Phuket and the Phi Phi Islands – snorkel & swim

Phuket, Thailand

Today we visit the Phi Phi Islands off the western city of Phuket, Thailand, transported to a tropical site of soaring cliffs and white-sand beaches. Just as Phnom Penh is pronounced as if the letter “h” does not exist – Pnom Pen, Phi Phi is pronounced Pee Pee and Phuket is pronounced Poo-kette (with the accent on ‘Poo’ – not on ‘kette’!) We will omit the childish giggling that may seem tempting to some at this time.

Phi Phi Le Island is home to Maya Bay, where as we all know Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Beach” ran into some AK47-toting marijuana farmers and had to have sex on the beach with some bioluminescent plankton or a beautiful woman, don’t remember which. (In case you were wondering, JB wrote this entry. But you already guessed that, didn’t you?)

We took a “speed boat” which is actually more like a rocket ship strapped on to multiple outboard engines about 3 or 4 times more powerful than an average American car. This took us the 48 km journey in under an hour, which, including the slow parts at the beginning and end, is pretty darn fast with 30 people aboard.

Parking the boat turned out to be a real problem, because apparently everyone else knew about the marijuana, or maybe the plankton, and there were maybe 50 boats vying for a spot at “The Beach”. So our guide opted for Plan B, which was to get to our snorkeling destination at Pileh Cove ASAP, before everyone else. This is around the other side of the island. Well, everyone knew about this place too.

So, on to another potential snorkeling place, past the “Viking Cave” where birds’ nests are harvested for the famous Asian soup. This is apparently privately owned, if we understood the guide, and changes hands every 10 years at a price of $10M for the 10 year period. There may be a wrong decimal point in there. But he also said high-quality birds’ nests go for $150 a kilo, which gives us new respect for Birds’ Nest Soup.

We snorkeled for about 45 minutes at Location 3, name unknown, playing with yellow and black angel fish, turquoise parrot fish, and a couple schools of thousands of tiny fishlets. Now ravenously hungry after the bumpy rides and swimming, we were happy to arrive at a beach side buffet. Fortunately, there was a 70-year-old Thai fellow playing electric guitar with a respectable echo machine turning out pretty darn good Elvis and Johnny Cash songs. Those of you in our Wyoming group may like to know that yes, he played “Ring of Fire” and we got it on video.

Our last stop of the afternoon was at Bamboo Island, where there supposedly are no bamboo trees. This is another example of someplace that no one goes to anymore because everyone is already there. And the reason is that it is has a beautiful beach stretching around the point of the island. We were able to snorkel again for about 30 minutes. Even with about 200 people in the roped off snorkeling area, there were still plenty of fish to see, although the coral was dead and not looking its best.

Let’s talk about parking here at the island: As we approached the island, all you can see is a row of boats, just like ours, tied up side by side and all facing out toward the sea. What to do? Easy! You just back up toward the other boats, threading your way carefully between the lines holding them in place. As you get close, fellow push the other boats apart to make room for you (bumpers are down!) and sure enough, you back right in! We have a video of this happening, but can’t post it now. It was amazing!

Our guide warned us that we HAD TO LEAVE before 3:15 pm because low tide hit about 5:00, and if we did not get back in time, it would not be possible to make it at all. We thought, “Yeah, yeah!” But we left before everyone else, and when we arrived at the inlet into the harbor, we found he was right. The tide had gone out and the channel, which had looked normal and filled with water when we sailed out in the morning, was now very skinny and very shallow with beached (make that ‘mudded’ boats on both sides). It was apparently only a couple feet deep, and they had to pull up the outboards so we wouldn’t get caught, and we just crept along the last mile or so. Another boat with tourists was not so lucky, and was left high and dry, so to speak, stuck in the mud, when it missed one of the slalom-like turns.

Oh, last thing. We got back to the dock at about 6:10, just enough time to go to a bunch of little market stalls set up just for the ship, about 50 years away. JB found a booth that sold gizmos like memory cards and headphones, and oh my, high speed Wi-Fi for $3, all you can eat. This was the first time we had had this luxury in about two weeks, and he sat himself down and downloaded all the chorale music recordings we needed to do our rehearsing before returning to Idyllwild. And a copy of the latest Wall Street Journal!! He was so excited, he gave the surprised vendor an extra $3 as a tip, since this price, for what he downloaded, was about 1/30 of what we pay on the ship!

So long, Phuket. Thailand, see you again after Myanmar!