Day 8: Phi Phi and Ping Pong

Brett: Not sure how we jagged the day we did, but we managed to pick the best day of the week to head out to Phi Phi Island. It was a fairly early pick up from the hotel (8.30am)...which was made even harder with the 2am bedtime! We slugged our way to breakfast and the transfer which already had a few people waiting in it. We picked up a few more people along the way to the harbour who kept us waiting 15 min - pissing us all off. There was an older couple from QLD (Bernie and Allan) who were on our bus and happened to be on the same tour for the day. They were pretty funny and spent a bit of the day chatting to them. The ‘late’ family - who were that kind of “well... who gives a shit we kept you waiting” family, thank god were on another boat for the day. Pheewww...

The water was calm, so we took off and made pretty good time out to the first our stop on an island - i forget the name of. (I would be able to find it, but i’m currently writing this on a vehicle barge in our transfer which is taking us to the Layana Resort and Spa on Koh Lanta. So bear with the vagueness.) The island was only pretty small, and Mr Boy - our guide for the day, said we could walk around it in 15 min. We were out to prove him wrong. We only had 45 minutes on the island, plenty of time to walk and then snorkel, so we took off along the beach. We got distracted along the way, there were heaps of little hermit crabs that kept Jaz amused...could have been for hours - but remember we only had 45 minutes. We got to the end of the first beach, 150mts or so, then looked at the time had realised we had no time to swim. When we got back there were a few people complaning about jellyfish stings, Bernie had to get a bit of treatment when she got on the boat as she got a good whack on the back by one. So maybe the hermit crabs saved the day as Jaz’s track record with jellyfish is a bit grim.

Next stop was a mooring off Phi Phi Don where there were hundreds of these little green and black fish who LOVE banana! Jumping in with mask and snorkel, we broke of bit of banana and the fish swarmed on it like flies on.......you get what i’m saying. We mucked around there for about 30 min before heading onto Phi Phi Don for a buffet lunch.

Jaz: Lunch was good, not spectacular but good, I hoofed into the fried rice and fried chicken (hell I’m not on holiday to lose weight!) After lunch we took a short stroll down the beach. Brett had his trusty camera and was snapping away at the boats on the shore. I was more than happy to find a free chair on the beach, drag it into the shade of some low hanging trees (given we’d managed to leave the sunscreen in the other bag still on the boat) and take in the scenery.

The rest of the day was absolutely fantastic. Brett may elaborate more, but I can’t wait to tell you about the night we had in town! In short, other highlights of our Phi Phi tour included: a short stop on Monkey Beach (we fed them fruit, took lots of pictures and awwwed and aaahhhed over the tiny baby monkeys), more snorkelling with banana crazy fish, an intimate swim at Maya Bay (where they filmed ‘The Beach’), sighting dolphins, cruising the spectacular bays of the islands and lounging in deck chairs eating icecream on the final tiny island before heading back to the marina.

Once we got back to the hotel, it was quick showers before heading to the “Australian Cocktail Night” the hotel way putting on free of charge....

Brett: The Diamond Cliff puts on cocktail nights for the different nationalities so they can get to know each other...great idea. The bad idea was for them to give us free cocktails and a deadline of 7.20pm! I'm not sure if I have ever seen so many green, blue, red, pink, orange cocktails drunk by blokes before, but i think they underestimated the Aussie liver!

Jaz: We caught up with our aussie friends we met at Fantasea (Camille & Co.) and apologised in person for failing to find the place we were supposed to meet them for dinner on Saturday night. It's a long story we haven't yet written about, but basically - 1.5 hours of searching, 3 different tuk-tuks and way too much walking in the wrong direction left us with little choice but to abandon hope of finding the 'Banana Bar' and make our own night. If we get time (aka can be bothered) we'll write more about that day later, but for now, let's get back to Sunday night...

So the Aussie Cocktail night was a great success. The finger food was really good and there were cocktails a plenty, even if they started to get weaker the more we ordered. I ordered 9 and drank 7 (because the other 2 were gross - yes, I actually found cocktails I didn't like), Brett reckons he only had 6 or so. As well as catching up with 'old freinds' (i.e friends that we made on Friday night) we also made new ones. Chris and Emma - the first couple we've met from WA - were from Mandurah and Anna and Paul came from Melbourne.

After the cocktail party we managed to convince everyone to meet up at the Margarita Bar on Bangla Road (the place with the live band we'd loved on Thursday night). Much to our own surprise we ordered even more cocktails. Brett and I even did another 'bucket' which was delicious and probably took my count to 10 or so cocktails for the night! We had a great time drinking more, requesting songs and getting to know eachother. It turned out Paul had missed out on a few days of his holiday because he got to the airport only to find out his passport had expired! Anna had enjoyed some time to herself but was very happy Paul finally made it! Chris and Emma were hilarious, typically Mandurahians - very easy to get along with.

Brett and I had to step out on drinks for a little while to go get our clothes fitted for the final time. They had Brett's suit ready but not my dress. Neither of us were very impressed that it wasn't all done especially considering this was the end of the 4th day since we'd ordered it and were told 4 days would not be a problem. Brett brought out his negotiating skills to great effect, even thought it got a bit heated there for a while, we left with exactly what Brett was demanding. He has his suit, they have our deposit and we'll pay the rest on Wedneday night (when we return to Phuket) and they come to our hotel with my dress. Now, back to the fun...

Camille & Co had decided to turn in for the night which was a shame, but Chris, Emma, Anna and Paul were still going strong when we got back to the bar. By that point the girls were hanging out for a ping pong show, Chris was cringing at the thought of paying 500THB for a soft drink but still keen to see a show and Paul had seen it all before so he was up for anything. They put their trust in me to find a good show and a good deal on drinks and I delivered (Chris now calls me his ginger pimp!) I found a lady that had approched Brett and I a few times before and after bartering on drink prices (Brett: Funny that...i had never seen the lady before in my life, but she knew exactly who Jaz was!), lead everyone to Exotica (the place that I'd nearly been kicked out of for taking a photo on Thursday night!) We all had a great time, I couldn't believe how into it the girls were - Emma lit her own cigarette from one that was sticking out of the Thai girls' you know what! Then later she got the Thai girl to pop out a ping pong ball onto the top of the rose Chris had given her! We were in histerics and the rest of the show girls and the crowd thought it was fantastic!

After a long while we decided we'd done and seen enough, so we left the club to head back to the hotel, only to find ourselves in none other than McDonalds. Chris managed to spill his large coke all over himself and went out to buy himself another shirt while we chowed down our burgers and chips. Emma won the bet on what kind of shirt he'd come back with when he walked back in wearing an Osama Bin Laden face mask and his own coke soaked shirt. Very funny!

Photos in the tuk tuk and more laughs on the way back to our hotel finished up our night. We'd all had such a great time it was sad to say goodbye (especially becuase we were off to another hotel in the morning) but all good things must come to an end. Hopefully we'll get to have another night out with them all on Wednesday before we fly back home...