We stayed at Dee Dee's in Phi Phi by the sea sea (they say everything twice here). Dee Dee's Beach House was on the Lo Dalum Bay side of the crest. The place looks like paradise with turquoise water and gorgeous cliffs around a perfect half-moon beach but we were sad to see that it is really filthy on the Lo Dalum and Ton Sai Bay beaches. The water is full of plastic and crap and the sand is slimy with oil and dirt. I'd say the place was amazing years ago before the tourists wrecked it.
Our little beach bungalow was really cute, very basic but had air conditioning and was literally 5 steps from the beach. The garden had little hammocks and sun loungers all around and the place was really clean.
On the first night, we went for something to eat and strolled around the little streets. We thought the place seemed quiet and thought maybe it was off-season or something. As we walked back towards our beach house, we couldn't believe the madness! All the little cafes and bars that had unassumingly lined the beach earlier that day were now wild parties and night clubs that stretched for around a kilometre along the beach. Each one had brilliant shows with fire dancers, disco lights, mad music and party people everywhere drinking buckets of mad stuff that looked like magic potion but was actually a Thai whiskey called Song San. The place was crazy...and we thought this was going to be a relaxing few days in paradise...whoops!
The next day we went exploring and trekked over to Long Beach. That was more like it! Lovely clean water, gorgeous white sand, and not many boats. It was beautiful and what I'd imagined from everyone's descriptions of Phi Phi.
We took a taxi boat back that evening and thought, if you can't beat 'em, let's get buckets with them. We had met a lovely couple called Barry and Cath, who were on their way home to Ireland from Sydney, taking some time in Thailand beforehand - sort of the opposite of what we are doing. We met up with them and enjoyed a bit of a party night on the mad beach. Cath had been to Koh Phangan and said that Phi Phi was exactly like the full moon parties there!
Evil memory-erasing buckets of looney-juice!
We had to get up for a boat trip to Monkey Island and Maya Bay and I was a tad worse for wear after my bucket experience but the swimming and snorkelling helped. I'd a bit of trouble putting my snorkel on, "like Ballotelli putting a bib on", according to Brian. The snorkeling was stunning, I'd love to be able to show you the amazing tropical fish, they were beautiful! We even saw a sea snake (and no, it wasn't Brian flashing us in the water!).
The tour guide was gas. He knew exactly 10 English words: boat, swim, snorkel, monkey, rice, 100 baht and Leonardo Di Caprio. The boat would just stop and he'd shout an order to "swim", or "snorkel", etc. It was very funny being ordered around by him, he was a scorpy little fella.
Maya Bay was beautiful and we got a few snaps at the famous seascape from The Beach.
(Our reenactment of The Big Bad Wolf http://youtu.be/VGRQGm4-A4k )
Brian found "his favourite cave" on the other side of Maya Island. It was part of an amazing looking lagoon that fills up through the cave when the tide comes. There is a cool little campsite right in front of the lagoon where Brian thinks Leo must have "tied up his loose ends and got soapied every night".
On or last night we went to a great little Indian restaurant. The food was tae and they were showing Rambo on a big TV. So random but good ol' craic. Nothing like some good food watching sly bate the bejaysus out of a few Burmese terrorists.
The next day, before we left to catch our boat from Phi Phi for Koh Lanta, we went to look for the tsunami memorial garden. We had watched a documentary on YouTube about the tsunami a few days before just to freak ourselves out about staying there. The memorial was right behind our beach house and was very sad to see. It was a tiny garden and all overgrown but there were some lovely memorial plaques laid out for people who had died there. It must have been the scariest thing ever, the island is only 200m wide at it's narrowest point so it was annihilated by the wave. It was sad but glad we paid our respects before moving on to see more of the beautiful Thai islands.
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