By 5:30 am I was awake.
I had a fitfull sleep, waking up many times to look out our cabin window
and ensure we were still anchored in the same place. The others on the boat must have been the
same because by 7 am we were pulling up the anchor and on our way to Maya Bay
on Koh Phi Phi Le, which was an island just a few miles south of our current
location. This is among the most popular
day trips for tourists, as it has an amazing beach and was the location for
several scenes from a movie called “The Beach” which is a bit of a backpacker
classic. The charter agency had told us
we probably wouldn’t be able to get into this bay as it was east facing and
nearly always very rough during this southeast monsoon season. But when we arrived, it was a little rough,
but really not too bad so we tied up to one of the many mooring balls, jumped
into the dingy and cruised into the beach.
The scenery in this bay was spectacular.
I looked around to see that we were enclosed by towering limestone
walls, much higher than the ones we’ve seen in the previous anchorages.
Though we were early, hoping to beat the crowds, there were
already three or four tourist boats anchored near the beach, with tourists
spilling off them. We dragged the dingy
up the beach and started looking around when we were approached by a Thai guy
wearing a uniform. He asked if we were
the ones from the catamaran, then told us there was a national park fee we had
to pay. Of course, we hadn’t brought any
money, so Toddy and I hauled the dingy back into the water, started the engine
then bobbed up and down across the sizeable swells back to the boat. Toddy did a flying leap back to the boat and
got us tied up while I tried to hold the dingy steady. He grabbed some cash while I changed into my
swimming shorts, then we jumped back into the dingy, but I couldn’t get the
engine started. After several minutes I
finally realized the kill switch had popped off, so I reattached, got it going
and we took off across the water.
Halfway back I realized I had forgotten my camera, so we turned it
around, returned to the boat, Toddy did another flying leap, retrieved my
camera, and we surfed our way back into the beach, and only after we had hauled
the dingy up on the sand did I realize I had forgotten to grab the bottle of
water that Stella had asked for.
We followed the crowd onto a well worn path which went through
the jungle and led to the other side of the island. We expected to find something amazing, but the
path just ended at a small cliff overlooking a snorkeling bay. I’m not sure what we were expecting, but we
didn’t recognize much of anything from “The Beach” movie, except maybe for the
small group of stoned backpackers on the beach.
We found out later that scenes of the perfect beach and lagoon in that
movie were all CGI, so that explained it.
We spent a while walking around the gorgeous beach and went
for a swim while the kids built two cool sand castles. We took a picture of the Olson family feet
(something we’ve been meaning to do for a very long time…but always seem to
forget!) and one of Toddy doing a handstand.
With our digital mementos, we got back in the dingy, returned to the
Happy Eva which was bouncing merrily on the waves, and somehow managed to get
everybody back on board without an injury.
We did a full circuit around the rest of the island, along
the way nearly getting crushed by a giant, hulking, rusted dive boat, and then
returned to Monkey Beach and were happy to see that the mooring ball was now
free so we tied up, had a quick brunch, and loaded up what we needed for a day
trip to explore Phi Phi town. But first,
we had to go and finally meet the monkeys.
We dingyed (yes, that is a perfectly acceptable boater verb,
screw you spellchecker!) to the beach and found only six boats there with maybe
80 tourists – a slow morning. The
monkeys were out in full force, at least twenty or thirty of them, including
some babies. They were all professional
snatch and grab primates and nothing was safe around them. Magnus made the mistake of pulling some
peanuts out of his pocket and within seconds he had six monkeys in front of him
grabbing the peanuts - one of them even digging into his pocket trying to get
the rest of them. One monkey snatched
somebody’s camera. Another got a bottle
of sunscreen. Some were simply rooting
through the trash on the beach, and we saw one clever fellow clutching a can of
Chang beer, trying to get the remaining drops out. Excellent, I thought, if Chang is good enough
for monkeys it is good enough for me.
One of the tourists had a big bag of rambutan fruits which
was immediately stolen by the biggest monkey on the beach, who was surely the
leader, as he sported giant testicles, a huge red scar on his back and a face
that said, “Just try me.” We watched him
pulled a fruit out of the plastic bag and expertly peel it in about half a
second, then pop the juicy nugget into his mouth and toss the spiny, red peels
on the beach. Some of the other monkeys
noticed he had made off with the mother load so three of them confronted him,
demanding him to share. Well, a monkey
scrap ensued and they fought and clawed at each other until all four of them
rolled into the ocean, which cooled them off a bit and stopped the battle. All this while, several of the tourists had
enticed monkeys to jump on their heads or shoulders and were doing selfies (or
perhaps those would better be called “dualies”) on the beach. There was a hot Italian chick wearing a
skimpy bikini who was caught in the middle of the frenzy, getting swarmed by
grabby monkeys. Several men, hoping to
get a prize shot, were waiting with their cameras at the ready, hoping for a
monkey to relieve her of her bottoms.
This was all a hell of a lot of fun, especially with the potential
for injury, but when we saw a giant boat with at least two hundred tourists on
board arrive and start to back into the beach, we gathered the kiddies and
escaped in our dingy to the relative safety of the crazy bay. We zigged and zagged around the boats and
made our way onto the main beach, then hauled the dingy up as far as we could
get it and went off to explore the town.
I read that the 2004 tsunami had devastated this island and
basically wiped out everything that was there, but there was little indication
of that now, besides the construction of a giant resort and some repairs being
done to the walkways. The crowd was
overwhelmingly young and backpackerish and the majority of the businesses on
the island looked to be bars and restaurants, plus a couple 7-11’s of course!
We walked across the sandspit to Lohdalum Bay, which was
much more peaceful than the other side and had a lovely beach. Lining the top of the beach were a series of
bars, including the Woody Bar and the Slinky Bar which, charmingly, had a giant
sculpture of a penis directly in front of it, either repelling customers or
drawing them in, depending on the demographic.
We then wandered through the labyrinth of narrow walking streets and
found a nice little restaurant to stop for lunch. This was the first meal we had eaten off the
boat and, to be honest, it was probably the worst. Or maybe we had just gotten used to our own
cooking. Or maybe being back in a busy
place, crowded with people, jostling for space just fouled the food. Other than the food, it was a good lunch
because we were able to relax and watch the hundreds of people passing by,
including one chubby man who was pushing his wife around on a trolley as she
videotaped him and ordered him where to go.
It was very difficult to understand how this could possibly be the low season
as every restaurant was full and there were people everywhere, but I guess that
just speaks to the popularity of this little island.
We walked back to our landing point and were relieved to
find our dingy still there, though less than an hour of rising tide away from
being drawn out to sea. We motored back
to Happy Eva and finding her safe and sound, pulled up the anchor and head off
to find an anchorage for the night, which was definitely not going to be
anywhere close to the madness in this place.
As we rounded the south end of Ko Phi Phi and headed northwest we found
a steady, strong breeze between 16 and 20 knots so we put the sails up, cut the
engines and let the boat show us what she could do. We were able to maintain a speed of over 7
knots and enjoyed fastest and most exciting sail yet across 20 miles of open
water to the southeast coast of Ko Yao Yai island.
Our bible for the trip was the Southeast Asia Pilot guide,
which is the definitive guide for cruising in this region of the world. The anchorage we chose for the night was called
“Captain Ed’s Spot” and was one of the ones recommended by the book, but at
first glance it was hard to see what was good about it. It wasn’t in a secluded bay, nor were there
any spectacular sights or towns nearby. We
arrived, anchored easily in 20 feet of water, and then sat down for a happy
hour drink and to evaluate our surroundings.
The best part was that we were the only boat there, and after the
madhouse at Phi Phi, that was a huge plus.
The water was very calm and the shoreline offered secluded coconut
groves, some rocky spots full of birds and a nice looking beach a bit further down. As we enjoyed our drinks, we looked out
across the bay to see fishing boats slowly trolling up and down the water, a
backdrop of island silhouettes, the distant lights of Krabi, and this strange,
green, alien glow coming from many different locations in the distance, which
we later discovered were lights from squid boats that they use to attract the
creatures. We could also hear the muezzin
doing the call to prayer from a nearby mosque, which must have been from a
Muslim village on the island. It was a
beautiful way to cap off a day of sailing and I felt very fortunate to be
there, at that exact place and exact time, with my family and our friend. And I could definitely see why Captain Ed
loved this anchorage.
As Ana and I started preparing dinner, Toddy grabbed a
fishing rod and started some bottom fishing.
I had caught a single, small fish when we had first arrived, but he
added to the count with at least four more bottom dwelling, bug eyed
beauties! They were admittedly small,
but hey, a fish is a fish and I’ve always said a fish caught is worth ten fish
bought. It so happened that evening I
did grill up the fish bought a few days prior to this at Tesco, and they turned
out just lovely.
Ana, Todd and I stayed up after the kids went to bed and had
another lovely chat, a few more drinks, and enjoyed another magical evening by
ourselves on this vessel, which was starting to feel very much like our own.
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