Phuket, Ko Phi Phi and Ko Lanta

Location: Phang Nga
Weather: Hot and humid

Phuket - No Worries, Mate
OK, well I decided to ignore all the hype and go south and check out the islands.
A couple from South Africa told me that Ko Phi Phi had an amazing beach that was worth a visit since there were only about 5 people there, so I primarily headed there, however, for some reason(I think the ferry trip sounded too long) I got the bus to Phuket instead. Yes, Phuket, the place according to the entire world media that the Tsunami hit with full strength. Catching the 2:30pm bus which actually didn't leave until after 5:30pm, I got there at night and decided to stay at Patong Beach. This is the most popular part of the island and allegedly disaster central, I had seen a website saying that 90% of the hotels there were out of business! This coupled with the travel agency dude saying that the first two floors of the hotel were off-limits I didn't quite know what to expect. BUT as it turned out it was perfectly fine. The hotel was great, my room was fantastic and the beach excellent. I hired a scooter and toured the island a bit, it was very much like Benidorm in Spain but of a higher standard and with much less people about. As for the tsunami damage, it was mostly at the southern end of the beach, I'd say almost a 500m block was being rebuilt, tragically McDonalds, KFC & Haagen Dazz were still not up and running, but Patong is a big place and if I didn't have a scooter I wouldn't have seen any damage much at all. I have to say I liked the place very much.

There were also a fair few 'tourists' and travellers about, actually more like about 4 travellers and the rest 'tourists', if you can describe the numerous late 25-60 year old western men hanging around with their paid-for Thai women as tourists. I found them quite funny at first, but after a few days seeing these blokes literally everywhere became pretty disgusting. Even the girls who worked in the bars and massage places and occasionally shouted "me love you today and tomorrow for cheap, cheap!" as I walked past weren't so annoying.

Ko Phi Phi - Wo!
Anyways, after a few days taking it easy I decided to see somewhere else and got the boat to Ko Phi Phi. After the 2.5 hour trip, we got out and this place was DIFFERENT! I mean, Phi Phi Town was seriously not good. The entire place was wrecked even after 1 month. Basically a path through the town was cleared out and rubbish lay on either side, CD's, postcards and general refuse lay on the ground everywhere. Posters were up saying "Please buy something from the locals - they need your money". I think only 1 shop and 2 restaurants were open. It was pretty mental, the place looked like war torn Beirut. We met an English dude who had been there since the tsunami and he said for the first 2-3 weeks it was only him helping(now happily things were picking up and lots of volunteer helpers were starting to arrive) and that the first time anybody from the government had visited was the day before! He said they *might* now provide free accommodation to the volunteers. Yes, despite the millions in foreign aid, thanks to corruption and the just-held general election, staggeringly little has got through. Considering Phi Phi is probably the 2nd most popular place, I found this quite shocking. Shortly after landing, I suddenly realised I only had 200Bart on me and to stay would cost 300Bart(the one working resort in town costed this much), so I walked for 20mins to Long Beach (the place I'd been tipped to stay at) in search of an ATM, but there were no working ATM's on the entire island and despite it probably being the most beautiful beach I've seen in Thailand, once you've walked through that town, I don't think I would have felt right lounging on that beach, whilst people were needing so much help elsewhere, also the atmosphere for me wasn't too good. Anyways, I joined the other volunteers and locals(all credit to the volunteer leaders, they were very well organised) for a couple of hours and helped clear away some rubbish from outside a local pub called the Tiger Bar to try to get it up and running again. It was a bit harrowing when we found some English girl's driving license and some dude's credit card (mind you they probably just lost it when their hotel got flooded or something). I then had no other option than to catch the ferry to Ko Lanta island - as Tung, who was promoting a hotel there paid the extra 50Bart I needed to get the boat!
Note: I've now heard they've got mechanical diggers working on Ko Phi Phi clearing the rubbish, thank goodness, when I was there, it was just human power. Hope they get up and running again quickly now.

Ko Lanta - My Favourite Place So Far
After the hour journey to Lanta, I stayed at Tung's 'Lanta Family Resort', which was in the south of the island and one of the nicest places I've ever been to. A beautiful beach, good swimming/snorkling(despite the rocks), great bamboo bungalows with ensuite bathroom, lovely people for staff, good food, a wonderful bar next door and the best sunset I've ever seen - all for 150Bart a night! I hired a motorbike for a couple of days and drove around the island, visited a cave and saw some crazy spiders and bats - also met Dominic there - from Wimbledon, can you believe it! Lanta was just an awesome place to relax and chill out. Apparently 2 years ago the area was so booked out, people had to sleep on the beach for 2 days before getting a bungalow! Now, the place was largely deserted and whilst I guess this is not so good for the locals, for us there it was something else. The first few days at the hotel it was literally just me, Greg from San Francisco and Paulo & Alfred from France - that was so cool - as Greg said I think the hand of Buddah must've been over us when we met Tung. Then Holgar and Raymond from Germany turned up. Then Ben & Charlie from Paris & Anna from Sweden. We all got on very well and had some great conversations and times. Put it this way - I planned to stay there for 2 nights and I only just left today - a total of 10 nights in all - every time I was about to leave, I looked out on the beach, sea and sky and decided to stay another night!

I am now in Phang Nga town, as I want to visit the island where they filmed James Bond - The Man With the Golden Gun - you know, the one with Roger Moore, Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland.

By JamesReed on 18.02.05 @ 12:33 PM GMT