Hello World...: Island hopping in Thailand

From one PP to another, the only comparison to make between Phi Phi Island and Phnom Penh is in some of the latter’s western, river front bars and the formers sea front entertainment.

Being bundled on bus after bus after boat, shouted at and forced stickers on, I felt a little disappointed at how hard and tiring it seemed to be to do the causal thing of “island hopping” in Thailand. In our two weeks, Hayley and I settled on two islands (thank god). Firstly, Phi Phi Island, and then Ko Pha Ngan.

Phi Phi Island felt like Glastonbury, a weird, contained world with no roads, no cars and no motorbikes. The “taxis’” were metal carts pushed my boys. Hayley totally nailed with; “Everything feels so temporary here.” That’s exactly it. The shops (which sold amazing boutique-style clothes), the bars, the restaurants, it all felt like you could wake up tomorrow and be the only thing left on the island. As if everything could be packed up into boxes within a couple of hours.

I had three favourite places on Phi Phi Island. The first was D’s Books, which was a bookstore (funnily enough) with an open front, free wifi access and great banana shakes. I spent nearly the whole day in there when Hayley was ill and unable to get out of bed. The second was PP Garden Home, a tiny restaurant that was covered in hundreds of photos of happy, smiling customers and the rebuild after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. (The whole of the island would have been completely devastated from that event.) PP Garden Home had vines that fell all around it, low glowing lanterns and made a wicked Pad Thai. And thirdly, The Stones Bar, a beautifully chilled out bar on the beach with pillows to lye on by the sea and candles in the sand. Big coloured lanterns hung from every tree and the music was amazing, the “Hippie vibe” was everywhere (they actually sold weed at the bar). Hayley informed me it was exactly like the places you get in Goa, so very much looking forward to the parties there.

We did a boat trip, while on Phi Phi Island, which took us to the bay where “The Beach” was filmed. It was totally lush but a tiny bit disappointing because of how touristy it was. (I realise me wanting to tread in the same sand where Leo’s toes have been only further adds to this problem). We saw Monkey island, an island that seemed to have been given over to rather fierce and aggressive monkeys, and got stung by loads of tiny jellyfish, (Hayley couldn’t get out of the water fast enough). The weather changed dramatically as we were returning from the sunny bays and snorkelling spots. It suddenly started to rain so hard that the boat driver could no longer navigate us in the correct direction home. Hayley had to become a tiny ball at the back of the dangerously, swaying boat.

One night we stumbled across an amazing, random beach party, another I got badly bitten by bed bugs (not sexy at all). If “fire shows” and “Sangsom” (rum) are the two words which sum up Phi Phi Island, then “half moon” and “more Sangsom” should be Ko Pha Ngan’s two words. Or maybe “less Sangsom”, unless it’s at “half moon” in which case it should be “more Sangsom”. What I mean is Phi Phi was described as the laid back, relaxing island, Ko Pha Ngan as the party one but we found them the other way around. Sure, Ko Pha Ngan is famous for the full moon parties, but apart from that (in the season we were there) it appeared quite a sleepy island with a ghost-like town.

The half moon party was hosted in the jungle and was everything I thought it would be: VERY NEON. We had to pay 500 Baht to get in though…each. And because I wasn’t expecting this our friends from the same bungalows had to pay. I’m sure when hippies first joined on the beaches or in the jungles to celebrate the cycle of the moon they never expected that one-day the price on their ritual would be 500 Baht.

After my two weeks island hopping with Hayley, I spent 6 days in Bangkok on my own, which I have just written about and will post on here tomorrow. I have really, really loved my time in Bangkok so I hope you get a chance to read about that too. I leave Bangkok tomorrow and fly to Melbourne. I think it will be very strange to be in an English speaking place where I won’t, at first glance at least, look like an obvious outsider.