What do you do when you find out your first day of teaching has been postponed a week? You go island hopping of course…
We decided to head down to Koh Phi Phi and Railay Beach for about a week. Originally we wanted to go to Koh Lanta, but because it was still technically the “offseason,” the ferries weren’t running frequently enough for us.
Getting to Koh Phi Phi
We flew into Krabi and spent the night at Pak Up Hostel. It was clean, had a nice bar and we were able to get picked up for the ferry right there in the morning.
During the offseason the ferries run less frequently, so make sure that you do your research beforehand. We booked our ferry tickets the night before and were picked up for the ferry about 30 minutes before its departure.
The greatest thing ever happened to us– We became best friends with the guy from the company who sold us our return tickets and he promised to pick us up and drive us to our hostel in Ao Nang when we returned from Koh Phi Phi. (He also ended up driving us to the airport for a fraction of what it would have cost us).
The ferry takes about 2 hours from Krabi. We were traveling during “The Great Haze of 2015.” If you don’t know what that is, its basically a ton of hazy air that has found its way to southern Thailand from fires in Indonesia. We were really worried that we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the beauty of Krabi through it, but we really lucked out with the weather.
Where To Stay
When we arrived in Koh Phi Phi, we headed over to our hostel, Blanco Beach Bar, to check in. I would definitely recommend this hostel. Its definitely bare bones, but the rooms are clean as are the showers and bathrooms. You CAN hear the music from the bar until around 2 AM, so if you’re looking to get a ton of rest, this isn’t the place for you. It didn’t bother us that much because we were out most of the nights we were there, but it is definitely loud if you want to go to bed early. I wore earplugs and I was fine but some of my friends could still hear it even with earplugs in.
There is an ADORABLE dog named Vodka that resides at the hostel. The food is good, the drinks are strong and the staff is amazing. They were so helpful throughout our stay, especially since the island was pretty dead. Less people visit when Full Moon is going on in Koh Phangan.
We traveled to Phi Phi during Full Moon completely by accident. But, it ended up being an advantage for us as the island was way less crowded and in turn less touristy. Our first day on the island was the busiest, so we decided to do an island hopping tour. It brought us toMonkey Beach, Viking Cave and Maya Bay.
Island Hopping
We decided on Shangri La Boat Tour. It was definitely insane. For about 1500 baht you get to visit all of the islands and you get dinner. We were under the impression that it was an open bar, but we had to pay for drinks. Because of this I stuck to drinking beers. didn’t spend too much money and had an awesome time.
The booze cruise was a lot of fun… We met some great people, drank some beers and got to see other parts of Phi Phi. Unfortunately they didn’t allow us to go onto Monkey Beach. Apparently, because of the haze, the monkeys weren’t hanging out on the beach. We did drive by the Viking Caves which was pretty interesting.My favorite part of the tour was visiting Maya Beach, where the film “The Beach” was made. (I was super bummed out Leo wasn’t there :() It was beautiful. We arrived there in the early evening, making us some of the only ones on the island. You can see how much fun we had on the booze cruise in the video I made of my first two weeks in Thailand.
Things To Do
We went out with a bunch of the people that we had met on the booze cruise that night, checking out a fire show on the beach and then heading to several different bars like Dojos, Relax Bar and Stockholm Syndrome. It was a very fun night, leaving us all exhausted the next morning.
We had a chill day, hanging out at the Ibiza pool because the tide goes down pretty far on the beach and we were too lazy to head over to the long beach. Plus, the next day we planned to go scuba diving so we didn’t want to be tired.
On Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early and headed off to scuba diving… We dove with Princess Divers and had a blast. I won’t lie, I definitely freaked out a little bit as I had never been before. Breathing underwater made no sense to me! The visibility wasn’t great so I will have to go diving again before I head home.
That night was a Buddhist holiday so unfortunately not much was open. Still, around midnight, things seemed to pick up more and we ended up drinking at Blanco Beach Bar.
If you want to visit Koh Phi Phi but don’t want crowds, I would visit during the Full Moon period. It won’t be as crowded since most people visiting the islands will be in Koh Phangan.
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