A semester in Southeast Asia: Southern Thailand Island Hopping- Part 1 of 2

After a 14 hour crammed mini van ride from Bangkok, I stepped onto Southern Thailand soil for the first time, and was welcomed by monsoon rains. It was Phuket town, the capital city of Phuket island, Thailand's largest island and most visited place by tourists. The ride down had been miserable; bumpy roads, a 10 seater van with 12 passengers, and excessively loud Thai music being played at all times. On the way down south, I hadn't been able to see much through the windows because of the rain, but it looked pretty much just like dirt roads and nothing special. When we stepped out of the van, our first glimpse of the gray phuket town and its buildings made it look dirty, old, and overall just unappealing. I thought to myself, maybe southern thailand isn't really as amazing as i've heard- maybe my expectations for this trip were too high. I couldn't have been any more wrong. Ten minutes later, the rain stopped (and it didn't rain again for the entire 2 weeks we were there), and I was about to start one of the best journey's of my life.

The plan for the island hopping was as follows: Phuket- Phi Phi islands - Krabi - Ao Nang - Koh Yao Noi - Surat Thani - Koh Phagnan. The pictures above give an idea of where all those places are. So, here it goes- island hopping thai style.

I took the trip with my friend Matt from Ohio State, and then we met up a few days later with another friend Antoine and two of his buddies who were studying abroad in Hong Kong. When Matt and I got out of the van in the morning, we didn't really have a plan for our time in Phuket, but knew we wanted to catch the ferry the next day to the Phi Phi islands. As we were walking around town trying to figure it all out, we started hearing loud firecrackers and yells. Turns out we arrived at the tail end of the Vegetarian Festival, Phuket's largest annual festival. The festival is held at the beginning of the month of Taoist Lent, where the Chinese abstain from eating meat for 2 weeks. The amazing part of the festival is the parades- where hundreds of people walk down the streets with swords(or tree branches, or bouquets of flowers, or anything you can imagine ) peirced through their cheeks, or razor blades cutting up their entire bodies. Shops along the streets have stands with 9 cups, honoring the nine emperor gods. Those that are pierced act as mediums between the gods and people because of the painful state they are in, and go from table to table blessing the food and people around them. While all this is going on, random people in the stands are lighting packages of firecrackers and throwing them into the parade, exploding in the air and hitting people. What a cultural experience to see. The ironic thing is, there is no history that this has ever been practiced in China during the Taoist lent- it's only done in Phuket.

After the parades, we decided we wanted to head to the western part of the island for the beaches. We decided to head to Patong, one of the more popular places on the island. The area was okay and the beach was fine, but it was nothing like the places i'd go to later in the trip. I had mixed opinions about Phuket- it seemed overcrowded and almost destroyed by the amount of resorts, chain restauraunts, and people that lined the beachfront. I'm sure that there were much nicer places in phuket, but in my opinion I think there are other places down south worth seeing, especially if you're on a time limit. Many people will come to Phuket for their entire vacation and never venture off the island.We spent the day on the beach and walked around the town, which was overflowing with foreigners from everywhere. I think a long time ago this place had much more culture and beauty to it, but it seemed like it became too popular too fast and now it's just another beach. The food, however, was amazing. We had dinner at this outdoor restauraunt where you would walk up to the front and choose which fish you wanted, and they would pan fry the entire thing. It was one of the best meals i've had Thailand, and that's pretty tough to do.

The next morning we took the early ferry to Koh Phi Phi, a set of 6 islands about an hour ferry ride away. Phi Phi was a completely different story. The islands are less visited, more stunning, and have a great laid back feel to them. As we approached the island, the views were incredible. The enormous limestone cliffs shooting out of the surrounding turqoise water makes your jaw drop, over and over again. There is only one island that people live on, and this is where the ferry dropped us off. The island was small- it would probably take only an hour to walk around by foot. However, due to the massive cliffs and lack of paths, it's impossible to walk around, and you have to hire longtail boats to reach beaches on opposite sides of the island. The majority of guesthouses, restauraunts, and stores are located in the small town just as you get off of the ferry. There are no cars or roads, just walking paths to get from place to place. We ended up staying at a relatively nice guesthouse in the center of town for just under $8, not a bad deal for living in paradise. We spent the rest of the day at Long beach, which was about an hour hike through the jungle to reach. The effort was worth it though, as there were only about 10 other people on the half mile stretch of perfect sand. On our way back, we decided to hike up to one of the viewpoints which overlooked the small town, both bays, and the monstrous cliffs towering in the background. On the hike up, we passed a small museum which featured pictures of the aftermath of the tsunami that hit in 2004. I couldn't believe how destroyed the island was, almost everything was completely wiped out. I ended up meeting a few people who had lived on the island during the catastrophe, and they all had fascinating stories. Although it was a terrible day and lives were lost, people seemed so proud and happy that the island they had fell in love with was finally back on its feet and flourishing.

The nightlife was also a lot of fun on the island. Basically, when you walk into town for dinner, there are tons of people standing around and handing out flyers for free bbq dinners at the beach, free drinks at different times, etc. If you wanted, you could lay out all the flyers you get, and walk around from place to place and never have to pay for a meal or drink for the entire night. The nights would start in the town, and then everyone would head down to outdoor clubs and bars lined up along one of the beaches, dancing in the sand all night. I ended up talking to a few of the people who were handing out flyers to figure out how they ended up living here. Most were in their low or mid 20's, from all over the world, and they all had pretty much the same exact story. "I was here for vacation, and couldn't convince myself to ever leave. I mean, it's paradise- why go home?" Some had been here for years and years, getting paid about $12 a day to work at the bars or restauraunts. You work at night, you seize the day, and $12 is enough to live comfortably and happily in paradise.

The following day we took a sailing trip around the different islands of Phi Phi with about 10 other people. First stop was monkey beach, a small beach covered with monkeys climbing the cliffs and playing in the sand, unbothered by the humans surrounding them. We also stopped a few times for some snorkeling, which was some of the best i'd ever seen. I couldn't believe how clear the water was and the amount of fish and sealife around. Next stop was for some cliff jumping, 14 meters high. And then, finally, I reached "the beach". I'm not sure if any of you have seen the movie, but "the beach" is a film with leonardo dicaprio about a backpacker who discovers a secret island with the perfect beach on it and lives there with a small community of people. The movie is worth seeing for the landscapes, but the book is much better. Anyways, the movie was filmed at this beach, located in Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley. We had to climb through a small crevice in the cliffs to get onto the island, and then followed a dirt path through the jungle to the opening of "the beach". I literally sat there for 20 minutes in awe just looking up at the thousand foot high cliffs that encircled the shallow blue bay. It's one of the most spectacular places I've ever seen. The only issue now is that the movie has made the area very popular, and the number of boats traveling to Maya Bay has increased alot over the years. The day ended as we sailed across the Andaman Sea and watched the sunset from the boat.

We spent another day going around to different parts of the main island and checking out some other places, and then decided we had to continue on with the trip. It was a tough goodbye, but I hope to go back again some day..

Plus, next stop was kayaking and camping on uninhabited islands around Koh Yao Noi, so I had something to look forward to. I'll be writing about the rest of the trip soon. Here's some pics from part 1: