While Thomas and I were staying on the island of Phuket, we accidentally didn’t book a hostel or guesthouse for one particular evening. We had no where to stay and it was currently Thailand’s high tourist season. A friend we met at our hostel suggested that we hop a boat to Koh Phi Phi (another island near by) and sign up for this camping trip she had recently gone on. On a whim we decided to go for it and we bought a ferry ticket the night before were left.
Our ferry took off early the next morning and we got into Koh Phi Phi around 10am. Koh Phi Phi consists of two islands: Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh. Phi Phi Don, although beautiful, has been somewhat spoiled by tourism. It was really busy and the beaches weren’t super clean. But the islands unique beauty was definitely apparent. The other island, Phi Phi Leh, was declared a national park and tourists are only allowed to go on day trips to visit. Except, that is, if you are willing to camp out on the beach for a night.
Our friend had given us directions to a restaurant named lemongrass where we could sign up for the camping trip on Phi Phi Leh. We signed up that morning and our tour left later that afternoon around 4pm. There was a total of 11 tourists on this trip (including ourselves) and a handful of colorful, young locals who where our trip leaders. The guys who run this camping tour were hilarious. They had really bizarre nicknames like Chocolate and Nemo and were always joking with us. We hopped onto this big boat and headed over to Phi Phi Leh where we did some snorkeling directly off the boat in some bay areas. It was a bit scary considering there were sharks around the island!
Then we headed to the main bay area on the island where we were going to be camping out. This is the same beach where the movie The Beach, starring Leonardo Dicaprio, was filmed. It was utterly stunning and almost entirely unspoiled by human hands. Right as we arrived all of the other tourists were packing up and leaving the island. Our tour guides were encouraging us to kick everyone off the beach because it was now “our beach.” Within 45 minutes the beach was entirely emptied of tourists besides us! The bay we were camping at was called Maya Bay and is encircled by these huge, looming karsts that are vertical cliffs on either side. The bay itself is super calm and crystal clear. It was like heaven on earth.
Eventually it started to get dark and Chocolate and Nemo set out mats for us to sit on and lit citronella candles made out of beers cans. They opened up a special bar just for us in one of the bungalows and cooked us a traditional Thai meal. It was delicious! The guys then put on a spinning fire show for us (which Thomas got some great pictures of) and we had a late night grill out with some BBQ chicken. After that one of the guys broke out his guitar and put on a little concert. Before we knew it, it was 2am! We then grabbed a mat and a sleeping bag and headed out to the beach to sleep. The stars were utterly amazing. In Nanjing we are lucky if we get to see even 3 stars in one evening due to the pollution. But on Phi Phi Leh not one star was hidden behind anything but the karsts. It was amazing.
The next morning we woke up early and had breakfast together as a group, took some group photos, and headed back to Phi Phi Don. We said goodbye to our new friends and got some contact information as well. We were sad to leave “our” island but we will never forget the experience we had camping out on Phi Phi Leh. People often say the closer you get to pure, unspoiled nature the more likely you are to see God. I believe we certainly saw a piece of God on this island and he definitely made an impression.
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