From Phuket to Phi Phi

The crescent shaped beach of Ao Lo Dalam on Phi Phi island is stunning. It is more like a lagoon and reminds me of Bora Bora. The water is so warm and shallow you can walk out almost a mile and it isn't even up to your head. Just make sure you don't get run over by a long-tail boat! On this side of the island it's all the cool kids, the young twenty somethings, with loads of stunning young things in bikinis with their tattooed and bearded alpha male making me feel old! On the other side of the island it is the opposite. It is full of families and retired people. A strange mix.

The most notable thing is the way gentrification is swallowing up the island like a jungle. Just steps behind a drift wood reggae beach bar are shiny glass condos. It's only a matter of time before the hippy charm of this once secluded gem turns into Cancun. Phi Phi is like that cool rock band that you wish you saw back in the day when they first toured. Now they are well established and are sponsored by Mastercard. They rely on their hits and they aren't relevant any more but they can still make magic.

It's wonderful to sip on a beer at a beach bar as the sun sets and slowly watch the atmosphere of the place change. By dusk the bar staff have lit Tiki torches on the beach and the laser lights turn on. Next the bar staff are twirling and throwing sticks of fire for the masses crashed out on the beach. This goes on for hours. Local vendors sell mini buckets of booze to bring to the beach but this is slowly disappearing too. The local Tonsai Village is a maze of open air restaurants and tourist shops that no map could possibly make sense of. Just follow your intuition and somehow you end up where you wanted to go.

Today I rented a sea kayak and paddled around stopping for a break at a remote barren beach. Yesterday I went on an island tour with snorkelling and a stop at one the famous beach where they filmed some of "The Beach."