I have been waiting years to be here. My expectations were borderline unrealistic, and at the same time I didn’t really know what to expect. I just knew it would be beautiful and awesome. Koh Phi Phi doesn’t disappoint.

 

 

We arrived yesterday afternoon on an unremarkable ferry from somewhere near Phuket Town. The ride started off beautiful and sunny, and people were laying out on the back deck getting some sun in already.

 

 

Clouds and rain came in when we neared the island, but they cleared out just about the time we disembarked.

 

Phi Phi is unique in many ways. First, it has no cars and no roads. You walk everywhere, and people push goods around in carts, saying, “Beep! Beep!” when someone is in there way. We loved this. Second, the majority of Phi Phi is located in a narrow isthmus between two hills. Narrow as in it took us about 4 or 5 minutes to walk across it from the pier. You can see that here:

 

 

We stayed on Loh Dalum Bay, on the far end, which we found out is the party side. Every night, each of the bars plays music and puts on a fire show. It’s wildly entertaining and definitely not to be missed.

 

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. When we arrived on the island, we walked with our bags across to the other side and then up the beach to our guesthouse (Dee Dee’s Guesthouse, and it was perfect). Isa wasn’t feeling well (she threw up all the night before), so she insisted that I do the viewpoint hike alone. I ran up the stairs and hill in about 10 minutes and hung out for sunset. It’s quite the workout, and my quads are feeling it today. But it’s totally worth it for this view.

 

 

Sunset wasn’t spectacular, barely even photo worthy, but I waited it out in hopes that it would be awesome for even just a second. It just got darker and darker.

 

 

I found Isa back at the guesthouse reading Divergent. She loves it. We hung out for a while until about 9pm, when we figured the party would be getting good. It was. I took mostly video, so I’ll embed that here once I make it.

 

 

Now we’re hanging out in front of our guesthouse, killing time and enjoying the sun and scenery, until we have to be at our tour for Maya Bay. So excited about that!