We arranged to finish our lessons at 10:10am and meet with Lan in the English room who would drive us to the bus station so we could catch the coach to Krabi. Lan was late. We managed to track her down and were on the road by 10:20. When we got to the bus station Lan asked where the coach was and they said it had literally just gone two minutes before, how annoying! They also said if she drove fast we could catch up with it.
Off we sped down the highway after the bus. After driving for a tense 10 minutes I'd lost all hope and started to think we should tell Lan to give up chase or she'd end up just driving us the 2 hours to Krabi herself! However our luck was in and we could see the bus in the distance. Now was the dilemma of how to stop it and get on. We managed to overtake it and get a good distance infront. The plan was to jump out and wave like mad to make it stop and then hop on. I was sceptical, what if it didn't stop despite our waves!
Luck was in our favour, Joy was out the car on the road side and waved like crazy, getting it to stop further up the road. We legged it and hopped on, greeted by funny looks from Thais and the first farang's we'd seen for a while. Too pleased we'd caught it to care, I sat down looking smug that our weekend was beginning.
Rebecca, who was travelling alone to Koh Phi Phi, as her ETA Victoria had decided to go to Chiang Mai in the North that weekend, contacted us saying she'd arrived at Krabi bus station. We planned that we would ring her when we got there to try and meet her and get the ferry alltogether. We didn't know if we'd make it for the 1:30 ferry or if we'd have to catch the 3pm so told Becky it was probably best to not buy a ticket yet.
We arrived at a bus station in the middle of nowhere, with no one around. I'd expected a bit of a transport hub with people everywhere and sight of Rebecca! No such luck. Just as we bought a ticket for transport to the ferry and our ticket to Koh Phi Phi from a woman on the only desk there, I saw I had a missed call from Rebecca and rang her back to tell her to get a ticket for the 1:30 ferry. Unfortunately it was too late, from the bus station she was at, the transport from the ferry had just left and she had no choice but to wait for the 3pm. Even more annoying is that no taxi would take her individually to the ferry, despite us later realising that where she was, was about 10 minutes away! Ridiculous.
Anyway, myself and Joy boarded the ferry just as it began to rain.
The ferry to Phi Phi took about 2 hours and it was not pleasant. The weather was horrible, it was raining and a bit stormy with big waves, I was concentrating so hard on watching the waves so I wouldn't be sick. Much to the confusion of the man sitting next to me who thought I was staring at him!
The sick bags got handed out and you can guess what happened next. Luckily I wasn't sick but I can't say the same for many others on the boat!
Getting off the ferry I wanted to kiss the ground I was so happy to be on dry land. Before I could enjoy it too much I realised that us foreigners were being pushed one way and Thais another as we walked off the pier. All of the farang's had to pay 20 baht to get onto the island and there was a big sign saying about it being money to clean the beaches etc. I'm not even sure if it was compulsory but everyone seemed to be paying it and I didn't want to take the risk of getting my hands chopped off for not paying so I handed over my money (which was only actually the same as 40p).
We had booked into Stones Bar hostel and I'd got a screen shot of the directions on my phone so we had a quick look to get our bearings. There were no taxis about on the island down to the fact that there are no roads! It is all pedestrianised which was great as it was only a small island anyway, you didn't really need roads. There were however plenty of Thais riding around on bicycles and carting around big cages on wheels which filled up the path so you had to jump out of the way quick to avoid being squished.
Our instructions were to follow the pier straight ahead until you hit the beach, turn right and walk along the beach for 5 minutes and we would then find Stones Bar, which we did!
This was on our walk to the hostel. When we got there I was very happy, it was so cute with loads of reclining cushions in the beach and under the cover of the bar. We checked in and were shown to our 16 bed dorm. Seeing as this was my first time in a proper hostel dorm it was certainly a risk going for a 16 bed. It was a tiny room filled with bunk beds but it was absolutely fine. It had 3 wet rooms off it so that was no problem for all of us.
That's my top bunk with the red towel hanging off the end and Joy is the top bunk in the very left of the photo.
After setting all our stuff down we decided to grab something to eat, have a look around and see what was about and then we thought it would be nice to meet Becky at the pier so we could take her to the hostel ourselves as we felt bad that she'd had to wait in Krabi and didn't want her getting lost on her own!
On our way to meet Becky a man from a diving shop asked us what we were looking for as we walked past, I said 'our friend' and he replied with 'well where is she?' 'On a boat!', 'well she should be easy to spot then!'. Har har har.
He was talking to us about the diving on the island which sounded amazing and very tempting but he also told us all about Koh Phi Phi including where to go for shopping, food and drinks as well as what to do, even drew us a map, how kind. Our new friend also told us that at Stones Bar we shouldn't expect to get any sleep as we were right on the party beach with the bar of our hostel right under our room...
We met Becky and took her to the hostel. When she checked in we asked if Laura and Amanda, who would be arriving the next day, would be in our room. They weren't supposed to be but the nice lady changed it around for us. We thought it would be nicer if we already knew 5 out of 16 people in the dorm.
We then got ready, had a quick photo shoot and then went for dinner and cocktails.
Becky and Joy then decided they wanted henna tattoos so their needs were also remidied.
We had a good laugh in the tattoo shop because they were all laughing at our attempts at Thai. With some words if you don't say a word in a certain tone, it means something completely different.
The word for beautiful is 'Suwaii', and you have to go up at the end. If you say it more as a flat tone, it means chronically unlucky. How unfortunate!
All inked up we moved onto the party beach at Slinkys Bar. Joy and Becky for the famous cocktail buckets but I decided against it and just went for glasses, sensible for once.
The fire show they put on each night had ended and moved to audience participation. This was limboing under a fire limbo, jumping with a fire skipping rope and jumping through a hoop made of fire! All the danger.
The British workers at Slinkys were holding up a sign that said 'Girl with no bra = free bucket, Naked boy = free bucket', there were plenty of people that were confident enough to get them selves some free buckets! Brits abroad eh, embarrassingly can't be tamed.
All in all we had a great night, Becky met an English guy, Steven who turned into her weekend boyfriend which was cute.
The next morning I felt really sorry for myself. The alcohol from the night before made a reappearance which wasn't the best thing to happen whilst staying in a dorm. The good thing though is that I didn't hear anyone else come in, but we may have drunkenly woke a couple people up with our laughing when we got to the room, oops!!
On Friday our paradise island was very rainy. We chilled out at our hostels bar to take cover and this was when we found out, from the smell, why it was called stones bar. I'll post a photo that we saw on the island to let you guess what was readily available, despite having heavy penalties in Thailand for a very small amount. Maybe those rules don't reach Phi Phi?!
After a very chilled and rainy day where we attempted to do some shopping, we admitted defeat and bought some dashing rain macs for 30 baht from 7 Eleven.
We decided the day wouldn't be a total wash out (all puns intended) so we went for a manicure and pedicure while the rain continued to flood sections of the island. That was a bit annoying because my beautiful new toe nails had to be walked through muddy rain water on the way back.
We then got ready to go out for some dinner and decided that a night out was probably off the cards if the rain carried on!
Laura and Amanda, who were meant to have arrived on Friday evening ended up sadly missing the last ferry to Phi Phi because of their mentor being late so spent a night in Krabi town instead and they would get there as soon as they could on Saturday.
As we were getting ready, Becky's weekend boyfriend, Steven turned up at our hostel door with his friend from New Zeland, Cal. I let them in thinking they were staying in our dorm until they stood awkwardly without properly walking in and the penny dropped who they were and I recognised Steven from the night before. The five of us went out for dinner at Banana bar which is where you can normally see a great sunset (not that night!) and get some good Mexican food. They also play a film every night so we sat and watched 'The Life of Pi' until the rain cleared in very good timing.
That night was a great blur of more cocktails, fire shows and fun.
With me and Joy stupidly not asking for a key each to the hostel I ended up losing Joy, getting locked out and after sitting on the doorstep for a while trying to get in, I admitted defeat and slept on one of the comfy chairs on the beach. I was only there a few hours before it got light and I tried to get someone to let me into the dorm again. Success! After about 15 minutes someone went to the toilet and spotted me through the glass door. Horray! I then got into bed and slept until about 11 when Laura and Amanda finally arrived.
Finally the sun had come out so we could do some sunbathing and swimming. This was the day that we were going to book a tour to see Maya bay where 'The Beach' was filmed with Leonardo Di Caprio. But because it was uncertain wether it was going to rain and we'd left it late in the day we decided it sadly wasn't worth it as rain would totally ruin the trip.
That night we once again donned our rain macs and returned back to Banana Bar for food and to watch Get Him To The Greek. Myself, Joy and Becky were again joined by Steven, Cal and new additions of Laura, Amanda and some of Laura's friends from home that were on the island.
After Banana bar we headed to the indoor Irish pub as it was too rainy for the beach. We went upstairs and played a multitude of drinking games.
The next day was Sunday which sadly meant it was time to leave all the amazing fun we had behind and travel back to Bansong. We got an early ferry to be on the safe side. It seems to be the same story whenever we leave somewhere, it was glorious sunshine! Luckily there was a sun deck so we sat out to try and catch a tan.
We had time to spare in Krabi before we needed to get our bus back. So we grabbed some lunch with Rebecca and tried to make a plan for the next weekend. Very exciting!
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