off trippin, 2

Well,

Some of you may have already been singing the final lament of this poor rambling little excrescence of prose. Satisfyingly for me though, you'd be wrong. You couldn't be more wrong if you'd thrown the first stone at Jesus instead of the lady tied to the stake.

I've been on holiday...

Sunday:
We left Bangkok on Sunday evening, Sam, Laura, Sam, Emily and myself (yes, two Sams). On a Nok-Air flight to Phuket. Here we were to remain for an unspecified length of time - it's the first time I've been anywhere without having any idea where I was to stay or how long for. Either way, we booked into the Thavorn hotel and stayed there for the night. It cost us about 4 quid per room. Needless to say, it was hideous. There was air-con, but it didn't work. Worse things have happened - like shelling out 100 quid for a room when 4 would do!



Monday:
Got up early, in order to avoid the terrible reality of the room - had a quick shower it was cold, by design. Or at least, there was no heated water, but how a country with more sun than mercury can ever need to heat water at all, I don't know.
After an agonizing 20 minutes where the receptionist hunted for our passports (We had asked her to put them in the safe, for safe keeping, as it were, and they were eventually discovered under a pile of paper on the corner of the desk. That was the last time it left my bag except to fill in check-in slips at other hotels.

While I went to get some contact lenses from an optician down the road (I didn't bring any spares or my glasses, because I'm a fool, the others went off to hire a car... We got a Susuki jeep with giant perspex windows and no seat belts. They don't seem to have heard of them out here. For a tenner. They didn't check the driving license. Death is just around the corner. I now find the lenses for my right eye were about a third too strong, and everything seems blurred now I'm back on my correct prescription... damn.

Anyway, once free of the Thavorn hotel, and it's picturesque holes in the door and blood on the sheets, we drove off to a beach on the south west of the island. You'll forgive me if I can't remember which one, we didn't stay for long - it was full of very old people. After a brief dip, off once more up the west coast of Phuket. Here passing about every beach on the island before eventually reaching the one we were heading for. It's in a national park, and as we approached, a lady stepped out as if to charge us entry. We charged her, and avoided frittering any money away on silly things like conservation.



This seemed to be a good beach, but we never really found out, since it was straight onto a long-tailed boat (they're boats, with long tails) with snorkeling gear and giant flippers. I love swimming with those things, you go at a massive speed, it's just really sad when you take them off and go back to swimming with your tiny feet.

The snorkelling was pretty good, certainly the best I've had the opportunity to do, around this little pile of rocks with a few trees 30 foot up in the air. The sea was quite choppy, but even then, the water was fairly clear, and there was a pretty good collection of wildlife to be marvelled at. Clown fish, Angel fish, Giant blue starfish, and my personal favourite, a blowfish which can swim impressively quickly when un-blown, but if you tease and threaten it, by swimming too close and trying to grab it, it inflates into a ball. This defence mechanism would be more effective if it wasn't now completely unable to do anything apart from float very slowly to the surface and flap madly with its tiny, tiny fins. We held it in our cupped hands and looked at its little face. It was either bloody scared, or alternatively, and this would be my guess, seriously pissed off.

Then we went to visit Ellie in her 5 star abode. I wasn't unimpressed. They had a plunge pool on the roof of their own little villa thing, for God's sake.

After a nice evening of eating and drinking, the designated driver* took us back to Phuket town, and back into the clutches of the Thavorn.



Tuesday:
Feeling once more suitably refreshed by the cold shower, we headed for the ferry-port that would lead the way to Phi Phi Don. Don is the larger of the two Phi Phis, and the only one with any buildings. Both are in fact a national park, but the commission has done a rubbish job of protecting Phi-Phi Don, and a reasonable one of protecting Phi-Phi Lei. I don't know about the spelling, by the way, but I'm not sure it matters. Anyway, the ferry was OK, air-con inside etc. Unfortunately, while it did do trips just to take people there and back, it also ran as a cruse-like tour boat. This meant we had to sit there waiting for a good hour while tourists** clambered off onto some other raft to be moddled and coddled away.



Once on Phi-Phi, we got a boat straight to Long Beach, which is longer, hence the name. It is also much quieter and doesn't have so many tourists. There were a few OK hotels here, which were rather expensive and rather basic, but this is a gap year after all.

That afternoon, we rented a couple of kyacks and explored some of the coastline.

Report: Rocky and Wet on all fronts.



WORK IN PROGRESS: Thought I'd shove this up since it's already quite long. I'll continue writing later in the week. Photos will trickle along the interweb's tubes every now and again. I've got a few hundred - most are a bit crap.

Dom

*Not me, I crash.
**Since I live in Thailand, I hate being seen as a Tourist. I hate it anyway, but doubly so. For this reason, I'm making the effort as far as rudimentary Thai goes, but am considering getting a sign made up which says in Thai - "I live here, for God's sake". Or, alternatively, "Fuck Off". Either would serve the purpose, I feel.