Today was all work and no play, for me at least. My office was Phi Phi’s D’ Books, a quaint little book store with all sorts of new and second hand books in many languages other than English. They do well decent lattes and excellent frapps, but best of all – they have free wi-fi!
It’s also on one of the main little alleys of Phi Phi, so there’s loads of traffic going past there, mainly people going to and from the beach and all the associated ogle opportunities that come with it. None of which I appreciated, of course, because I had my nose down writing my little heart out.
Anyway, Julia befriended a beagle called Sumo and a lot of coo’ing ensued – so much so that she spent a good portion of her day reading next to me in the hopes of seeing the little dog. The dog, of course, has no short supply of affection and goes where he pleases.
After a long day in the shaded area of the shop, where I’m sure I nevertheless got sunburned, we made our way down to the beach a little too late for the sunset. We rented a kayak anyway and paddled like madmen to the mouth of the lagoon hoping to see the last of the rays dip into the ocean. The catch is that once you get to the mouth of the lagoon, you’re in near-open seas, but you’re still blocked from seeing the sunset by the far point of Phi Phi.
So as the wind picked up speed we turned around, happy for the exercise but not up for the mission of getting back if we went any further. On the paddle back to the beach it was well apparent that Phi Phi had come to life and that tonight it was party payback time on Phi Phi island. Several pubs slash clubs on the beach already had their lights and music going and soon the throngs of party-starved tourists on Phi Phi would be lifting their elbows en force.
The previous three days had been a quiet time to pay respects to the royal family who lost a member some months ago and whose cremation ceremony had taken place. But tonight would be large.
It seemed busier than usual so Julia and I acquired our first drink on the cheap from one of the mini-markets and sipped it as we searched for a place to eat. After yet another long walk along Tonsai beach we finally chose a spot and settled down. We had more beer. I can’t remember much about the seafood dinner now except that the chicken was good.
Earlier on we bumped into the videographer from our dive trip and asked her where was good to party. “Tiger Bar”, she shouted over her shoulder as she peddled off on her bike. So after dinner that’s where we headed and it was located conveniently close to our hotel.
The first thing we got was a vodka bucket. It’s a three-quarter glass of vodka over ice with about 2 small bottles of Red Bull and at THB 200 they were buy one get one free. Turns out they are better friend makers than the friend disc…
At first Julia and I sat on the side watching the throngs of singles do their thing. Mingle, drink, flirt, etc. etc. The vodka budget along with the beers we had earlier on started kicking in and I leaned over to two random guys who had just arrived and said “hey, try this”. They each had a sip and the one said “that’s brilliant, I’m getting some too” and he went off to return with one each for him and his friend.
Rob and Frank, Dutch boys, where the first of many friends the bucket would reel in. We bantered a bit and chatted, they in Dutch, myself in Afrikaans and Julia in ecstasy at hearing all the foreign languages. Frank eventually would keel over after his second bucket.
As the bucket emptied and we acquired more, we met Kirstie and Laura, two fine Scottish lases. Not sure how we befriended the, but I’m pretty sure either Julia or myself offered the some of our buckets. Possibly using the same MO wel ment Israeli called Edan, a Fin called Felton (we think) and a French girl named Emily. We also bumped into the 2 Korean boys Han and Jung again. In one way or another, the vodka bucket was instrumental in meeting them all.
Needless to say that after our third vodka bucket, Julia and my memories start to blur and fade a little bit and we can’t quite agree on all the details. What is clear is that our posse ended up on the beach where Julia and myself acquired a 4th vodka bucket. I cleverly used this friendship tool to acquire more friends, most of who I wouldn’t have remembered if it wasn’t for the fact that I snapped pictures of them all.
Eventually our party petered out and in the wee hours of the morning I once again became aware of my surroundings. Myself, Julia and Jung was trying to get Jung back to the place where he lived, but we where hopelessly lost and Jung had lost his key. We stumbled around the island until we started walking uphill and I realised we were nowhere near where we should be. I asked some random person where we were and she said we were near the look-out point, which is a very far walk from anywhere.
Sober up fast we made our way back to the centre of the village and miraculously bumped into Han, who gave Jung his key. As we stumbled around near our hotel room, Julia excused herself from the search party and Jung and I continued alone. Eventually he had gathered enough of his senses to locate his room, and with him safely inside I made my way back to mine.
Julia was already in the land of slumber and I joined her shortly after. If it wasn’t for the camera, much of the memories of this night would only have come back to us perhaps weeks from now.
Luckily we had a 3Gb SD Card full of photographic memories from this, possibly one of the biggest party nights ever on Phi Phi.