I don't know about you all, but I find that every summer you get at least one day that stands above the rest in its summerness (summerishness?). For me, it almost always involves being on a body of water in a speedboat, on waterskis (yes, Kristin and Jen, people DO still waterski in the 21st century), or on some kind of flotation device. This trip has had some summery days for sure, but today was pure summer.
Shoot, does it sound like I'm rubbing it in that I'm in a place that feels and looks like summer and you're probably all wearing your winter jackets already? I'm not trying to, but if you were put off by the number of times I used "summer" and its fake derivatives in that first paragraph, you should probably stop reading right now. And you definitely shouldn't look at my latest photo album on Facebook...
So today, The Crew (me, Kaje, Andrew, Blair, Ange, Andrew's cousins Ian and George, and their friend Karen) chartered a long boat from a guy named Kitty (pronouned Ki-Tee with emphasis on the second syllable, but I'm gonna spell it Kitty) and spent the day out on the water, going wherever struck our fancy. We started the day with the obligatory trip to Maya Bay, the beautiful little cove made famous by The Beach. Unfortunately, with Leonardo DiCaprio movies comes notoriety and with notoriety comes crowds and with crowds comes rubbish. Honestly, the beach was lovely, the water was gorgeous, and the limestone rockfaces surrounding it were majestic. But we went snorkelling and it takes away from the experience a little when you see reef sharks (a little creepy, but cool!) and immediately thereafter see an Orange Fanta can on the ocean floor. Hmmm...does it sound like I'm complaining? Cause it really was paradise. But it was not the best stop of the day.
When we'd had enough of The Beach, we gave Kitty a holler and he and all his Thai buddies emerged from out of nowhere, all wearing just their skivvies. For some reason, we left in a different boat than we arrived in and our boat was full of empty beer cans. Kitty's friends gave the guys on our boat free beers and kept yelling "Al-oooooooooooh-ha!" to us as we departed. It wasn't aloha for long though cause they followed us for the rest of the day, pulling up next to our boat and hanging out. They were a pretty funny crew.
Our second stop was a cliff jump on a nearby island to Ko Phi Phi Don (where we were staying). George and Ian went to the very top and did flips and dives off it, but it was a treacherous climb (a nearly vertical rockface with spikey limestone formations that could have done some major damage if you took a big fall) and I was proud of myself for jumping at all. Karen, Blair, Ange, Andrew and I all did the little jump, but it did not feel little at about 25 to 30 feet. When I hit the water, it did a number on my ears (they still hurt), so I figure it must have been big enough...
Stop #3 was Monkey Beach, which was pretty cool but a little scary. Unlike the monkeys on Railay, most of the monkeys here were male and super aggressive. When our boat approached the beach, dozens and dozens of monkeys came running and were waiting expectantly for us--or more accurately, for the food they clearly knew we had with us. Kaje had a bag of bananas and one of the males started coming towards her and she got freaked out and dropped the whole bag, which naturally got ransacked in moments. She was disappointed to have missed out handing out the bananas piecemeal, but I don't blame her for dropping the bag. Those monkeys are small, but they are so intimidating. Anyway, things soon were crazy on the beach, as the Thai boys in our brother boat arrived and provoked the monkeys and gave them cans of Leo Beer, which they drank before tearing open the cans and licking out every last drop. I was a bit horrified about them drinking beer (can monkeys metabolize beer?) but I couldn't help but laugh at their holding these cans that were 1/4 the size of their bodies with their little hands. I went further onto the beach to try to get a picture (again) and got attacked by one (again), this time getting monkey arms wrapped around my leg. I had to kick and shriek "What are you doing?!?" to get this one off me, and I stayed in the water from that point on. Blair and Andrew got attacked too, and Blair ended up getting one wrapped arouind his leg too. Unfortunately for him, he got a big cut on the back of his ankle in the process, which may or may not be a bite. A little freaky, but assuming that he doesn't die of rabies, it'll be a great story when he gets home.
For our final stop, we just anchored out in the water to watch the sunset. Didn't take long for our Thai friends to pull up and tie their boat to ours and start the party. If water and booze don't mix, no one has told the Thai people that. I kept diving into the water cause it was just soo nice, but I started to psych myself out, feeling like a shark was going to appear out of nowhere and rid me of one of my legs. The others wouldn't lower the ladder for me though and I started getting more and more freaked out. Didn't help taht one of the Thais dove under and swam up under me and grabbed my leg. I guess I was asking for that one...
We are back on solid ground now, and there's really nothing left to do but eat, have a beer, and go to bed. The bars are all closed on Phi Phi because Thailand is in mourning. We know it's someone important related to their beloved king, but because of the language barrier we keep getting different stories. What we know is that the King's sister/brother died three days/one hundred days/a year ago. Regardless, there's no music and the island is quiet. Time for bed...
Chels
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