Hi world!
I'm writing to you at the close of a fabulous week in Thailand with my friend Punky. Our trip began last weekend with a visit to Koh (Island) Phi Phi, pronounced "pee pee." Maturity, that's why you guys keep me around, right? We met up with some of Punky's friends to catch the night bus to Phuket (that one's pronounced poo-ket) and ferried to Phi Phi, a smaller island near the even smaller one (Koh Phi Phi Lei) where the movie The Beach was filmed.
Due to the monsoon season weather, most of our weekend was relatively uneventful. Saturday's weather allowed us to do a little bit of hiking and beach visiting, but the rains were visiting and so the better part of Sunday, in particular, was spent watching Friends, getting a massage, and perusing bookshops. But, thankfully, the weather let up Monday and we were able to take a day trip to Koh Phi Phi Lei.
Getting to Koh Phi Phi Lei turned out to be pretty entertaining. It began with a lift to the the pier, which wouldn't have been unusual had Koh Phi Phi been a place where there were cars or even motorcycles. But, it wasn't, so we had expected to be led on foot. Silly us. We were picked up by two guys on bicycles, which we were expected to ride on the back of (no extra set of pedals or anything, just an unpadded metal frame for a seat). We surveyed them with an eyebrow raise, but even us Westerners accustomed to safety standards had to admit that they went so slowly, especially with two people weighing down on the slightly flat tires, that the biggest danger was simply falling over sideways.
We made it successfully to our longboat, which turned out to be essentially a 12-person canoe powered by a propeller on a pole, steered by a driver using said pole something like a regular canoer might use an oar, except off the back rather than the sides. The propeller allowed the canoe to go remarkably fast through the choppy open ocean, and within minutes we were all completely drenched in salt water, forced to keep our eyes shut to avoid the spray, and fairly prepared for the boat to capsize at any moment. It never did, but I am highly suspicious that it must not be all that uncommon an occurance. Truly crazy.
After some stops for snorkeling and swimming, we arrived at the island of Maya Bay. Unbeknownst to us, part of the reason that it was cheaper to take a longboat than a bigger boat is that the longboat cruisers don't pay the entrance fee-- they instead use the "back entrance." Oh, Thailand. The back entrance involves the boat parking near a dip 
in the cliffside (pictured upper right), and some swimming and climbing for the people entering. (Punky and I briefly debated life jackets, and we were super glad that we ended up using them.) Basically, you jump off a boat and swim with the waves towards the cliff, taking care not to actually collide with the cliffs (which, thankfully, were at least smooth, if one did get swept into them) but instead with the series of ropes in front of the staircase. You scamper over the ropes, getting up on top of them as quickly as possible to minimalize the effect of the waves crashing, and carefully gets onto the stair-ladder thing which warns, "Caution: Slippery!" as if there were nothing else worth worrying about. (Incidentally, there were several upset-looking young kids attempting this whole process, and I didn't envy them or their parents in the least.) After climbing over (no small feat, with only one railing and two directions of reluctant-to-leave-the-ladder traffic), disembarking was assisted by a scraped-up local at the bottom watching for when the wave was about to burst through the hole in the rocks near the bottom of the ladder-- during the break he would yell, "NOW, FAST!" leaving you with about five seconds to navigate the jagged ground below the surface to the other side of some rocks, a few feet away, to safety. Phew. Of course, "safety" still involved a not-so-comfortable walk over similarly jagged ground to the shore, but at least the waves were gone. Worth it, of course, not that I'm ever likely to do it again. The island was one of the prettiest places I've been, even if Maya Beach itself was a bit overpopulated by tourists. But I did put on goggles for the longboat ride back.
I took the Tuesday night bus back to Bangkok while Punky flew to make it home in time for work, so I got to hang out on Khao San Road for about a day until we met up. I caught the local bus to Punky's on Thursday afternoon and we met up with her friends Jo and Jenny for dinner at Denny's. Yes, American food. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but I'm doing a cleanse of fried noodles. My esophagus was starting to get pretty annoyed with me. And Denny's had minestrone, yum!
Then, Friday, I got to visit Punky and Jo at the local school where they work as English teachers. The kids have a really long day here-- 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., 10 periods, with just a half hour for lunch and no breaks at all otherwise except sometimes briefly if it takes their teachers an extra minute or two to switch places between periods. I also heard in passing that corporeal punishment was considered acceptable, eek. The kids, however, were super sweet, and even the lower classes were at least as good at English as I am at Spanish. They played games like scattegories ("name as unusual a food that you can think of that starts with an "S") learned how to compare transportation ("The skytrain is faster than a bicycle") and, in Jo's most advanced class, discussed the morality of genetic engineering.
The weekend was spent finding odds and ends to do around Bangkok with Punky and Jo, which was a lot of fun. Probably my favorite thing was visiting a gay karaoke bar with Punky on Saturday night. Punky didn't want to sing, so instead my co-singer was a flambouyant Thai man who happily accompanied me singing "Hit Me Baby One More Time." (Punky said that after the fairly earnest renditions of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and "Killing Me Softly," it livened the place up a bit.) We also visited Lupini Park and a few shopping malls with Jo, but it was mostly just really fun spending a few days exploring mostly less touristy areas in fabulous company.
So, now I'm at the end of the Punky portion of the trip-- tonight, I meet SISTAHLOO! at the Bangkok airport-- so excited! Our next leg of the trip is in Burma, and I have no idea what our internet access will be like at all, as government censorship makes Burma the third worst country to be a blogger, or something like that. So, we'll see:-p We're due back in Thailand on August 16th, so you'll definitely hear from us by then. (And, for those who have been asking, we fly home on August 18th, so I will get to see all you Los Angeles in just a few short weeks:-) )Until next time, much love,
Sara
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