Moonin' Round Asia: Tales of Sickness, Phi Phi Exit and Enter Phuket

It's been a while. This has largely been due to a lack of good stories to write about. Immediately after posting the last article, Molly came down with a raging ear infection and head cold and I came down with an awful case of what's affectionately referred to as "Traveler's Diarrhea". This put us completely out of commission for almost 3 days. Molly couldn't put her head in water, or hear anything, and I was tethered to the toilet and crippled by dehydration and malnutrition. It was a great time. We watched a TON of HBO, whimpered quite a bit and once and a while even ventured out of our room to get some toast!

On the final day of my issues, we decided to leave the hotel we were staying in. It was relatively nice but nothing special (except for the view) and it was rather expensive and out of the way. We opted for a place that had a great pool, pool bar and amenities and was much nearer to all of the action. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no internet access at all, but it didn't much matter because I'm certain none of you care to read about the most exciting time of day for me - when I get to set the ten minute timer for Molly's ear drops to sink into her brain!

Finally, on Sunday morning, we decided we were well enough to actually try to do something. We decided that since our sail boat had broken down prior to reaching all of the islands we were promised to see, that we'd now take another boat to catch them all. We boarded a huge, seemingly concrete, boat at around 10am on Sunday morning. The wind was howling and the surf was rough, but in this massive vessel it didn't seem to be much of an issue. We headed to monkey beach first to frolic amongst the tiny, furry thieves. Molly had purchased some super nerdy ear plugs that basically molded to her entire ear and prevented water from entering. We were handed our snorkels and fins and instructed to hop on in. Of course, Molly completely forgot to put in her ear plugs and panicked the second she hit the water. She immediately climbed out to sulk on the boat with the 2 Danish girls that sat on the boat the whole time like 2 lumps. I took the opportunity to snorkel around which was lovely. I eventually made it to the beach just in time to see some girl nearly lose a finger to a monkey when she insisted on teasing it and trying to grab his tail. I stood, safely in the water, looking on and shaking my head in disbelief. The funniest part was that a noted thief, a monkey by the name of Bananas, was hanging from a very small branch over the water attempting to steal food that a guy was carrying with him. Another clever monkey, lets call him Stinky, climbed out on the branch and began to try to peel Banana's finger off of the tree limb from which he was hanging. I found this to be hysterical and laughed out loud until a monkey skirmish broke out, they stopped fighting and both stared at me. I took this as a sign that it was time to go and headed back to the boat.

We were then told by the cross eyed Thai fella that was able to speak broken English that the waves were entirely too rough, even for a concrete ship, and that we wouldn't be able to head to the western destinations that were promised. Molly and I were very disappointed as this was the second time in 2 trips that we were somehow prevented from seeing the western islands. I'm just going to assume that it was a sign that we shouldn't be over there, so we're not too upset about it. We instead traveled up to Bamboo island (pictures below), reboarded the boat and hit one of the bays we had kayaked through before. Only this time, we brought our camera to take pictures of the stuff we missed the last time. It worked out really well.... for Molly. She sat up front, barely dipped her oar in the water once and served as our photographer. I took on my usual role of grunt and propelled us all the way to the back of the bay, all around it and mostly back to the boat. Only my whining in the final 100 yard stretch got her to put her camera away and help out. I wish I had known earlier...

After finishing this portion of our trip we were off to Maya Beach, the actual site that was used to take the movie, "The Beach." We were very excited as we had purposely watched the movie the night before. Our boat arrived in the bay near the beach, only on the other side of the island and informed us that due to the rough water, they wouldn't be able to venture into the actual beach and that we'd instead have to swim the bay, climb a terribly treacherous set of rocks, maneuver the rope maze and climb the stairs. There were some admittedly bad swimmers in the group and I was fortunate enough to get the task of pulling the dry sacks with people's belongings and camera and shoes. We all made it up to the stairs and walked in to the island. It was shockingly beautiful, even in the jungle. Completely quiet, verdant and littered with speckles of sun creeping through the tall, thick trees. We walked a long path, Molly lecturing me half the way about how I can't just eat anything that looks to be fruit. Apparently some things (berries - have you heard this?) can be poisonous.

When we got to the end of the path, the beach, with crystal white sand and not a boat to be seen, sat at our feet. Limestone cliffs everywhere, small waves crashing in and sun just beginning to set over the southwest mountain. It became abundantly clear at this point exactly what the writer of The Beach intended the audience to understand - this was truly paradise. It's funny how such a site makes you feel so small in the universe.

We spent about 45 minutes climbing rocks, swimming and taking it all in. We got back to the boat and took the long trip home and unfortunately missed the sunset due to cloud cover. We also picked up a few extra passengers who had arrived on a much smaller boat, soaked in their own urine and wreaking of fear. Apparently the sea was WAY too rough for a small boat and the girls had admitted to crying on multiple occasions on the way to Maya Beach. So much so that they didn't even want to get in the water to make the swim to see The Beach. We made it back safely and took it easy that night - largely because neither of us was at 100% and because we had decided to leave the next day.

Monday morning we packed everything up, ate some lunch at a Steakhouse and boarded the ferry to come to Phuket, the sex capital of southeast Asia! I'll follow up tomorrow with further stories of this mystical land.