Beach Festival

After I finished the last post early in the morning, Timo and I went out to do the boat tour... finally. We said that we were going to do it about 5 days in a row but we finally did it. It was $10 and left at 2 so we made our way out to the docks. It turned out to be a lot of fun, though the weather was just passable.

The first stop was at Monkey Island. Well, it's technically just a beach on a remote part of Phi Phi, but Monkey Island has a better ring to it. I hopped off the boat into the water and waded onto the white sand shore and towards the throng of other tourists growing one small stand of trees between the beach and the limestone cliffs. In the trees were 10 monkeys mostly sitting around and waiting for tourists to toss them fruit. A couple of the monkeys walked cautiously into the crowd to search for more treats but if you looked closely you could see some kind of infection ringed around its neck which might mean that it was tied up... are these monkeys brought here each day? Beats me. Some of the Chinese tourists gave the monkeys cans of soda. We also visited a cave that Thais go into to collect Swallow bird spit to use in Chinese soup. I don't know what it's good for, but one girl on the boat told a good dirty joke. What's the bird of wisdom? Owl. What's the bird of peace? Dove. What's the bird of true love? Swallow. Classic.

We also stopped in a couple small coves on the small island south of Phi Phi to do some snorkeling. There were a lot of fish but overall not as nice as in Belize though the water was warm and the air refreshing. Perfect for snorkeling. Some of the fish nibbled on me a bit but it tickled more than it hurt. The islands here look so cool the way the water cuts out the stone around the edges and makes them look vaguely like mushrooms covered in vines.

Everyone but me has seen the movie, The Beach', and we got to visit the very beach featured in the movie, called Ma Ya Bay. Normally the boat would just take us straight in there but the tide was low so we kind of crossed the island on foot to reach it, and it wasn't such an easy trip since the rocks were jagged, I had no shoes, and the surf raked my shins across the rocks a couple times while I struggled to keep my camera out of the water. Dangerous. The beach looked awesome though, but the tide was bit low and the clouds threatening so maybe it's not as pretty as it could have been.

We shared th boat with two English girls, Kelly and Steph, and a couple from Nashville, and a crazy Spaniard in heart shaped sunglasses. Kelly and Steph knew the Spaniard from some other city and really disliked him, but I thought he seemed like a friendly and happy guy even if he did say some pretty crazy philosophical things now and then. It's probably a side effect of smoking a joint every 30 minutes. Eventually the boat tour was over and Timo and I agreed to meet the girls for dinner and drinks.

We got showered, had some street food (I ate a crazy spicy mango salad), and met up again at a bookshop cafe. A Canadian guy came out too... he's cool. It was a nice dinner but those girls are really paranoid about food bacteria considering that they're going to travel for 3 months. They scooped the ice out of their drinks (I've seen a lot of overcautious ppl do this), use antibacterial lotion constantly, and refused to eat real Thai food like curry... picky people. We had some drinks and sheesha with them later but I got bored and went home, but Timo powered on without me. Good man.

The next morning we caught the early afternoon boat (I realize the contradiction) to Phuket and we plan to continue on to Ko Tao for diving lessons. We had rough seas and the ride wasn't terribly pleasant. It turns out that Phuket has a big festival going on, the Vegetarian Festival, so I guess that we need to stay here a bit longer than a nice. Another traveler gave us a card for this hostel in Phuket and we walked there after our van broke down in the middle of town. Phuket Town is a real city, loud with motorbikes, and with rundown looking cinder block buildings. Most of the tourists move on to one of the beach areas that cost a bit more and have all the foreign crap that I'm trying to avoid, like Starbucks and McDonalds. One of the nearby beaches, Patong, is a mini Bangkok since many people fly straight there and Patong offers all the seediness of Bangkok including the shows. I think that I'm jut going to hang out in Phuket Town though.

Our hostel is really nice and a huge step up from The Rock. It's also on the main street which has been taken over by the festival. After checking in Timo and I excitedly ran out into the street to get some food. for about 3 or 4 hundred yards the street has been completely lined with food stalls cooking fresh stuff up nearly 24 hours. It's all vegetarian fare so I'm tempted by everything that I see because I know it's not got any hearts, fish lungs, fermented nasties, odd egg things, or strange smells. Nope, everything is fried, steamed, cut up fresh, or otherwise awesome and it all smells so good. This is seriously a food lovers paradise and I'm not scared of any of it. Some of my favorites so far have been the birdnests (shredded potato, carrot, onion, and ginger tempura fried together) dipped in chili sauce, mango sticky rice, peanut curry, mysterious spring rolls, coconuts, and a dozen things I can't even describe. This giant fruit tastes exactly like artificial banana. Awesome. The festival goes on for 10 days and I'm on day 4.

Later at the hostel I met a couple of Australians traveling together for a while, Luke and David, and they were a lot of fun. Luke is an insanely good fingerpicker on a guitar and David is just generally good fun. I spent the rest of a late evening with them, Timo, Chang, and a convenient case of the munchies considering there's a food festival out my front door.

The Vegetarian festival has some sort of religious implications as well... I think that it's called the Nine Emperor Gods Festival and it's said that at this time of the year the gods, in the form of stars, come to visit. So, people, wear white, burn incense, carry platforms covered in Buddhas, set off fireworks, and pierce themselves with sharp objects. Usually they pierce the cheeks with skewers or spears. When I woke up this morning there was an extremely loud parade of drummers on the back of pickups and waves of people walking with those brave volunteers and wiping off their drool. It was awesome though I was a bit groggy.

So, I guess that I'm going to have to stay here at least one more night so that I can go to the immigration office tomorrow morning to get an extra week added to my visa in case I want that later... and I probably will. We just get 30 day tourist visas (unless you apply for a 60 ahead of time) and a lot of people cross the borders and come back by land again to get an extra 2 weeks but it's not cheap. The penalty for staying over the visa duration is a $23 a day tax. After that I'm off to Ko Tao. Wish me safe travels!