The rest of the guys met us at the pier and took us to the Harmony Guest House on the North End. were we got rooms for just $3/night. Right out front the guest house is a garden covering a few acres. It used to be a reservoir, but the 2004 tsunami came through and blew it out. A local told us there is a mass grave there containing a few hundred victims. I've heard that Phi Phi town was leveled when the tsunami hit, so it's very plausible. The downtown area is a maze of shops, bars, restaurants, massage parlors, guest houses, and anything else that could possibly cater to tourists. It's got a bit of a sleazy old world European feel due to the cramped cobblestone streets. The hordes of UK kids in their first or second year of university remind you that this is arguably the premier party island of Thailand aside from Koh Phangan's full moon parties each month. After we settled in, the 5 of us hit the beach on the North end. It's a large shallow bay with a narrow opening to the sea-- just the right conditions for stale water that's over 90*F in some areas. $3 gets you 2 beach chairs with umbrellas. Pasty white UK kids with nasty sunburns are a great reminder to reapply sunblock if not stay out of the sun entirely. The sun is directly overhead, so it really cooks you quick! After a few cold Sighas, some tasty pad thai, and a few hours lounging, we split off to wander, shop, and check email. We all were taking it easy in anticipation for a long night ahead. It's a half-moon party tonight, which is is one of the many "moon" parties that are excuses to hold huge parties on the beach. There are 3 large beach bars, so things were no doubt going to be wild. Despite my protests, Mike paid $100 for a $20 guitar and brought it to the beach. The rest of the guys seemed naive to the torture that I knew to lay ahead. For a solid hour he turned our crowded yet quiet strip of beach into something it should not be: Mike's practice studio. He subjected about 50 people around us to countless bits and pieces of chords, solos, and many noises similar to what a cat in a garbage compactor must sound like. Maybe it's that I don't appreciate Ozzy Osbourne or Van Halen as much as he does, or that I prefer to hear a whole song, as opposed to the same 5 second riff repeated 20 times incorrectly. He finally left for lunch and Chris suggested we smash the guitar before he gets back. Everyone within earshot snickered in approval.
That evening, Mike and Jeff hiked up to "The Viewpoint" high above town. Mike got some great pics with his guitar in hand. Later that night we ate dinner at a small hole in the wall off the tourist track that Matt had come across. This place could seat about 30 people and construction was half shack, half tent. As we entered and were seated, 3-4 of the staff hovered around us like honey bees with big smiles on their faces. They each repeatedly greeted us with the "sawadee Ka" (Hello) in that all-too-common high pitch and excited tone the Thai women are known for. The music on the CD player was quickly changed and on came 'Achy Breakey Heart'. I think Chris in his cowboy hat had something to do with that one. Chris put on a little show of hat tipping and singing to the ladies, whom at this point were blushing and giggling. We ordered a ton of stuff thanks to our 3 friendly waitresses pressing us to get more. We never asked for it, but all the sudden we were engaged in a Thai language lesson that happened to include dinner. We got spicy noodles, curries, whole fish, egg rolls, squid, you name it! The kitchen was behind us, which was simply an "L" shaped counter with a propane wok with an old woman working feverishly to crank out delicious dishes.
Classic rock and country songs continued to play as we ate, joked, and received a dizzying number of Thai phrases to learn.
Just a few phrases we learned:
I'm fat
I'm full
I love you
Where is the toilet?
Chicken, beef, fish, soup, prawn
pretty
smelly
cheap
how much?
No, thank you
We left the restaurant with full bellies, new friends, and smiles. This dinner was one of those events that will stick out as an "authentic" experience. Leonardo Di Caprio sums it up in the movie 'The Beach' when he says "Everyone tries to be a traveler, not a tourist-- but in the end, we all just end up doing the same thing". There is truth in it, unfortunately. Going to the same locations doesn't bother me that much...there's a reason why everyone goes there! What seperates you from the 'tourists' is your atitude towards both locals & travelers and an ability to recognize and seize on those 'authentic' opportunities when they present themselves. There is actually a growing contempt I hold for the pure tourists who travel abroad to party and treat the country like their personal playground and to act as if they are free from the rules of common courtesy. I've seen people be complete asses, such as arguing over 25 cents on a bill and refusing to treat the locals as decent human beings, even iwhen the dinner bill is under $4 per person! The vast majority are UK tourists aged 18-23, but considering that they compose the vast majority of the people out here, it's a bit unfair to stereotype. Americans don't exactly have a rosy reputation in the world either.
By 10:30pm the streets were filled with drunken tourists, many toting around 'buckets'. Almost every shop in town has a stand out front with colorful childrens' plastic beach buckets filled with a flask of cheap booze, soda cans, and M-150, which is like Red Bull but loaded with amphetamines, thus making it illegal in western countries. Most come with Samsong whiskey, a.k.a rot-gut whiskey. So far we have avoided Samsong and the evil buckets, which I imagine double as vomit collectors after you finish the drink. Mike continued to carry around his guitar and to our great amusement, got a stream of song requests from cute drunk girls. Two drunk English girls must have made 30 requests, but to each he responded "no, I don't know that one". I don't foresee my brother learning Jason Mraz or James Blunt anytime soon, even if it would have made him a rock star for a few minutes.
We finally made it onto the beach after many interesting encounters along the way. It was a human zoo with loud music and huge crowds. The bar staff set up a 3m ring of fire to jump through on the beach, ya know, like what tigers jump through at the circus. I instantly knew that rings of fire don't mix well with drunken Brits, so I did the responsible thing and got a good angle for filming the inevitable. Unfortunately I missed most of the grand finale, so to speak, but in this case, the unfortunate drunken Brit had brought the ring of fire down on top of his bare back and there it sat for 3-4 full seconds until it was pulled off. A black ring of soot and char crossed over his shoulder blades. The locals said that at least 3 people per week get sent to the burn unit in Phuket for doing stunts like this. Some may cry out for the banning of such fire shows on the beach, but this is one symbol of what I like about Thailand and SE Asia in general. Unlike the nanny states of Western Europe and North America, out here, you are responsible for your actions, especially the idiotic ones. In America, this drunken moron would be sitting on a massive lawsuit and the bar would be shut down permanently.
After the BBQ was over, we continued on our merry way, bouncing between the bar and the beach, keeping mostly to ourselves. The real treat that night, of course, was food-related. At 3am and 6 beers deep, you'll eat anything. Like moths to flame, Matt and I hovered in front of a beachfront food vendor. We both needed something delicious and greasy to send us into a deep sleep back at our guest house. The egg rolls and meat & veggie kabobs we got from that vendor were fantastic and really hit the spot. As for the guesthouse, it was an experience. You see, for $3 on Phi Phi, you don't get what you'd expect from such an exorbitant chunk of change. No 24room service or turn down service here. The patches of duct tape where drunken guests had punched holes in the walls was a very bold and modern form of decor, but the real treat was the bathroom, which did not have pee traps on any of the fixtures. For those of you whose profession does not include working with wrenches and having an exposed butt crack, a pee trap is that u-shaped bend in the pipe below the sink. There's also traps in shower drains and built into toilets. Their function is to keep sewer gas from backing up out of the drains through the use of trapped water in the pipe. When you don't have a pee trap, your bathroom smells like a full porta-poddy on a hot summer day. That's precisely the smell we got in our bathroom, which filled the bedroom each time the door opened. The smells from the restaurant kitchen just below our open window co-mingled, creating a new and even more heinous concoction. At this point in the trip, all you can do is laugh about it and gain a greater appreciation for the simple things in life.
After the BBQ was over, we continued on our merry way, bouncing between the bar and the beach, keeping mostly to ourselves. The real treat that night, of course, was food-related. At 3am and 6 beers deep, you'll eat anything. Like moths to flame, Matt and I hovered in front of a beachfront food vendor. We both needed something delicious and greasy to send us into a deep sleep back at our guest house. The egg rolls and meat & veggie kabobs we got from that vendor were fantastic and really hit the spot. As for the guesthouse, it was an experience. You see, for $3 on Phi Phi, you don't get what you'd expect from such an exorbitant chunk of change. No 24room service or turn down service here. The patches of duct tape where drunken guests had punched holes in the walls was a very bold and modern form of decor, but the real treat was the bathroom, which did not have pee traps on any of the fixtures. For those of you whose profession does not include working with wrenches and having an exposed butt crack, a pee trap is that u-shaped bend in the pipe below the sink. There's also traps in shower drains and built into toilets. Their function is to keep sewer gas from backing up out of the drains through the use of trapped water in the pipe. When you don't have a pee trap, your bathroom smells like a full porta-poddy on a hot summer day. That's precisely the smell we got in our bathroom, which filled the bedroom each time the door opened. The smells from the restaurant kitchen just below our open window co-mingled, creating a new and even more heinous concoction. At this point in the trip, all you can do is laugh about it and gain a greater appreciation for the simple things in life.
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