Today was a very long day for us, we spent half the day on Koh Phi Phi and half on Ko Jum. Both two adventures on their own, so here’s what happened in on Phi Phi.
Up at 7:45 today to get down to Oasis tours for our longtail tour grabbing a breakfast smoothie on the way. We met the group, dropped out backpacks with the tourist office and headed off in a long tail boat. Aboard the boat we were waiting for a few more people. We were hoping the people we were waiting for wouldn’t’ be as awful as the one’s we’d met on the streets last night. I can only imagine the couple in their 50’s sitting next to us were thinking the same. finally a group of young french girls joined us, annoying yes, but manageable.
We knew we’d be back in a few hours, even so, we were happy to see Tonsai beach fading into the distance. We were headed for the uninhabited island of Phi Phi Leh.
Snorkelling Phi Phi Leh
Our first stop on the tour, the guides just threw some chum into the sea and were multitudes of beautiful fish began to dine. I was too busy looking at our surroundings to pay much attention to the fish, simply stunning. After a few minutes we moved on around the island to Pileh Cove, which was more unbelievable than the last site with towering cliffs surround an emerald green lagoon. We stopped the boat here for some 30min where we jumped in and swam in the buoyant salt water. There were no fish, but that was okay, as I want to keep my head above water to soak in the view. I’m not sure I could ever get enough of the view, reluctantly we climbed back into the boat and moved on. Back out onto the open water and moving around the island, we came across the ‘Viking Cave’, from which there is a thriving bird’s nest soup industry. On the back side of the island we anchored at Loh Samah Bay, were we were able to snorkel for an hour. This was simply unbelievable, without a doubt one of the highlights of my trip. This surely made up for my disappointment with Tonsai and made mylaser eye surgery well worth it.We had a lunch of rice and vegetables on the boat, then Rebecca and I headed back in for some more snorkelling.
We then headed on to the famous Maya Beach, known for the film The Beach. It was the complete inverse of the film, which spoke of a secret beach with no tourists. Now it’s the main tourist attraction with over 150,000 tourists visiting a year. The number of tourists visiting the island every year is so high that Koh Phi Phi’s coral reefs and marine fauna have and are suffering major damages. Soon they’ll be gone :'(. With all that said, I can understand the attraction with a white sandy beach, surrounded by gigantic limestone cliffs and coral reefs – I can safely say – it’s simply one of the most beautiful places in the world. Rebecca and I headed off for a walk around the island, no shoes necessary. We headed through the small jungle and found ourselves on the other side, were we were previously snorkelling. Back at the beach, we killed time by watching the many tourists pose for photoshoots, sexy poses, silly poses, jumping poses, half in the water poses, hilarious!
Back on the boat, we had one more stop before our return to the dreaded Tonsai – Monkey Beach. This broke our hearts nearly more than Tonsai. Our long tail pulled up to the shore along with several other tourist boats. On the shoreline we could see several monkeys approaching, as they got closer the guides on our boats called to them and offered them ‘treats,’ mostly plastic bottles. The beach behind the monkey’s was littered with more bottles and other rubbish. It was a horrible way to end an otherwise fantastic tour round Koh Phi Phi.
Once back to Tonsai, we had 30min unit our ferry to Ko Jum (did I mentioned we were excited for Ko Jum???) Our mission, was a bathroom and smoothies, I took on these tasks while Rebecca, held up a small sign with some thai writing on it and stood in front of the local 7-11. For all we knew, shecould have been holding a sign that said “for sale” or “make an offer” but we think it must have said something along the lines of “Ko Jum” because after a few minutes a guy around to pick us up. As I was still in the bathroom, he told Rebecca to wait there and he’d be back. He came back, I was still gone, this time getting smoothies – but it was now or never. Rebecca saw me in the distance, yelled for me, grabbed my bag and I threw a few Baht at the smoothie counter and I ran off after them. During all the confusion Rebecca’s foot was ran over by a wheely cart ripping her flip flop off, I chased our guide down and managed to get him to stop for a moment while she limped on behind us. When our guide saw what happened, he gave a little chuckle and fixed her shoe.
The ferry only had about 20 people on it, we went downstairs and I managed to have a short snooze. We both then headed to the bow of the boat where we dangled our feet over the edge and searched the open sea for whatever we could find – flying fish among the most exciting. An hour later we arrived at Ko Jum. We made it! And were in for an adventure…
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