Party goers paradise, Travellers Tribulation
So, where do I begin? The picturesque island of Koh Phi Phi, pretty much stops being picturesque after boarding land from the pier.
I mean, the streets are paved with yellow and red bricks, it’s still just as clean as the rest of Thailand but it is FULL of tourists. The predominant age on the island ranges from 18–30. It is jam packed with people who love to drink from 12 in the afternoon right up until 3 the next morning. Great if you love that, I don’t. So I would happily be up from between half 6 and 8am, wandering the tiny island whilst everyone else nursed their hangovers. The island is 12.25km squared, and you can wander around most of it in one day by foot. Which is funny because when I disembarked my ferry which had come from Phuket, upon arrival in Koh Phi Phi my feet were hurting. The thought of waiting around for a group minivan which would be cheaper was unimaginable, I was sweaty, tired, achy and hungry. Of course I was hungry. So as soon as my foot touched sand, I was trying to find a taxi, I asked how much a taxi would cost from the first stall I saw. The man laughed a hearty laugh. You know those segregated laughs. “Ha, Ha. Ha, there are no cars on the island” he eventually responded, “it’s too small” he continued. I told him the name of my hostel, he instructed me to follow the yellow brick road for five minutes. And when I get to the “Reggae Bar” I should continue straight. The reggae bar played no reggae the whole time I was there. Sorry to get your hopes up Vanessa (Columbia).
I walked through what looked like a semi grotty alleyway up two or three tile covered concrete steps to the foyer of my hostel if you could call it a foyer. It was a make shift desk, a filthy little sofa, and a shoe rack, with a spiral staircase which led to God knows where. All I do know, is the host would disappear up there and you’d be waiting for ages to ask questions at the desk like a dog left outside a shop while its owner is perusing inside. The dorm room didn’t look much better than the foyer to be honest. It was a 16 bed mixed dorm room with one light which was covered with a dirty plastic cover that probably should have been transparent, but was definitely translucent, bordering on opaque if we’re not holding back the punches. So people on the top bunk of each of the bed were fabulous. Living in Blackpool towers.. Sort of. Us poor folk on the bottom bunks however were like bats in a cave without that radar thing they have. So you’d be stubbing your toes, banging your head, tripping over bags at any time of day, lighting was trash and the room had no windows. Fortunately I’d only booked myself in for one night at the “lucky hostel”, purely because online I could only see pictures of the reception and the dorm room area. No sociable areas. I soon found there was only a dorm room and a reception/foyer area. So the pictures online did their job. So upon arrival at the unlucky hostel, I booked my stay in the “Ibiza hostel” for the next night. Three times more expensive, but it has a pool. So I thought that would be nice to chill in the following day.
Of course in typical Tesni fashion, the day I checked in I found out there was also a pool party hosted by my hostel. (So much for chill). I had met some really lovely girls from California who had all just become graduate veterinary doctors they invited me to the party with them. I ordered a rum and Sprite. POTENT. I didn’t even drink it. Just put it down, I didn’t care how much I’d spent. I was not trying to have “cause of death, alcohol related drowning” all up on my tombstone. So instead, me and the three Cali’s decided to share buckets, each taking a turn to buy a bucket of rum and pineapple. Bucket sounds terrible; it really wasn’t that big, especially with four people sharing. By the time I’d shared two, I took my opportunity to stop drinking. But they continued like soldiers on to the third. They stopped there and instead of the fourth bucket we decided that the last person would buy us all pizza. As I’m writing, I recall that the last person didn’t actually buy the pizzas, but two American guys paid for them instead. Lucky for final payer! I did question one of the American guys as to why they were purchasing our pizza. He looked into my eyes, though I’m sure he was trying to look into my soul and said “because that’s what real men do”. It was so condescending, but it had a whole nother meaning only black girls will understand. I thought, ‘it’s a slice of pizza mate, get over yourself. Its not like your fighting human injustice.” Arrogant poo head, majority of the Americans I’ve met this trip have been such. But the girls from Cali were a blast.
My first night on Koh Phi Phi island, I bumped into two girls I had shared a dorm with two nights before on the coastline of Phuket which is mainland (that’s how small the island is). We agreed to meet to go to the beach where there were several clubs and various activities going on. Such as jumping rope, with fire around the jumping area, I had to jump in to show them wagwan, just to let them know how skipping in primary school has set me up for spotlights like this. There was also a limbo, but I wanted to give everyone else a chance you know, so of course I left that to the unprofessionals. I was also left stood on a dancing platform when my group had disappeared, I waited around for about 20 minutes. Before I took the opportunity to run away back to my dorm room bed for an early nights sleep. The following night however, after the pool party earlier in the day, I found myself in bed by about 6pm as I was feeling sick. I went to sleep it off, but my Californian friends and their American boy buddies, decided to climb up the viewpoint to see the sunset, but I had climbed up early that morning and wasn’t feeling to climb all the steps all over again. Gradually from about 11pm people started emerging in the dorm room and due to my earlier nap I was wide awake. They all went out again though to continue partying.
Come 1 am, I could hear the sound of one of my roomies (we remain anonymous) throwing up profusely. I wasn’t sure if they were conscious or not so I jumped out of bed to make sure they were okay, moved their bag away because it too was getting covered. I got baby wipes and wiped it down. Then ran in search of someone to change the bedsheets. I ended up having to go to another hotel, to call our security. The message obviously got misconstrued, because security stormed into our dorm room (where all the lights were off) with a flash light rapidly moving it as though he was searching for a criminal. I quickly reexplained to him and he came back with sheets and cleared up the mess. All of this happened whilst everyone else slept! However, my roomie continued being sick for the next 8 hours. But by 3am I was so tired I just went to sleep. Woke up at nine, they were still going. So I offered to take them to the 24 hour medical centre at which time they refused. But I showered and prepared anyway. Went for a short walk and as I walked back they were being wheeled by luggage trolley, to the medical centre and had to be put on a drip. Two people in my room were severely sick and one of the girls I had met previously had been in the medical centre on a drip for 2 nights. Shout out travel insurance, cause one American guy was in a bad way, didn’t have insurance and couldn’t afford to pay the fees. Most of the sick tried to blame it on food. But I’d been eating the planet and I was fine. So my guess is that it was the alcohol. Either that or my stomach is just strong. “LOOK AT THE STRENGTH” if you got that reference, you are an OG.
I’m moving to Koh Tao in a few days. Everyone tells me this island is really, really beautiful. I guess we’ll soon find out! If you enjoyed this read, please give it a clap. Big hugs, Tesni xx
Originally published at tesnithetastebudtraveller.blogspot.com
