Kor decided that we must camp on Maya Bay- the famous "Beach" from the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio about five or six years ago. Maya Bay is located on the smaller of the Ko Phi Phi Islands (Ko Phi Phi Leh). This island is a national park and has no lodging or overnight guest houses. Only one company is allowed to take visitors to the island overnight. It had gotten rave reviews yet I was a little suspicious of camping in Thailand. My experiences with outdoor activities in third world countries had been less than impressive (hiking a volcano in El Salvador involved a "hiking guide" carrying a rifle the entire time and falling lava rocks causing my ankles to bleed the whole way down). After our day with the ever so jovial monkeys we changed our clothes and met with our group at a restaurant to head out to Maya Bay for a night of camping. At first it was just the three of us in the group with a couple guides for the night. We weren't so sure how we felt about this as generally we join these types of activities to meet new people and get a break from each other. Witihn about ten minutes two french girls walked up and plopped their packs on the table next to us. We officially had a group.
We head out to the longboat with our packs and get ready for what will be a very eventful trip. Once on the boat one of the French girls immediately starts to chain smoke and our guide, Nemo, starts talking to us in incomprehensible English. excellent. What he was trying to tell us is that we couldn't bring our packs to the island and that they would be just sitting on the unattended longboat all night and we should stuff everything we needed into Kor's little dry bag. This could be an issue. Perhaps they should have told us this before we boarded the boat. Linds and I scramble to throw in toothbrushes, bug repellent and a clean pair of underwear while Kor decides he is too bad ass to pack anything. Gross we think.
We make a pit stop on the opposite side of the island to snorkel and kayak around in a calm bay. The french girls kayak and chain smoke while the three of us snorkel and try to dive down as deep as we can. Pretty standard behavior. Our next stop is Maya Bay and as soon as we leave the cove the winds start to pick up and Nemo lets us know it may be a little rough getting in. What he didn't mention was the way in which we entered the island. We loaded three people at a time onto a small dingy and drove up to a large cliff with a wooden ladder hanging down it that we would need to climb up. We lecture Kor about not letting go of the dry bag and start to inch closer and closer to the wall. The driver is somewhat careful to not let a wave knock the boat into the wall but we are still skeptical of his skills. After a few minutes of getting close to the ladder, backing off and doing it all over again we finally went in for the big push and got up to the ladder. Immediately all three of us are slammed against the ladder/rock face and we are trying to quickly scramble up the ladder as the waves hit the sides of the dingy. Luckily we made it up without any scratches or cuts to show for (this is a first for Kor) and we start to descend the rock down the other side into a sandy cove. About 10 people are leaving the island as we are arriving and the majority of the day trippers are gone. We walk through the jungle for about ten minutes and emerge on the other side to get a perfect view of the famous beach we will be sleeping on.
It's still light out so Kor, Linds and I decide to play in the ocean (although it was a bit windy) while the french girls tag a long and smoke. We body surf, take photos, do hand stand contests, climb up rocks and enjoy the cool breeze. I decide to change out of my wet swimsuit just as the sun is setting and leave Linds and kor to their own devices (mistake #1). I notice while heading off the beach that there is a young blonde guy perched on a rock watching the sun set. That's odd, I think, I thought no other companies could bring campers here. Whatever.
I come back from the bathroom (aka a bush behind the campsite) and head over to the beach. Lindsay and Kor are no where in sight nor is the mysterious blonde dude. I ask the french girls where they went and they point to the tumultuous ocean. Great. I see them swimming off in the distance and headed to another beach about 100 meters away. I try to get them to come back but have no luck. I sit and chat with the french girls (studying abroad in Shanghai and decided to take a 10 day break "just because") for about 10 minutes. The chain smoker stops between her cigarettes to tell me she is wondering where my friends went as well. We try to peer out into the darkness and can't see anything. Naturally, I panic because that's who I am. I go talk to one of the guides and he tells me the tide is very high and it is dangerous out there. Out of no where he strips out of his jorts (jean shorts) and into his underwear and dives into the ocean. By now a few of the guides are gathered around looking in the ocean for them. Within maybe five or ten minutes I see three heads bobbing along and approaching the shoreline. Linds, Kor and random dude surface. I start exclaiming that the Thai guide was worried and is somewhere in the middle of the ocean while they try to tell me about some abandoned bungalow they found. A few minutes pass and still no underwear wearing Thai man. We wait and wait and the other guides decide he is a big boy and we head back to the campsite. He finally emerges about 10 minutes later and I force Kor to apologize to him in Thai.
While walking back to the campsite my heart is still pounding that I don't even realize that random dude is walking along chatting with us (in a British accent). Turns out he is a castaway. His name is Greg and he came on a "sunset trip" to Maya bay and was so maddened that his boat was going to leave before sunset that he jumped ship and decided to figure it out. Good thing he found us. We took him in and jorts man told him he had to pay to stay with us. Greg had no money on him (since he had jumped ship) but promised to pay the next day. Awesome, random castaway joins our group!
We spent the rest of the evening drinking some random whiskey/coke/redbull mixture in a bucket, playing card games, doing magic tricks and watching our guides cook up everything but the kitchen sink (since we didn't have one). When we are getting for bed Nemo takes us down to the beach and helps us find these BRIGHT blue glowing algae that can only be seen at a certain time of the night. They are so crazy looking and I start to understand why the Beach was filmed where it was. Kor also heard that if you pee in the water at night your pee will glow. He pees in the water and we see nothing but he claims it glowed a ton. At about midnight we settle into our foul smelling sleeping bags on the beach and attempt to fall asleep. Lindsay and castaway surprisingly fall asleep fairly quickly while myself and madame chain smoker can't sleep in rock hard sand. Kor is as usual just out of it so I can't tell if he is asleep or not. After a few hours of falling in and out of sleep Kor is stirring so much I have to look over and see what is up. He looks at me and says, "I have to tell you something in the morning." I fall back asleep and within an hour or so he has woken up both myself and Lindsay to tell us he saw a ghost. Apparently a Thai ghost squatted right next to his shoulder in the middle of the night and put his hand on Kor's shoulder. Kor tried to protect our dry bag from the ghost and then it disappeared. Linds and I doubt him and fall back asleep.
The next morning we are up just after the sun and aching. I have sand ALL over my body including in my ears, scalp and nose. Kor is still convinced he saw a ghost and talks to our guides about it (who have never seen one but said other travelers have). Greg (castaway) decides he loves the island so much he wants to stay for five days and bargains the guides into a good deal. I am so dirty and disgusting that I almost scowl at Greg for trying to live like that for five days. Salt water makes feeling dirty and hot ten times worse.
We hop on the little long boat and immediately set out into huge waves. I am scanning the boat for a life jacket and see a pathetic excuse for one at the front of the boat. We are rocking back and forth and I am certain we will tip. We stop by the bigger boat to claim our bags (no pirates took them overnight) and the water slowly starts to calm. In fact, our boat driver and other guide think it is calm enough that they stop steering and stand up on the bow of the boat to steer.
We made it back to Ko Phi Phi just in time to catch a ferry to Phuket. Kor was totally bummed because he couldn't get the ticket salesman to give him Thai national price. Kor is officially an American.
Phuket is up next!
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