Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 6 (Koh Phi Phi Don)

Dangling feet from board a boat going to Koh Phi Phi island fills you up with delightful anticipation, as you figure silhouettes of the islands in the humid air.

happy feet

low tide

Imagine a surprise to see a busy pier, boats lined up along the coast, followed by busy crooked streets, cramped with - surprise! – stalls, bars and young tourists who seemed to have started celebrating this night’s Christmas early in the morning.
Being here, we realized once again that Thailand has a special smell (apart from all street food odors): in rooms, hallways, drivers’ cabin in songthaew or in a cup of tea. Sometimes it reminded me of something ‘bready’ but smells are the hardest things to describe.
The streets had a heavy traffic of mostly British tourists roaming around sipping from their small ‘alcobuckets’. Surprised by their generally young age, we later discovered that many those people come here and get their pocket money by pure speculation: getting an easy job at a next-door bar, giving out flyers and getting their couple of buckets as payment and then turn it into cash by reselling them to fellow travellers.

Finding tickets to continue the journey to the other side of Thailand, that is Bay of Thailand wasn’t a problem. It’s impressive how such a tiny island can have so many travel agencies. It was a relief to find a German lady at one of the agencies and speak normal English with her instead of its more common, handicapped, version. Thais speak a lilting sort of English and no matter how many words they use to express themselves, their combination doesn’t make much sense, sounding more like a riddle you have to figure out. ‘Here your English just gets worse, with the really basic level you have to get down to’, confirmed the German lady who has lived in Thailand for 13 years and even spoke some Thai.
Looking around at all the promised paradise of drunk Englishmen you start thinking who is more to blame for Koh Phi Phi Don’s current outlook: are these the abusing tourists themselves or permissive natives looking for additional income instead of saving this originally pure area?

So, instead of joining jolly crowds rocking one side of the beach, we celebrated Christmas at a beach restaurant on the opposite side with fresh grilled fish and in a company of longtail boats rocking peacefully on the shore.