We arrived yesterday via ferry full of Japanese tourists. I felt ridiculous with all our baggage – diving is a cumbersome sport and underwater photography with a digital SLR makes it even more so. We trekked the ¼ mile or so to our hotel – the Sea Sandview Resort where we’d booked the least expensive room the internet had to offer. It’s rudimentary to say the least. It’s a bamboo bungalow with a mattress directly on the ground, a fan, a toilet that you flush by scooping water into it and a cold shower which ironically is piping hot during the day when you want to cool off the most and lukewarm at night. Oh and there are two outlets – one of which is occupied by the fan. I will post pictures of it tomorrow so you can get the full effect.
Phi Phi loosely looks a big like a barbell with a skinny portion in the middle and two wider portions on either side. In the middle portion, you can see ocean on both sides. There is one area of the barbell unobscured by buildings on either side where you can see ocean on the left and ocean on the right.
There is a single little town – Tonsai Village located in the handle portion of the barbell. Its small streets are lined with tourist shops and dive shops and restaurants. There are no cars and only the occasional odd scooter. Whereas in Patong, you can’t walk 25 feet without being asked if you want a taxi, tuk-tuk, massage, suit, handbag, tee-shirt or food, Phi Phi is way more low-key. It’s a nice break. Like our accommodations it’s rudimentary though and a bit more expensive than Phuket, especially with respect to lodging. If we stay longer we do want to move to a room that has four real walls and air-con, but the price is almost double what we were paying on Phuket. The main reason for that is that Phi Phi has to generate it’s own electricity and that must be goodly expensive.
And the diving is really really nice and a lot easier to get to than from Phuket. When Ryan and I decided to make this trip, Phi Phi is more what I had in mind in terms of moving to a tropical paradise. It is a different life than Phuket. Phuket has more western conveniences – i.e. movie theatres, grocery stores and a mall. Phi Phi not so much. We have some decisions to make. The other huge difference is in terms of working – dive shops in Phuket won’t hire you if you don’t have a work permit; dive shops on Phi Phi could care less. Basically, they know ahead of time when immigration is coming and the shops tell everyone to make themselves scarce for the day. If someone gets caught, the shop pays a fine and then it’s back to business. Getting the whole work permit thing sorted out is bureaucratic nonsense I’m not inclined to deal with if we’re only going to stay for one season. If we were to decide to stay longer, then it might make sense to get a work permit, though the divemaster who came out with us today has been here seven years and he’s never had one.
So today we dove. It was very beautiful. We dove the little islands south of Phi Phi Don – first dive at Bida Nok the southern most island (it literally means Outside Island). Second dive on Phi Phi Leh (a.k.a. Homer Simpson Island because it crudely looks like Homer lying down). We arranged our diving through a shop called Hippo Divers (it was the first shop we came across). The instructor/divemaster who greeted us ran us through the whole spiel (including the fact that every shop on the island charges the exact same prices to ensure that they all stay in business), but interestingly enough was willing to let us dive without a divemaster, for which we whole-heartedly opted. He came with us on the boat – gave us a boat briefing and dive site briefing and sat back and read his book while we enjoyed some diving at our own pace. Let it be noted that the reason we opted for this had nothing to do with not wanting a divemaster along – I’m perfectly happy to follow a divemaster and have them point out cool stuff – it’s moving at other divers’ pace that I find irritating.
We dive again tomorrow. We’ll need to decide where it is we want to stay tomorrow night and how much longer we want to stay on Phi Phi. I’m inclined to never leave again – mostly I don’t want to move the suitcases anymore.
Yesterday we adopted a kitty. He’s a really cute little gray tiger – probably about 3 months old – super cuddly and friendly. He adopted Ryan while I was trekking ahead to go locate our hotel. We saw him again last night on the way back from dinner. I want to take him home, hold him, squeeze him and call him George. There are a lot of cats in Thailand – nice svelt kitties – not big fat lumps like ours. Many of them are very friendly and while I hesitate to touch strange animals, especially when hand wash is not immediately available, I am getting my kitty fix.
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