Koh Lanta was the perfect place to chill for a week, but we decided we were a little curious about the famous party islands of Thailand. Maybe just for a day or so, just to see what it was like. We hopped a ferry to Koh Phi Phi, which is known for its lovely white sand beaches, beautiful diving and snorkeling, and crazy nightlife.
We started exploring the nightlife immediately. Right outside of our first hotel was a bar with a local band belting out cover songs. This sounded great from a distance, but as we got closer, we came to realize that the vocalist had missed a few lessons while honing their craft. Namely the ones having to do with “pitch,” “rhythm,” and “singing.” After quickly finishing our beverages, we followed the bass beats to the area known as “Party Beach.”
This section of the island certainly lives up to its name. The entire beach turns into a temple to hedonism after dark, filled with music, dancing, firedancers, jumprope, and flaming limbo competitions. The revelry is fueled by copious amounts of alcohol, in the form of mixed-drink buckets, beer, and free shots. After a few hours, we wandered back to our hotel, slightly less steady on our feet than before.
The next morning, we embarked on a hike to Koh Phi Phi’s viewpoint, from which we were afforded a view of the entire island. The hike turned out to be a stairway, which made the fact that the path was straight up slightly better. During the climb we realized that we had perhaps indulged a bit more than we thought the night before, but the view at the end was worth it!
After wandering around the jungle part of the island a bit more, we ended up back on the main drag, where we discovered the Banana Bar, a rooftop bar that plays movies every night at 19:00, has yummy Mexican food, and offers two-for-one drink specials all evening. This checked off several boxes on our list, and we frequented the Banana a few more times while on Phi Phi.
After the two nights we had booked at the hotel were up, we decided we weren’t quite ready to leave yet…there was just something so enticing about how easy everything is here. You want live music, beautiful beaches, jungle hiking, fun bars, yummy food? All are cheap and at your fingertips. It was also nice that the whole island was pedestrian friendly, with almost no motor vehicles. We decided to extend our stay a few more days, and book a snorkel adventure to boot.
While the group we booked with advertised a “see sharks or your money back!” tour which started at 6:30 AM, after some discussion with the booker, we discovered that a slightly later tour did more stuff, and had a very good chance of seeing sharks as well. We opted for this one, and are glad we did!
One of the advantages of Phi Phi is that it’s very close to some great dive and snorkel spots. Whereas we had to travel an hour by speedboat when we were diving in Lanta, after about 20 minutes on a longboat, we were in the water, meeting some of the local sea-life. Within the first few minutes, we saw all manner of fish, including black-tip reef sharks. One of them, who was carrying a remora, swam about 2 meters underneath Justin!
We visited a few more spots, including the fabled Maya bay (famous thanks to The Beach, a Leonardo Dicaprio movie that we’ve never seen), which was super crowded and not that interesting, at least compared to other spots we went to. Despite poor visibility, we got a good look at some baby sharks, clown fish, a sea turtle, and a barracuda. We also got to swim inside a cavern, which was dark, spooky, and completely awesome.
On our last night in Phi Phi, we may have had one bucket too many and decided to try out the Reggae Bar, which is a famous installation on the island because they hold Muy Thai fights every night. Instead of trained fighters, however, they pit drunken tourists against each other (they have an endless supply of those so it’s a pretty good business model). We watched a decent number of matches in which tipsy foreigners, swaddled in padding, took swings against each other. At the end of the night, Justin decided to try his hand at this whole kickboxing thing. He got matched with a guy with whom we had been chatting, who was active US military serving in South Korea and was on vacation with his wife. Unfortunately for Justin, Mr. G.I. Joe was not your typical drunk tourist, and led with a mean roundhouse kick. 30 seconds, one black eye, and bloody nose later, the fight was over. At least we have a good story?!
The next morning, having finally had our fill of Phi Phi, we hopped a ferry to Ao Nang on the mainland.
