a wounded paradise
for the last five days i've been on koh phi phi, a small H shaped island a short boat ride from phuket. this place is an absolute paradise, but from the first moments of arriving, you feel a certain haunt of the throttling this car-less island community received just two years ago. after sailing past the beach where the movie, the beach, was filmed at maya bay:
we land at the dock:
and the first thing you see is what remains of a 7-11, wiped out by the tsunami:
a sobering view, clouding the rest of our arrival as we took in, for the first time, this fucking stunning island. there are no cars on phi phi, just bicycles and a maze of these walkways:
and the main source of transportation are these longtail boats. as you walk around the island, men sit at the side of the alleys and shout "boat, boat, taxi boat, you want taxi?" and you barter with them to take you places like maya bay, bamboo island and the monkey beach.
all of the restaurants are situated on the beachfront:
within the first moments of arriving, we pick a longtail boat and we're off to monkey beach, to see the wild monkies there who're not very afraid of humans
the beach is stunning with it's limestone formations:
the rules on this island are lax, here is the drunk tank in the police box:
and here is my mom drinking in the local cop shop (the police box) with a cop:
that night, bobby, matt, emma, uday, justin, barkwell and i went out to apache bar and drank buckets, literally, of thai whiskey, vodka, rum and any other alcohol we could get out hands on. at this bar, we met che guevara:
and saw a fire show, which just dot the beach at every establishment on the island every night:
the next day we had lunch on long beach, just a short longtail boat ride across the bay:
and then celebrated christmas eve with decorations:
dinner:
dancing:
and champagne on the beach:
we opened christmas presents in the white sand on the beach christmas morning and spent the day sitting on the beach, swimming and kayaking and playing with monkeys:
and i got a traditional thai tattoo with bamboo:
the following day, boxing day, was a hard one though. two years after the tsunami to the day, memorials were being held from morning until night, the signs for which dotted a beach full of palms, like this one in the background, snapped off by the tidal wave:
and you can't help but pay a little more attention to the debris that still dusts the island, junk we walk past every day:
and the warning signs and evacuation route instructions:
walking on to the beach where a giant board was erected remembering the two resorts that were completed swept off the beach by the tsunami, charlie's and phi phi princess:
and the board also had pictures of all the people lost on that day:
the other side of which i couldn't look at, as it was pictures of all the children lost...
flowers were set in rememberance at the foot of this tree:
we headed over to bamboo island and saw debris from the tsunami there as well:
that night, the sky was lit up by the flames of small hot air balloons, similar to the ones they released on the beach, one for each lost person on koh phi phi during the tsunami:
that day was pretty hard, i had to choke back tears several times during the day. especially when one woman told my mom and i that she'd been 9 months pregnant when it happened and was rocked around under water for 5 minutes, her stomach being pounded. 3 days later the baby was born, healthy and fine. but you see thai men and women get up every morning on koh phi phi and start building, and rebuilding and they do it all, everything, with massive smiles on their faces. s'pose it's hard not to smile facing views like this:
hope you all had a great christmas, check out the full photo album here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/vlu777/KohPhiPhiXmas200607
1 comment(s):
awesome post, but still no pics off you? except your arm. Have a wicked last week, miss you shit loads.
By
John Simmonds, at
28.12.06
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