Phi Phi, the pearl of the Andaman Sea...+ my heart!

So what was supposed to be only a few days in Phi Phi...turned into, yet again, 2 weeks!! This place captured my heart the first time I was here back in January, even while I was injured, on crutches and in a Phi Phi Princess stolen wheelchair. And then it captured my heart once again, even through all the bad weather we had!

So the first week was pretty much boozing and snoozing, and we stayed the first 8 nights at Garden Inn but the aircon made us all ill so after that we moved to Phi Phi Princess hotel which has a beachside infinity pool, for our last week.

The day we arrived from Phuket it was brilliant sunshine, we had a smooth-sailing boat journey, and Phi Phi shined like a princess...then it turned sour. A massive monsoon cloud covered most of south east asia and threatened to ruin our time we had there. But alas, the great thing about Phi Phi is everything is close, walking distance actually as there is no transport and there are
PLENTY of bars to take up your bootie shaking time! So we did just that! I showed Devyn and Chandler what Phi Phi had to offer, and whatdya know? They loved her! At first Chandler took a bit of persuasion as she'd had an awesome time on Koh Tao and didn't want to leave, but eventually like me she couldn't get enough of PP. We frequented the infamous Irish Bar (Jordan's) where I re-united with the bar staff I'd grown to love the first time I was here, Nok, her brother, and Maxcy the awesome barman.

We also rocked the house, dancing on tables and on the bar pretty much every night - standard! We also got a lifetimes worth of the legendary Irish Bar frozen strawberry and banana Daiquiris down us, over the 2 weeks. You only needed one and you were finished for the rest of the night - 200 baht, a night out on £4!! Even worse was when Maxcy tipped more and more alcohol into them as the days progressed and then started feeding us free vodka and tequila shots every night - we were so hammered after! As Nok put it: "Me: How are you feeling today? Nok: Same Same. Every night; Same Same drunk. Every day; Same Same hungover!"

I re-united with Jenny, my amazing Phi Phi sister who I spent a lot of time with when we were at Harmony House in January as she worked at the tour shop opposite and we had many awesome chats as I couldn't go far sometimes during the days and we'd shared some legendary nights out. Unfortunately this time around we didn't manage a night out as she was hard at work at Banana Bar but we did see each other as much as possible. We spent a lot of time at Breakers eating. And we spent a lot of time at Slinky's beach bar, which was THE place to go after Irish Bar, even though sometimes the music sucked, but if you were drunk (which was most nights) it was A LOT of fun!

We met some amazing people while we were there, along with Liam who we'd met in Koh Tao and re-met on Phi Phi with some people he'd met, some mentions are Ali, Claire and Donna - 3 Brits (though Donna now resides in New Zealand, lucky girl!) - who were just as crazy as us and we shared some awesome nights out and one or two hungover days spent in restaurants, plus some tattoo and piercing craziness. We also met Sue, Leonie and Kelly from Ireland, Darren and Jack from the UK and also a group of Canadian guys who we also had some solid fun nights and days with at the PP Princess pool!

I stayed in on two nights during the first week as I fell ill with the PP bug which seemed to be going around, Chandler had already had it - fever, sickness, cold and cough. So on the 2nd day I paid for a check-up, Xray and some antibiotics as it had been 2 months and I hadn't cleared this cough yet and it kept returning. This didn't stop me from having a good time though, I merely just drunk less (yea right). When I went into the clinic I was instantly recognised: "You were here in January, I remember you, bad foot, KOH PHANGAN! You back so soon!" Oh Dear.

Our nights out pretty much served as our entertainment while on PP. Some happenings were; one night Devyn decided to go on the pole at Slinky's even after saying she never would, I was watching from one of the table tops (standard, dancing on tables), bear in mind this pole is around 4 metres high and is just a perch. Instead of going down where there were 20 guys waiting to catch her, she decided to make her own way down...and fell! lol It wasn't funny at the time but she was ok, the rest of the night she kept thinking she had concussion or internal injuries and didn't want to sleep for fear she wouldn't wake up - oh drinking is fun!

One night Chandler had her bag stolen, which had her Iphone, 5000 baht, makeup, credit card etc all inside, so she wasn't happy understandably, and the girls also lost their Rainbow sandals (very expensive flipflops), and Ali had her Iphone stolen one night. I, thank god, didn't lose anything this time, apart from maybe my dignity on one or two drunken occasions lol.

One night Chandler went back to a guys hostel with a group of people, and got kicked out, as they weren't allowed guests back, apparently throwing them out, beating up the guys and hitting one of the girls. They also stole Chandler's other pair of Rainbows, so me, Devyn and the Canadian guy we'd just met, went to said hotel and kicked up a fuss but to no avail. We decided to just leave it as I had a habit of getting in trouble with the police and didn't wanna risk it. Though we did more than the two Canadian guys we'd just met did - I think they were scared haha.

One night Ali got 3 or 4 tattoos! Chandler got a tattoo the other night and we pinky promised that the next day I would get the two tattoos I wanted done at the same place, so the next night, before we went out on another night of drunkeness, I went and got my Gecko on the back of my neck as a reminder of my S.E.Asian travels as they are everywhere, and I got my quill on my wrist with the letters E.D.D which means; Explore, Dream, Discover. We got them done at a bamboo tattoo place, where the owner is a survivor of the Tsunami and hasn't cut his hair since (it's super long and he is super super nice).

Liam one night decided to try some Muay Thai in Reggae Bar as if you win you get a free bucket...he ended up dislocating his shoulder - TWICE. Idiot. lol

The last week cleared up a bit, so we did more with our time. Namely laying in bed hungover til midday, then dragging our hungover asses to 7/11 for food and then to PP Princess infinity pool to sunbathe and drink at the swim-up bar, obviously! They also play awesome music during the day so got our hangovers cured ready for another night out. Copious amounts of 7/11 cheese toasties, pizza slices, bacardi breezers (STRAWPEDOES!), and buckets were consumed during the two weeks, and many tunes became our little cosey reminders of Phi Phi nights out.

Becca, a girl who I used to house-share with in Bath and her sister, had come travelling too and happened to be in Phi Phi for a few days while I was there so we met up with them 2 nights for crazy antics. We then made plans to meet on Koh Tao before Australia.

We did do one day of activities which actually involved leaving Phi Phi Don for an afternoon, where we got a longtail boat over to Phi Phi Leh, where The Beach was filmed...the WORST day of my life. The sea was SO ROUGH the waves were literally 3 times the height of our boat, I don't know how we survived it! I was actually saying my goodbyes as we were getting soaked by the massive waves. When we arrived we were told the waves were too high to actually moor up at Maya Bay so instead we had to...SWIM?! I mean, seriously, these waves were ridiculous and instead of mooring up a boat they wanted us to swim in them and crash against rocks and climb a rickety wooden ladder up a load of rocks to get to it?! Thailands health and safety is screwed up! Needless to say our boat refused to do this...until they saw other boats attempt it and then decided they'd jump over. So one minute we were all refusing and the next minute peer pressure set in and me, Devyn and Chandler found ourselves alone on the boat - even our DRIVER had left us! So we spent a good half hour, sea-sick on this bloody longtail boat on rough seas, waiting for everyone to make it back alive, which they did thank god. A few bruises, scrapes and such but they made it! We then just snorkelled a bit and went to Monkey Beach. And braved the rough seas back. Luckily I'd seen Maya Bay twice last time so didn't feel like I missed out on much.

Other than that we just basically had a damn good time with damn good people! The problem with staying so long again though is that I got attached to the places, the people and PP way too much again. I had fallen hard, and I actually cried on the boat over to Krabi when it was finally time to leave. I was homesick, but not for home, for Phi Phi. Thank you again girl, the pearl of the Andaman sea and a stamp on my heart forever, you have always been good to me and I will be back VERY SOON. Love you long time! XOXO

Some quotes from Phi Phi:
"I got a CHANGover, wooaaahhh" - made to the lyrics of Hangover - Tiao Cruz
"Tonight...we're drinking from the BUCKET" - made to the lyrics of 'Drinking from the Bottle' - Calvin Harris and Tinie Tempah
(about 7/11 cheese toasties) - Me: girls we have a fridge, that means we can be lazy, buy a load, store them and then go back to get them toasted...*cue laughter* Christina, thats the same as just going and buying them when we want them! lol