Phi Phi: Monkeys, A Famous Island and a Blue Lagoon

The continuing saga of our epic adventure found us on our second day on the stunning island of Phi Phi and our seventh day in Thailand. This day began with my husband asking if I’d heard the monkeys in the night. I hadn’t, even with the windows open in our hillside cabin, I’d slept like a rock, and I’m glad I hadn’t heard them. Confession: I’m not a monkey fan.

Some are cute, but I’d seen videos of the ones in South East Asia that rip open backpacks, strip off car parts and even attack people to get their food. Monkeys are smart (probably smarter than me), primal and can even have rabies. They make me uncomfortable. I was certainly weary about meeting any of these locals. Our tour guide had warned us that there were monkeys in the area and urged us not to leave food out on our balconies over night. When I went out onto our balcony that morning to check if the swim suits I’d laid over the rail the night before were dry, I froze; there was a monkey on the rooftop of the adjacent building, staring at me. Motion caught my peripheral vision and I noticed one in the grass down to the right and another on the roof with the first. They noticed me but didn’t seem to be closing in. I hissed for Shawn, who came out to see what I was upset about. We watched for a few moments and when we realized there was no immediate danger of being accosted by a monkey, I grabbed my phone for a few photos.

 

 

 

After we’d all seen enough of each other and the monkeys vanished into the forest, we went for breakfast at the hotel and then killed a bit of time shopping, finding lunch and exploring in town before heading back to the hotel for a late afternoon excursion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our tour guide had helped the group arrange a snorkeling tour for the group. Two wooden boats came to the beach of the resort and we loaded up. First stop: the ominously named “Monkey Beach”. Super…. A short boat ride to the other peninsula on the opposite side of Phi Phi Don and we arrived on the shores of monkey beach and it was exactly as the name described. Monkeys. Everywhere. Macaque monkeys are the type you’ll find here; grey-ish brown, adults about two feet tall and 15 or so pounds.

Monkey beach was a bit of a conflict for me. It’s a tourist attraction to be sure. The monkeys are quite used to people and are generally laid back, but unfortunately there have been documented incidents, including monkey bites. These can be exceptionally serious, as monkeys can have rabies, not to mention any other manner of infection from a bite in a place with foreign water and bacteria. I would say that a large number of tourists we saw during our short visit didn’t show proper respect for what is WILDlife. Some people were kicking water at the monkeys and teasing them with food. This is an excellent way to get attacked and potentially seriously injured. Not to mention, it’s cruel. While very cool (and somewhat terrifying personally) to see this many wild monkeys, I stayed very aware of where they were and made no effort to touch them. I took pictures at a distance, didn’t engage with them and I didn’t bring food for them. One larger male gave my husband’s swim trunks a thorough search and at one point attempted to remove them entirely, just to be sure there was no food. I think tourists should really be taught and reminded that the monkeys are wild and need to be treated with respect. I would caution everyone interested in coming here to be careful, not to bring food or tease them, and at worst, be prepared for a bite. It does happen.

We stayed on monkey island for about 10 minutes, which was more than enough for me. Our next stop was the island of Koh Phi Phi Le. You may have heard of this island when it was made famous as the film location for the 2000 movie, “The Beach” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. A large portion of the movie was filmed on Phi Phi Le. To make a long story short, the producers made a lot of changes to the island (to make it even more paradis-ey) which was never properly reclaimed afterwards, as promised. Then during the tsunami and the last typhoon, the island and its coral took a serious hit. On top of that, tourism to the tiny island exploded after the film causing huge damage to it’s main beach in Maya bay, so in 2017, the Thai government shut it down to give it a chance to recover. The good news is that is seems to be helping; white tipped reef sharks have been seen returning to the bay and some accounts say the coral is showing signs of recovery.

We arrived at Koh Phi Phi Le and began to circumnavigate around it. There are few places you’re actually allowed to set foot on the island. We jetted around the island for some time, taking in the beauty of the island’s craggy limestone cliffs.

We weren’t allowed to step foot on the Maya Bay beach, the famous beach from the movie, and there was a constant coast guard presence there to ensure no one did, but we were allowed to snorkel adjacent to it. Our tour guide assured us that the snorkeling here was amazing. I was ready. Or so I thought….

To make another long story short, my underwater camera battery failed me on this trip. It was working fine during the first part of the snorkel, which was in deep water but I couldn’t see much anyway. When the battery died, I was upset, but to that point there hadn’t been much to see, and what we’d seen on our dive a few days earlier was so much better, so I decided to try to not freak out and let this ruin the trip. This was nothing I hadn’t seen before, I told myself…. It was a moment later that suddenly the water started to become shallow as we got closer to shore and THE MOST GORGEOUS FISH I’D EVER SEEN began to appear; parrotfish, wrasses, angelfish, pipefish and coral in every spectrum and colour of the rainbow. I moaned into my snorkel mask, holding back tears for what had just become the most amazing snorkeling I’d ever experienced in my life. It was like swimming in a display aquarium. I could here the crackling noise of the parrotfish munching on the coral and watched the fish chase each other and even swim right up to investigate me. I made a choice in that moment, that even though I was devastated about not being able to document it, that I would do my best to ENJOY that precious moment. We reached the shore and I was trying not to be envious of the people in the tour who’s Go Pros had worked beautifully. We took a group photo on the stunning small private beach and then hopped back in the water to return to the boat and I tried to savor every amazing moment. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly be OK with the fact that I didn’t capture the moment, but it was truly the one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

 

 

Once back on the boat, experiencing a mix of emotions ranging from the exhilaration of the snorkel to the devastation of the battery failure, we carried on to continue our circumnavigation around Phi Phi Le. In the late afternoon heat, a thunderstorm had come up and all of the nearby tour boats tried to outrun it and make it back to the main island. The captains of our two boats decided it would be safer to try to shelter and pulled into a crevasse into the side of Phi Phi Le that led to a hidden lagoon surrounded by giant limestone cliffs.

Besides one other small speed boat that also found shelter in the lagoon, called Pileh Lagoon, we had the place to ourselves. We huddled under the tarp roof and the boat crew fed us fruit and drinks while we waited for the rain and wind to pass. When the weather settled and the sun same out again, the boat crew encouraged us to enjoy some time swimming in the lagoon. The group had begun to lose its zest after the chill from the storm.

I was starting to worry this would be a repeat of the excursion a few days earlier when our snorkeling trip got cut short. Either way, by this point, I had to pee and I was not going to hold it. On a previous vacation, I’d had a similar problem on a boat with no bathroom and held it way too long. I was in absolute misery by the time we got to a bathroom and it had really zapped my enjoyment of the trip, so I didn’t want to remember this day in the same way. To hell with it; I announced that I was going to go in the water and everyone on the boat looked at me like I was crazy. I was done trying to impress the others on the tour and decided to just tell them; I was going in to have a pee and requested them to kindly not watch. I’ll spare you the details, but the lagoon was amazing! The water was perfect, the towering cliffs surrounding us were majestic and it felt like a paradise. A few in the group inquired how the water was and I told them it was amazing and encouraged them to join me. Before long, nearly 20 of us were floating and playing in the water. We joked and told stories and compared our buoyancy rates and the directions we floated individually in the water. We played in the lagoon for about an hour before boarding to finish our trip.

After we were finished floating in Pileh Lagoon and on our way back to Phi Phi Don, we stopped near Viking cave to see where Thailand’s popular, but controversial and unproven medical aid “bird nest” is obtained by local workers (more about this in an future blog article). We watched a beautiful sunset and headed back to the hotel.

That night, we had our farewell dinner for the tour group and just as we were getting ready to head into town afterwards for some shopping or a bar, the rain began. The storm that rolled though earlier had been the precursor to what would be a long night of thunderstorms and absolutely torrential rain. We sat in the restaurant’s beach bar and contemplated rain gear and the long walk to town, but it was actually really nice to sit in the bar in the hot, humid evening and just watch the thunderstorm and the silhouette of Phi Phi’s mountains each time the lightning flashed. It had been an absolutely incredible day on the stunning island of Phi Phi. I was sad to have to leave tomorrow at the tour’s end as I felt we hadn’t had enough time to see Thailand’s stunning beaches, but there was still much of the country to explore and many more adventures to come. Little did I know that we’d only just scratched the surface of this place.

Hove you been to gorgeous Phi Phi? How did you enjoy it compared to the others areas? Too busy? Too rustic? Just right? Feel free to comment or ask any questions. As always, stay tuned for more updates, thanks for stopping by and until next time, safe and happy travels!

-L