From Phuket we took a morning ferry to Ko Phi Phi. The ferry system between the islands is still a little confusing to me after having used it a couple times. It’s not clear what the schedules are, the best way to buy tickets, where the ferries will stop, how comfortable they will be, or who runs them. There’s a million different ways to get tickets, most people seem to get them from tour offices or their guest house (what we did), some places list different schedules, the ferries seem to try to upsell smaller tourers while you’re on them, the comfort levels were very different on the ferries we took (some aircon, some packed, some on time), so with all this I’m guessing they’re private boats and not government run, but that’s not clear.
Anyway, Ko Phi Phi is on the way to our desired destination of Ko Lanta, but we figured we’d spend a night on Ko Phi Phi to see it and do a recommended snorkeling tour since snorkeling looked a lot more expensive on Ko Lanta. Ko Phi Phi is totally a backpacker party island. This was both good and bad for us. The good is that it’s small so there’s no roads with motorized vehicles, there’s lots of international, young people which makes for interesting people watching, there’s lots of cool things to do targeted at tourists, and there’s pretty good pizza by the slice. The bad is that it’s a bit more expensive for everything, you really don’t get to experience much of any local culture, and the party goes all night so you can hear clubs going until the wee hours of the morning. We stayed at a nice place that’s a few minutes walk from the center of town, which was good because it was a very nice bungalow with a pool and cost about 1000 baht a night (about $33).
Kim and I had to do our snorkeling tours separately so one of us could watch Geneveve. I did mine first thing in the morning, and the plan was for Kim to go in the afternoon but it got windy in the afternoon so Kim had to wait until the next morning. The snorkeling was great though and well worth the wait. I saw lots of fish, coral, sea turtles and black tipped reef sharks which are very common and not dangerous. Kim didn’t see sharks, but did see a sea snake and other fish I didn’t. There were stops between snorkels that included a beautiful, blue lagoon, and a ridiculously crowded beach that was where the movie “The Beach” was filmed. I’m amazed at how popular movie destination tourism is, and really don’t see the point myself.
While one of us snorkeled, the other got to hang out at the nice pool at our hostel, which Geneveve loved. I remember when I was a kid and how much I loved the pool when my parents stayed in hotels, and having a baby reminds me of that time and makes pools more fun again. Geneveve squeals in delight, kicks, splashes and laughs for hours when we get in the water.
We also walked around town and snacked on farang (foreigner) food since it was so readily available. At night we walked up to the viewpoint on the island to watch the sunset along with the hundreds of other people. Next it was off to Ko Lanta for some laid back beach time.