked Goddess Princess lives in the shrine and promotes fertility. I made sure not to get too close.

Penises are not the only thing you’ll find on this beach. There are also people, A LOT of people. We shared the small stretch of sand with probably 1,000 of our closest friends and tour boats were lined in a long row along the majority of the coastline loading an unloading. As quickly as one tour boat pulled away, another pulled up. We did manage to find some less densely populated space in one of the designated swimming areas but there was nothing relaxing about this beach. Vendors on long boats took up one end of the shoreline, all selling the exact same meals and soft drinks. We were not impressed.

Tub Island was our next stop and was just as congested. This narrow sand bar of an island widens and narrows with the tides. Though we only had maybe 300 of our closest friends with us there, that is merely due to the smaller size not being able to accommodate more. Clouds had started to fill the sky and a few rain drops fell. It was enough to keep most people out of the water so we were able to find plenty of space alone in the crystal clear blue sea. The sand on all the islands was soft and white, maybe the softest sand I’ve ever dug my toes into. In low tide another sand bar appears and you can actually walk all the way across to the next island. But in high tide, as we were there during, the walk was too dangerous. The tide continued to rise while we were there and the narrow sand bar beach we had landed on was also shrinking.

Chicken Island wasn’t a beach stop at all but instead a snorkel-stop. There was no getting to the land here. I felt bad for some folks on the boat who didn’t want to snorkel and were disappointed to learn that they would just have to sit on the boat for 40 minutes and wait until it was time to move on. In contrast, a couple guys weren’t prepared, but were still enthusiastic as they stripped down to their boxer briefs to dive right in. The snorkel equipment they provided sucked. After our experience in the Philippines I feel pretty confident with a snorkel and mask now but this was next to impossible. Every time I tried to see what lied beneath me, water would seep into my mask. Sometimes the mask would fog up before enough water seeped in to sting my eyes. Even the life jacket was not safe as the buckles kept popping open. Between the fog and the seeping water it was quite an annoying adventure. Plus, the snorkeling wasn’t that great. This was no coral reef. The rocks below were dingy and though there were few fish, it was not impressive. We were not surprised considering how many people are shuttled through there to snorkel each day, at least a dozen other boats were there at the same time.

I decided to put my mask and snorkel back on the boat and practice swimming instead. So far, neither Brandon nor I were impressed with this outing. It was really nice and calming though to be together in the water and away from hoards of people. As we floated, a giant school of yellow and black striped fish surrounded us. They were probably 3-4 inches long and completely encircled us. Brandon still had his mask and under the water one booped him on the nose. Finally we were having the magical moment we had hoped to find on the islands. We laughed as we played with the little fish, not being able to help but touch them as they were so close. But then I felt a searing pain on my knee cap. Holy crap, something had bit or stung me! Brandon told me that they must just have sharp fins. But then he felt a sharp bite on his back. These little asshole fish were attacking us! Literally, biting us! And they HURT! I turned around to hightail it back to the boat as quickly as I could, never able to escape them as we climbed back on board. Out of the water, we could easily see where we had each been bit.

The last stop of the day was Koh Poda Island, this island was quite large with bathrooms, concessions, and large gazebos. Our guide instructed us to follow to a gazebo right away for a light lunch of chicken curry, vegetables, rice, and fruit. The food was surprisingly quite good! This beach was not as ridiculously dense with tourists as the first two had been but was still crazy busy. We walked around the corner of the island and were thrilled to find that most people were lazy and didn’t make it that far! Finally we felt like we had space to relax on the beach without being trampled over by the hoards. The water was warm and refreshing and the sun had come out and was shining just right. We spent our remaining 45 minutes on the island splashing in the sea and laying on the sand.

We wish we had put the extra effort into finding a boat for a private tour, but at the same time, there are only so many islands we think people are allowed to visit in the national park system so we’d probably encounter much of the same crowds. It’s a shame that the islands are so dense with tourists. One popular island has even had to be completely closed off to people in order to give it a chance to recover as it has been trampled and all but decimated by tourists. If they let this level of tourism continue, the beauty of all these islands will suffer. The pollution caused by the tour boats is also quite disturbing. Thick black smoke blasts out of the back of all the motors. Around the long boats we actually felt the air quality to be as bad as in Cuba. A shame that such a beautiful place is being so badly compromised.

Back on land finally, we decided to hire a Tuk Tuk to drive us back to our resort. Our little neon green transport was decorated with Simpsons characters on the roof and a notice inside clearly indicated that no guns and no humping were allowed. How many people had have tried to have sex in the Tuk Tuk to necessitate a sign saying not to?! This could not have been a one-time thing for there to be a sign!

It was late afternoon so we quickly cleaned ourselves up and left again on foot to head back down the main road to Aonang Beach to do some shopping and get some dinner. The skies had spent all day threatening rain, sprinkling on us a couple times, and they were looking dark again. Walking out of a store, we were met with a massive downpour. And nowhere really to go for shelter. It was a warm rain at least but I didn’t even have a hat. Brandon reminded me that we were on an adventure as the rain streamed down my face. We ran into one store and pretended to shop while we waited for the rain to pass. Suddenly, a loud bang rang our ears and all the lights flickered off before snapping back on. Lighting had hit the electric pole right outside the store. I did not want to be anywhere near there, not knowing what the repercussions would be, and thankfully the rain was slightly letting up, so we high tailed it out and wandered down the street, sopping wet. We found ourselves in front of the Lobster Restaurant and both needed dinner and to get out of the rain so we walked our soggy selves in.

The food was fantastic. We filled our bellies with tom kha chicken soup, panang curry, stir-fried kale, milk green tea, and a beer. At 600 baht (almost $20 USD), it was probably the most expensive meal we’ve had in Thailand, but worth it. We decided while we ate that the fresh spring rolls (not fried) with peanut sauce that we love so much at Thai restaurants back home are just as a farce and not real Thai food at all as we have not found anything remotely close. As a bonus, the rain had stopped by the time we finished our meal.

We continued our little shopping trip, doing some haggling, and scoring some great deals. Unlike the kind folks at the market in Bangkok where I was happy to pay their “full” price, these shop keeps I had no qualms bargaining with. They get a ton of business where they are and many of them are rude. Plus the stores all carried the exact same crap so the vendors knew it was easy for you to just go to the next shop if you couldn’t get a deal. Closer to the beach, the shops turned into full-on designer knock-offs. I examined purses at a “handbag” shop to see how close they had come to authentic and they definitely still have a long way to go.

As we walked back, we capped off our evening with some fried squid and fried-chicken before stopping into 7-11 to buy that bottle of Chandon rose! Tomorrow we leave Krabi, thank god, and head to Phuket for our last night in Thailand. We are both excited to get out of here and looking forward to the amazing resort we have booked for our Thai finale.