I can hear the waves through the window behind me. Songbae is already asleep (as is Ti-ti) and Bella is listening to another chapter of Harry Potter on my iPod. The room is comfortably cool (outside is still warm and muggy) but I feel warm. I got a bit too much sun today, but I was tricked: I woke to a torrential downpour and thought the whole day would be overcast and never got around to putting sunblock on any part of my body except my face. As it turned out, it was gorgeous for most of the day and we spent hours lazing about in a warm blue Andaman Sea. Apparently it is quite common during rainy season for it to rain hard for brief spells during the day – and to be sunshine-y the rest of the time.
As the pictures attest, it is beautiful here. We are at Phi Phi Natural Resort (a few levels fancier than I would normally pick, but several grades lower than what my parents or Sue would choose: a compromise), on a long beach dotted with other resorts and their accompanying restaurants, with a few shops (hard to spot them) and an entire small Thai gypsy village squeezed in between.
When the tide is low, the water is only a foot or two deep for many hundreds of yards out.
The getting here turned out to be a wee bit rough, because of the choppy waves. The morning we left Phuket it had really been overcast – and the two-hour boat ride to Ko Phi Phi made many faces turn green, including mine. Thankfully Christian slept through the greater part of that trip, because it was hard going when he was awake. The ferry (Andaman Wave Runners) was more of a large speed boat and could handle the waves – but geez, my stomach’s coming up just thinking about how I was looking out the window to control my nausea and how I would see the ocean one minute and nothing but the sky the next. Change of subject:
Long tail boat ride from ferry to truck. We're glad.
By the time the islands came into sight, the sun was out and the waves were calm; almost as if they were magically wrapped under a spell of good weather. We were the third and last stop on the ferry route, at the uppermost northern end of the island. There is no dock as such there, so we had to hop on a longtail boat. From experience I figured we’d have to jump in the water the last bit when the water got too shallow, but too our surprise, a heavily “lifted†truck backed up through the water all the way to the long tail – and then drove all us guest up onto the dry sand. It sounds like an inelegant way to arrive, but we were greeted with cool washcloths to wipe the sweat from our brows and glasses of sweet iced orange juice to sooth our throats.
Phi Phi Natural Resort
Our family bungalow has two air-conditioned rooms separated by a spacious foyer and large tiled bathroom which opens up to the back patio and beach.
Our accommodations are splendid. Sue, Joss and Noi naa are in a bungalow and my mom, dad, Songbae, Christian and I are in a two-room family bungalow across the way. We are beachfront, so first thing when Christian and I wake up, we can hang on the beach for a minute or two before even brushing our teeth. Crabs whish across the beach with dizzying speed, and the hermit crabs lumber along, and we can hear the myahan birds crying. Christian likes to pick through the coral that has washed up on shore and get a good piece in each fist before he starts a good tromp along the shore.
The view from our swimming pool which is the same as from our room.