Phi KO

(No photos for a bit because at this stage of the game I thought I'd lost my camera. It was HIDING in my bag! I suspect foul play)

Deciding that Patong was too full of horny 60 year old white dudes and overly enthusiastic masseurs, we decided to bail on mainland Thailand. We shovelled down brekky - fried rice for me and a stupidly spicy dish for Ariel (who, much to the locals amusement, completely failed to eat it without crying for water and running around squealing like a baby) – and hopped on a minibus and then a ferry, and a few hours later we were in the tropical island paradise of Koh Phi Phi. The island is tiny, and the township basically consists of a tiny stretch of land a couple of hundred metres across, with a beach on either side. The town is too small for motorbikes, let alone cars, so the locals pedal around super crappy bikes while everyone else walks around the veritable rabbit warren of narrow streets and alleys. Despite the remoteness, Phi Phi still keeps up its quota of 7-Eleven stores. 

As we got off the boat all the locals were lined up to offer us “cheap cheap!” rooms for 700 baht each (one Aussie dollar is about twenty three baht). We scoffed at them (last few nights we paid 300). Looking around though, everything was even more. An internet cafe failed to yield results (internet has failed us, we’re forever renouncing our nerdulance), but a local guy inside us happily told us that there are no backpacker hostels on the island, and that getting dinner under 200 baht is nigh on impossible. Excellent. Soon enough though we get pointed in the direction of a backpacker dorm (the dude lied!). It’s full. The owner (called Mong) tells us to find Heng at another place, and tell him that Mong sent us. Cool. We find Heng. Heng seems pleased that we know Mong, but alas his establishment is also full. Heng points us to a third place. We climb up the stairs to the place – it’s one massive dorm with everyone in it. Groovy. We go to book, and this time it isn’t full, it’s just got one space left. Gaaaaah. 

Eventually we find a place with room, and somehow fluked a two bed room with a fan for 500 baht between us, which is actually cheaper than we’d been staying previously. Anybody visiting the area, look for Oasis Guesthouse, cheap and pretty comfy.

Now! Onto the interesting stuff.

In Thailand, and the islands in particular, “buckets” are the drink of choice. It’s a small bottle (375mL?) of the spirit of your choice (usually Thai whisky or vodka), a can of coke, and a bottle of red bull (which is more like a syrup here – no fizz) mixed up with ice and sometimes lemon in a small bucket. If you play your cards right, you can actually drink a fair bit in a night without paying a cent – everywhere has fliers offering free shots, BBQs, free buckets at midnight, and most places have constant 2 for 1 deals (although they conveniently charge almost twice as much as the street vendors and – we reckon - water it down. Oh well).

We were drawn to the Reggae Bar, which against all common sense didn’t actually play Reggae. Come to think about it, it was just about as anti-reggae as you can get, since the place was the local Muay Thai (kickboxing) arena. We watched the local fighters pray to Buddha by dancing, then kick each other in the face and get knocked unconscious. We laughed as nobody took up the offer of a free bucket to get in the ring with a fighter. The promotion soon changed to allow tourists to fight each other and get free buckets. 
Ariel decided that his Jiu-jitsu training would somehow save his scrawny arse from being beaten to a pulp, and decided to volunteer. He whined to me constantly but I refused, so he somewhat foolishly agreed to fight a gigantic Londoner about twice his height and weight. “This can’t end well”, he says with a weak smile as he steps into the ring. Well, he was bang on the money there. The Brit pounded the crap out of Ariel, who span around flailing his arms, unable to get a decent punch in. “His arms are too long!” complains our foolish friend. Ten seconds into the second round and the ref had mercy on him, and declared the Englishman the winner. Ariel still got his free bucket though, and miraculously received no lasting damage, so all is well. I, however, missed out on free midnight buckets at the many other bars offering them, so all was not well. At all.

What a jerk.