Thailand Day 10 – Smells like Pee Pee

Woke up with a much-improved ankle this morning – phew – and went down to the hotel restaurant for a bizarre ‘western’ breakfast: what’s with the cold baked beans? The ‘fresh orange juice’ tasted…familiar.

Happily, we ran into Sart giving his spiel to the new group in the lobby (I admit, I felt a little jealous… Sart’s our tour leader, dammit), and got to say goodbye! Damn, we’re gonna miss that guy.

We jumped into a taxi to Don Muang airport. All wised-up now, we made straight for the taxi with the “Taxi-meter” sign on the top; no getting ripped off for us…until the taxi driver refused to use the meter, after pulling out into the traffic. Oh, well, that’s Thailand.

A two hour flight to Phuket, where we found a booking service at the airport, and booked a ferry to Ko Phi Phi (pronounced “Ko Pee-Pee” – what is with the latin spelling of Thai words, anyway?), one of those popular ‘paradise’ islands, and an onward trip to Ao Nang (to reach Railay beach) on the other side of the island. We also booked a bungalow on Phi Phi that our Lonely Planet guide said was decent – ‘Tropical Gardens Bungalow’.

So, a taxi ride which, surprisingly, terminated at the pier, despite our presumably asking the driver to drop us off in Phuket town – I guess our charades weren’t good enough, and the helpful agreement from the driver must’ve meant something else (I’m beginning to suspect that word ‘yes’ in Thai is ‘Learn some Thai, you foreign gits‘). Our hopes for some lunch were further dashed when we saw the pier café was closed, but luckily, a ferry earlier than the one we were booked for agreed to take us, so we left immediately.

Two hours of ferry, sprawled on the top deck, and small islands came into view, jutting improbably from the sea, dark against the grey, overcast horizon. Then Phi Phi itself, looming limestone cliffs like skyscrapers, pocked and twisted into lewd shapes, with a spattering of variegated green foliage clinging stubbornly to the crags. Teal water gave way to turquoise, then a shock of bright white sand, palm trees, and the main strip of Phi Phi, bustling with longtail boats and local staff jostling to book people into their ‘Bungalow! Bungalow!’, a gauntlet the disembarking passengers had to pass through from the pier (just don’t make eye-contact).

Impossibly blue water, packed full of tropical fish, under the pier as we disembarked. We found a guy holding a sign with ‘Tropical Gardens Bungalow’ on it, and followed him through the maze through tour booking centres, internet cafes, irish pubs, increasingly smelly lanes packed with miserable-looking tourists (we were starting to see why, perhaps), past reeking open areas strewn with garbage bags and discarded construction materials, black stinking water leaking over the dirt path, breathing through our mouths only. Finally arrived at our accommodation, where a brusque unsmiling guy took our details and gave us a key.

We put our bags down in our bungalow, a dusty, rickety affair, looking out onto the clashing-coloured roofs of the next plot, and more garbage and abandoned building materials. A bit of laughter, ‘cos what else could you do? I think Lonely Planet has missed a few details and betrayed us! Phi Phi appears to be an excellent example of why regulated development is a must – it’s just spoilt. Lets hope some sanity enters the equation soon, before it’s lost forever. A little guilty about coming and contributing our funds to the machine that’s burying this island under piles of stinking rubbish.

So, we went down for a pizza for dinner, at a place with tables on the sand, seedy reggae music oozing out of speakers nearby. The place felt weird, a mood that settled over the whole place, viscous, almost faintly threatening, or at least depressing. Such a beautiful island, but add the human element and it becomes something entirely different.

The pizza arrived after about an hour, topped with four small slices of tomato, a few slivers of onion, a thin smear of cheese (oh, dear…). Discovered an open wifi network, here of all places, and did some research on the iPhone for the next place, now fully aware of the stakes. Railay beach is next, and we really hope it’s better than here. What a disaster!

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