October Vacation, Part 6: Perks of the Off Season

October 18, 2010 - October 24, 2010: Southern Thailand

My sales pitch to friends thinking of visiting. I'll-take-you-there!

As you can gather from the title, this final installment of my October travels is going on three months late. But let's just all agree that procrastination doesn't end with turning in your last college paper, and categorize this one as a "timeless adventure." Here goes.

I left Saigon one wallet, two credit cards and $300 lighter - but with high hopes of finding the perfect beach on which to forget that fact. Leaving behind the bus beds and train cars of Vietnam, Nicole and I took a flight from Saigon to Bangkok, then down to Krabi, Thailand. Krabi is in the south of Thailand, on the Andaman Sea, in the same cluster of islands and peninsulas as Phuket (a region heavily affected by the 2004 tsunami, but now back on its feet and as gorgeous as ever). 

Our first night back in the Land o' Thai, Neens and I stayed in quiet Krabi town, and for dinner, headed to the waterfront night market for our first Thai meal in 3 weeks. I didn't realize until I took my first big bite of peanuty-lime pad-see-ew noodles, but after backpacking through Laos and Vietnam for weeks I might have missed Thai food more than I currently miss American cheeseburgers. It tasted like home.

Food vendors on Railay Beach

The next day, we kicked off a marathon week of lazy beach bathing in Paradise. (I know, I know - my life sucks). Our first stop was Railay Beach, just a quick $5 longtail boat ride east of Krabi town. We hopped off our boat at the drop-off point on East Railay, waded to shore, and strolled a while on a small narrow pathway to Phra Nang Beach - dodging the occasional monkey swinging above in the trees. Railay, like most of the south, is made up of gorgeous white sand beaches that melt into crystal clear turquoise water. Railay in particular has huge limestone rock formations covering the peninsula and scattered around the nearby waters. It's supposedly an excellent spot for rock climbing, and we could see a handful of climbers dangling from the rock cliffs on one side of the beach... but I've never believed in mixing beach time with exercise. Instead, Nicole and I (and not many others, as the beach was pretty sparse of tourists) spent the entire day sleeping in the sun, snacking on spring rolls and corn cobs grilled right on the beach, swimming out to the huge limestone cliff island just off the beach, ducking under the palm trees when the occasional rain storm hit, and generally relaxing in a state of utter bliss and disbelief at being there.

Our next stop was to Ko Lanta, a much larger island south of Krabi that doesn't get as much tourist traffic (especially since October still counted as the "off season" - a fact which Nicole and I took to heart and used as an excuse for most indulgences that week: Want to order that coconut dessert? Why not, it's the off season. Want another whiskey bucket? Well, it is the off season. Should we lay on the beach again today? Sure, I mean, it's the off season). Ko Lanta was so tourist-less, in fact, that Nicole and I managed to swing a one night's stay at a huge fancy beachfront resort with a private pool for only $7/night (we wound up there by mistake, but then went with it). Aside from one other family, we were literally the only guests there. Man, I love the off season. 

Viewpoint View on Ko Phi Phi

For the Grand Finale of our week in southern Thailand, we planted ourselves on Ko Phi Phi. Neens and I stayed one night at a rather decrepit, but cheap and nicely located guesthouse up near the "Viewpoint" of Ko Phi Phi Don - the larger and more built up of the Phi Phi islands. (I wouldn't give this place many stars for customer service either. The hotel had no discernible front desk, just a small closet-like room with a mattress at the top of the stairs where it appeared a staff member appeared to live. When we finally found said staff member and asked for a room, she gave us a look as though we'd just asked her to give up her own bed... then made us wait an hour while she prepared a vacant but beer can-clad guest room at glacier pace. Sigh.)

Longtail boats

We heard from friends about an overnight camping trip on Maya Beach, Ko Phi Phi Leh (of Leonardo diCaprio's "The Beach" fame), and wasted no time booking the trip our first night in Krabi town. The small island of Ko Phi Phi Leh is completely uninhabited except for park rangers, so normally you can only visit the island during the day by grabbing a tourist boat over. Only one company (read: band of 20-something Thai tour guide pirates who are paid by a rich Australian) is allowed to take groups to the island for overnight stays, and we decided that was exactly the kind of adventure we were in the mood for our last night in Paradise.

As instructed by the guy we handed 2,500 baht over to in Krabi, we went to a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Ko Phi Phi town at 3:30 sharp Friday afternoon to meet our camping group. We'd been told the trip could take up to 40-50 people, and we were expecting to find a line of shaggy sabai-pant wearing backpackers outside. But at 4:15, it was still just me, Neens, and a group of barefoot shirtless Thai guys smoking cigarettes and jamming to cell phone recorded music inside the restaurant. A moment later, one of the shirtless guys walked up to us, gathered his long hair into a ponytail, flashed us a smile and said Ba! (Let's go).

Perks of the off season:
a private cruise for two

Feeling confused, we followed our shirtless guide, who later introduced himself as Nemo ("like the Disney movie") to a large diving boat docked at the tourist pier. Other than Nemo and the crew, Nicole and I were the only passengers. Nemo informed us that there were three other tourists who would meet us on the beach... Sooo tour group total: 5. Sweeeeet.

After an incredible session of sunset snorkeling along the coral reefs of Ko Phi Phi Leh, the boat anchored at a deep lagoon on the other side of the island. About fifty meters from the shore, Nemo jumped off the boat, then told us to do the same - the big cruiser couldn't come any closer to land, and our belongings would be brought to the beach later. We swam through the choppy water, passing small boats filled with tourists who were leaving for the day, and then navigated our way along sharp shallow rocks to a cave-like entrance to the island.

Ko Phi Phi Leh was immediately breathtaking. The cave led to a shallow pool, then to a sand-covered walkway surrounded by steep cliffs of greenery. It felt inexplicably untouched - a deserted island. In bathing suits and bare feet, we were lead along the pathway a while... then found ourselves on the completely empty, pink sky tinted, pristine lagoon of Maya Bay. I'm not sure there is a more perfect place in the whole world. And we had it allllll to ourselves for a night.

I'm considering going into Thai piratry so I can live here.

We met the other members of our camping group on the sand - three young Spanish guys who didn't speak much English, but were warm, friendly, and as excited to start the night as we were. After a Nemo-directed photo shoot involving a lot of newly married couple cornball poses and me buried in the sand and shaped as a (rather busty) mermaid, the six of us sat down for a Massaman curry dinner, buckets of whisky, drinking games, cards, and music. Later came a fire show performed by some of the crew (who ranged from age 16 to 45), followed by a fire dancing lesson (I'll keep my day job). Next, Nemo took us to see and hold the giant "chicken crabs," who only come out on the island at night and climb trees inland rather than hang out by the water. When it started raining, we moved festivities inside the makeshift kitchen shack (sitting around, on, or next to the Thai guy sleeping on rice bags in there). Late at night, we went swimming to see the glow-in-the-dark plankton that light up when disturbed in the water. Sleeping accommodations were as simple as a grass mat on the sand and a blanket. What else could you need?

Nemo invited Nicole and I to hang out after the boat brought us back to Phi Phi Don the next morning. Since we had 4 hours to kill and no hotel to stay at, and since he promised a showing of The Beach (which neither of us had seen), we said yes.  He and some of the other Thai crew members took us to their "house," which turned out to be a mostly furniture-less two-story apartment tucked behind the touristy area of town, facing the beach and ocean on the opposite side of the pier. In Thai fashion, he appeared to share this place with about 18 other people, and in Thai pirate fashion, his walls were plastered with Bob Marley posters and his bed was just a mattress on the floor. The place looked old, but un-lived in (but then again, Nemo and his roommates' job is to sleep on Maya Beach five days a week). As soon as we walked inside, Nemo said he had to go out for both the movie and the DVD player, since he didn't actually own either (the first he bought at one of the many pirated movie stands; the latter he borrowed from a neighbor in town).

We squeezed the movie showing in before we had to catch our ferry boat that afternoon. Indeed, The Beach was filmed right on Maya Bay, and showed the same stunning sights in every scene. But Leonardo diCaprio and all... it didn't hold a candle to the real thing.