Koh Phi Phi – You know, where they filmed “The Beach.” Duh.

After our near-robbery in Phuket, we snagged an early tour ferry to Phi Phi. It looked like we’d be fighting for accommodation, since it looked like 1000ish people were getting off our boat alone.

As they starting labeling everyone with huge colored stickers, indicating the snorkeling time slots, we realized that almost everyone on board was part of a TERRIBLE day trip. Lucky us, we were the first stop off.

We were greeted on the island by an unbelievably calm, helpful travel agent who helped us find a place to stay and someone to carry our luggage. Since, you know, there are NO vehicles allowed on the island.

After full days and nights of honking traffic in Hanoi, it was a welcome change. The weather was a little weird, and hot, but still a complete paradise. We meant to stay for a day or two … which turned into 5 or 6. Oh well.

The schedule basically went like this:
12pm – wake up
12:45pm – get out of bed
1:30pm – get breakfast
2pm – dodge rain
3pm – lay on beach
4pm – get lunch
5pm – get snack
6pm – read
8pm – get dinner
8:30pm – get a bucket of liquor
9pm – go to fire show
12am – get drunken food
2am – stumble home, avoiding huge crabs, dogs and drunk people trying to convince you that’s it’s a great morning to get a tattoo.

After a few weeks of intense sightseeing and moving around, this place was just RELAXING and beautiful. I was in love.

I mean, we did do things. We went on a snorkeling trip, and saw the famous Maya Bay (made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio) and other great reef sights. We had some awesome coverage of this portion, but we lost the underwater camera on a train in Malaysia.

The fire shows, and buckets of liquor, were a blast. And, yes, I mean buckets. Like, for making sand castles.

You order a sand pail, filled with a pint of liquor and mixer of your choice. It’s buy one get one free. And one is enough to kill a horse.

We made the mistake of ordering a second round the first night. A centimeter in we were rolling on the beach and don’t remember the walk home.

Fire shows also included drunken fire jump rope and watching people fall on their asses. See below.

The guy in the khaki shorts, at the end of the vid, is Adam. Sadly, I have no footage of him falling on his ass.

On the 3rd or 4th night there, we met up with Damonz, who had been a friend of Kim’s while she was in PP. He introduced us to a few friends, joined us for a bucket and gave us this great idea.

He suggested that we rent kayaks and take a trip around the island, stopping on the small beaches. Since the island is really just a huge limestone cliff with a few small beaches on the far edges, it costs a lot to hire a fishing boat to take you around. This way, we’d save money and see more.

In theory.

Either we went off the wrong end or we’re just stupid. Probably both. In any case, as we headed out around 2pm, neither of us thought to look at a map first. Or a weather forecast.

After making it out of the bay, we suddenly felt the waves get much stronger and the clouds look much darker. Ah, well, a little rain never hurt anyone.

Waves get even stronger and we move further out into the wide, wide ocean. Sky turns black. Fisherman in boat points at the clouds and us. Laughs wildly.

Once the storm actually got started, we hit panic mode. Started packing up our stuff, paddling like crazy and looking for SOMEWHERE to beach this thing.

Apparently, all of the beaches are on the OTHER side of the island.

The boat was filling up with waves, and I had honestly stopped paddling. We were going nowhere, even with both of us working for our lives.

Mind you, there are tons of boats flying around us and motors turning up more and more waves, making everything THAT much easier.

Out of nowhere, the nicest man alive pulls up next to us in a fisherman boat he has clearly chartered for himself and his family. In a gorgeous South African accent, he asks us if we need help and offers to put us – and our kayak – on board the boat to get us to shore again.

Even in this situation, my pride almost gets the best of me. A quick look at Adam and we silently concede to our stupidity.

We awkwardly apologize, laugh and roll our eyes at each other as we make it back to the beach. Even with a motor and a lifetime of experience on the island, the driver still seems to have a hard time getting us back in.

It becomes very clear that, without this dude, we would have been toast.

Apologies continue, and we try to figure out how much a life-saving rescue is worth in baht. We hand it to the driver, apologize again, and drag the damn kayak back to the hut where we rented it.

Lesson learned.

On some other night, we saw this huge crab on our walk back up. Evil children that we are, we tried to convince the neighborhood dog to battle with it. He lost, but only got a small scratch on the nose.

Events all blur together for me during this portion of the trip. 6 pints of SangSom will do that to a girl.

After the islands, I was meant to head back up north to see the girls. Buuut, somewhere along the line, I was convinced to head south to Malaysia and Singapore instead. Sorry Marianne.

And as simply as that, I was crossing another border on a night train headed to Kuala Lumpur.