Saturday 2nd February
The pick-up collected me from the guesthouse at 09.00, and took me to a large coach which was packed full of people also going to catch the ferry to Phi Phi Island. The boat left at 10.15 and arrived at Phi Phi shortly before 12.00. My initial feeling was that it was going to be very crowded and my accommodation options pretty limited (but I was sure that it was going to be pricey, regardless of what happened).
As soon as I got off the boat, a guy from one of the tourist informtion desks approached me with an offer of help. He seemed like a normal tout, but also represented a source of some useful information on guesthouses that I didn't have, apart from those listed in the Lonely Planet, and I was sure that they would have been fully booked at this peak time. I thought it was better not to mess about and stall for any length of time as there were about fifty other backpackers following behind me, so I had to make a quick decision. I was offered a room for 800B and figured that this was as good as I was going to get (based on information I got off the manager of the guesthouse in Krabi), so I took it straightaway. The room at he 'Tess Tiew' guesthouse turned out to be fine, but not as good as the one I had come from in Krabi (and twice as expensive), but it would do for the two days that I was planning on spending there.
I spent the rest of the day looking about the place and took a walk to the beaches. I had expected it to be busy but it was a shock to see that the place was only a slight notch up from somewhere on the Costa del Sol (the primary difference being that there was at least some local presence, although the job of any Thai people there was to cater exclusively to the tourist crowd). The whole place is geared toward tourism, and there was an evident presence of groups of lads and girls over from all over the world for a few weeks of sun, booze, and not much else. I didn't really warm to the place from the start; the places that I will visit will always have a large number of tourists – just like me – but it also makes a difference when tourists outnumber the locals. Also, the lack of proper Thai restaurants was a worrying sign and an insight into the what this type of tourist had come to experience.
I tried to contact Sangita and Tania, but we kept missing each others emails and subsequently our suggested meeting times. We eventually managed to meet up about 20.00 and hung out for a few hours. I was glad that they were there and this was a positive point in a place where I could see too many negatives. I left them around 22.00 and went off to watch the Spurs – Man United game in Jordan's Irish pub (there's even one in 'paradise', aren't we lucky?) and it was pretty grim viewing for a United fan. Spurs played very well and were unlucky not to win the game.
After the match, I set off for the guesthouse, and finally got to sleep, after trying to dispose of a cockroach that had been crawling up my back shortly after I had turned off the light. Clearly, on Phi Phi, 800B doesn't even ensure that your room is insect-free.
