a wildflower in the land of smiles: Sabaadeepiimai! Happy New Year, Ko Phi Phi!

FINALLY! The best part of my travels! Be prepared.. this is a long one!

Jenna and I arrived in Bangkok around 1pm ready for our 6pm bus that evening. After we trekked around the city with our ridiculously heavy bags (I over packed.. what a surprise), we made our way to the travel agency where Jenna had booked our tickets. They let us leave our bags there and we wondered around Khao San Road for a while. Khao San is very well known amongst the backpacker community, it has cheap accommodations, travel agencies, inexpensive clothing, and various other items for sale. Since I don’t get to go to Bangkok very often, it was fun to wonder around and see all the things to see. We stocked up on snacks and splurged on subway so we were ready for the 15 hour bus trip. We were waiting at the travel agency for our bus to be called and were excited when the guy yelled “Krabi!”. (We needed to take the bus to Krabi, then the ferry to Ko Phi Phi). We showed him our tickets, he shook his head and gave them back to us. Very confused, it turns out he didn’t have our receipt number on that bus list. He kept telling us “Wait one minute” and Jenna and I began to freak out. It all ended up working out because they just stuck us on a bus leaving at 8pm, but we had to anxiously sit around for another 2 hours.

The bus wasn’t exactly comfortable. My seat didn’t recline at all and I got very little sleep. Luckily, my body doesn’t need much sleep to be functional and 11 hours later, we arrived in Surrathani. Again, a little confused because this wasn’t Krabi, it was 3 hours away from Krabi. But this little hub in Surrathani sends people off for the various islands around Southern Thailand. A guy went around asking where people were going and stuck stickers on everyone accordingly. About 15 minutes later, Jenna and I jumped in a van with six other people to Krabi. Lucky for me, I was able to sleep the entire van ride to the ferry dock. With our ferry tickets in hand, our van driver told us we needed to run to make the ferry, so we did! We plopped ourselves down in some seats and prepared ourselves for the last hour and a half of traveling until we get to the island. Jenna surprised me with some Chang beer to celebrate the last leg of the race. It was 11am but its always 5 o’clock somewhere!

We arrived on the island and got off the ferry and after paying the 20 baht “clean up fee”, we were thrown another curve ball. For the past 15 hours, Jenna and I had been dreaming about spending our time in the sun and getting tan in the sand, only to find that it was drizzling! AHH! After getting over the fact that the clouds were thick and there were actually drops coming down, we accepted the fact that it wasn’t sunny only because it was still warm. I had made the hotel reservations at a place called Tropical Gardens two months ahead only because it was New Years and he heard that the island gets full fast, and we were easily able to find our hotel representative waiting for us at the dock to lead the way. Thank goodness he had a little cart thing with him for our bags, I was SO over my heavy bag at this point that I considered ditching some of my stuff so it was lighter (I learned my lesson for the future, the less the better!). We entered the town which is basically a mini city, and I was amazed to see not only see so much going on, but how many westerners there were! I had no idea that the island would be so touristy and filled with so many people from around the world! The streets (which are only for pedestrians and bicycles, there are no cars on the island because its too small) are more of wide cobblestone paths and lined with restaurants, bars, guesthouses, dive shops, and internet cafes and the beach was lined with longtail boats. I was in aw of this place and after Jenna and I threw our bags in the room, we explored! It reminded me of a mix of Cabo, Hawaii, and IV. The water was blue and clear like Hawaii, the bars and restaurants were a lot like what I experienced in Cabo last Spring Break (which was AMAZING!), and the people were a lot like those in IV, looking to meet other travelers and just have a good time! This is hands down my favorite place I have ever traveled to (okay, tie with Cabo because Cabo has the Mexican food!).

Jenna and I spent the next day relaxing on the beach even though it wasn’t sunny yet, and exploring more of the small town. We checked out menus for different restaurants and I was so thrilled to find a huge variety of menu items! Along with Thai food, salads, chicken burgers, sandwiches and pizza although a little pricey, were available on the island! So different from Khon Kaen and I was determined to eat everything my heart desired on this trip. There was a good mix of bars and clubs including a sports bar (the first time I have watched sports since I’ve been in Thailand!), a Reggae Bar with boxing (Thai boxers and they let people from the audience box and participants get free buckets!), and a few beach clubs right in the sand on the water! Amazing.

The next morning was New Years Eve, and Jenna and I woke up early to hike up to the Ko Phi Phi Viewpoint to see the sunrise. In my travel book, it mentions that it is a long hike of stairs and that some people need to rest on the way, I didn’t think much of it but boy was it a workout! The viewpoint is 186 meters above sea level and you can see much of the island from the top. Jenna and I went to all three viewpoints and even though it was too cloudy to see the sunrise, it was beautiful!

After our hike, we had just enough time to change to go snorkeling with our tour at 9:30! Jenna and I picked an all day tour that took us to numerous destinations around Ko Phi Phi and Ko Phi Phi Leh, an uninhabited island next to the big island we were staying on. Our longtail boat held about 20 passengers, and it just so happened there was a couple on there that did our same program 6 months before Jenna and I, and the girl graduated from UCSB! What a small world. While snorkeling, I saw the most amazing fish I have ever seen and spent hours in the beautiful, crystal clear, turquoise water, and the sun even made an appearance! At one point while I was snorkeling, a French man on our tour boat (he looked like a professional snorkeler/diver, his underwater camera was intense!) waved me over to check out an eel he was taking shots of!! The eel looked a little creepy but it was amazing to see up close! We also made a stop at Monkey Beach and Maya Bay, which was the location for the movie “The Beach” with Leonardo Dicaprio. Of course it was nothing like the secluded beach from the movie and was overrun with tourist, but it was amazingly beautiful. At our last beach destination, there was a sudden downpour and we all had to sprint back to the boat as our day trip was coming to an end. We weren’t able to snorkel at Shark Point since it was now too dark to see the sharks, but we were all ready to start our New Years Eve celebrations.

New Years Eve was amazing! The girls (Jess was there with her sister so we all met up) and I spend the night watching muy thai fighting matches at the Reggae Bar, drinking buckets, dancing on the beach, watching fireworks, and an ocean swim while the sun was rising. My most amazing/fun New Years yet! It’ll be hard to top it!

After sleeping for about 4 hours, Jenna and I hit the beach again because it was finally sunny!! That’s basically what we did for the next two days, sat in the sun, drank banana smoothies, and lived up the island life.

Jenna needed to head back to school while I still had another week off. So she trekked back to Bangkok and I stayed on the island and switched guest houses so I could stay somewhere cheaper. I never wanted to leave the island! I was on the island by myself for two days and I had a blast. I went to the beach, read at the coffee shop, hiked the viewpoint for sunset, went to the bars, and met a ton of other travelers! I met this older couple who sailed to Ko Phi Phi unintentionally, they live in New Zealand travel on their boat and the wind brought them to the island instead of Malaysia. I also met a guy from Sweden who went to an English learning school in Santa Barbara when he was 18 and lived in I.V. in 1997!! I had an amazing time and I’m so much more confident now when it comes to traveling alone.

On Tuesday, my friend Brandon Feria and his brother met me at the island. Feria (I have quite a few friends that I call by a nickname or last name, Feria is one of them) graduated from UCSB with me in June and worked hard all summer so he could now travel the world. He left the states a week or two before I left for Thailand and he’s already been to so many places in Europe and Asia and it just so happened that his time in Thailand would begin while I was on the island! It worked out great! He and his brother met me at Phi Phi and it just so happened my guesthouse gave me a room for three people so the boys went in on my room with me. The day they got there, we hit the beach and enjoyed the night with Thai boxing and more buckets.

I had been telling Feria that we should do a snorkeling tour and that I was interested in doing one with cliff jumping. Cliff jumping is something I am normally totally not into and I’m not sure why I was so hooked on doing it (maybe because of my Twlight obsession) and Feria was very onboard for doing this activity. So the next day, we did a snorkeling/cliff jumping tour! We booked through a company called Spidar Monkey which has great reviews and also provides a tasty lunch and English speaking guide. When I realized that we were actually doing the cliff jumping, I regretting ever suggesting it. I was getting real nervous, but luckily we started off the tour with snorkeling at Shark Point, which I missed out on during the last tour. We saw a few sharks and even though we were told they never attack humans, we kept our distance. We made a stop at Monkey Beach again, where Feria got slapped by a monkey for petting it, and again to Maya Bay. Finally.. cliff jumping. We were given shoes to wear because we actually had to rock climb to get to the cliff. It was a windy and chilly day and Feria had to walk me through where to put my feet and hands to climb up the rocks (I know now I am NOT a rockclimber). I was basically freaking out and couldn’t believe what I was doing and didn’t realize that I was physically shaking while climbing. With Feria’s help, I nervously made it to the top and watched everyone else jump from the 8 meter cliff into the choppy water below. Finally, it was my turn. Luckily, our guide, Bell, got me all set up to jump from the lowest point which was 6 meters (like 20 feet ). I literally stood on the edge of the cliff for 15 minutes with our whole tour crew and Feria cheering me on and encouraging me to jump. After shaking and near to tears, I finally made my plunge into the water.. and surfaced back up, I DID IT! I know now that I like the idea of cliff jumping more than actually doing it, but I’m proud of myself for doing something out of my comfort zone. Because the water was so choppy, swimming back to boat was almost impossible for me and I asked someone to throw me a life jacket. After settling back on the boat and able to breathe, I was real happy I did it.

The next day was finally my time to leave the island. Not only had it wiped out a lot of my January paycheck but I needed to make the 20 hour travel back to Khon Kaen so I could teach on Monday. I said goodbye to Feria who is making his way to Singapore then Australia where he will spend some time and find a job, I’m SO glad I got to see him! I took the ferry to Krabi to take the bus to Surrantani to take another bus to Bangkok to take a cab to the skytrain and skytrain to another cab and cab to another bus to Khon Kaen. All in all it took me about 28 hours to get home! But it was an amazing vacation and an awesome way to start the new year. Ko Phi Phi is high up on my list of places to go back to.