Off the beaten track

So we heard about that pretty, little island we were looking for. Some really long established fishermen sometimes refer to it as “Ko Phi Phi”. We knew immediately, this must be the place to be, to relax, enjoy and sunbake, this heaven on earth which no one knows except for the real locals and those making friends with them.


Therefore we were a little astonished, as a small Minivan picked us up in the morning, together with 6 other tourists. Where did they know from?
But well, so we had to divide the island by eight, that's cool.

This Minivan brought us to the pier of Phuket town, where a yacht awaited our arrival. Unfortunately, it was not our personal yacht, we had to share it again. Not by eight, no. By, maybe, 150. No worries. We always knew that Ko Phi Phi must be huge, so it could provide each of us with his personal, private beach.


One thing made me worry a little: There were three of these yachts, and, as soon as the first two left, there were immediately another two. Hmmm...
They'd probably go somewhere else, to one of those tourist-crowded resort-things. Don't think that any of these guys entering the other yachts had ever even dreamed about an island like we were about to discover!

Off we took. The sky was some sort of greyish, but I was sure, this was either a problem of my new sunglasses or just temporary, to make all those unexperienced all-inclusive backpackers stay at home. That sky couldn't trick us, though.

After approximately 2,5 hours we found our awesome escape. We were amazed, by what we had discovered!


But ... ermm... to be quite honest with you... we weren't exactly the first ones...


Ko Phi Phi isn't just an island anymore. Loads of resorts, bungalows and holiday houses line the shores, thousands of tourists come out for a short visit every day (!!!) and there is a market which reminded us of Phuket's inner city. It was shocking. We were expecting a couple of others, definitely, but none of us would have expected this...


Our all-inclusive tour provided us with some lunch, before we went to spend those 500 Baht (12 Euros), which we had taken with us, in the shopping mall. It took us some 10 minutes...

So – now Isabel had a new pants and a necklace, I had a necklace and a wristband, we were ready to find our private part of the beach. And – you wouldn't believe it, but we found one!


Imagine this: On the one hand side there's loads of tourists, all sunbaking, chillin', shopping, paragliding, playing funny beachgames.


On the other side is where the locals live. It looks like the slums of a bigger city, rubbish is everywhere and hardly any tourist enters this area, even though it is calm and still provides you with the same wee-warm ocean and the same sandy beach. Weird.


Isabel and I recognized it immediately as the place where to take some christmas pictures, and were once again annoyed by that grey sky, which, at least, had been coloured very little with some blue patches.


After 1,5 hours we had to return to the yacht, join in with those hundreds of tourists which left the island and took off for good. We both agreed, that we'll have to find something off the beaten track!