Goodbye Gretchen, hello Koh Phi Phi

Our final meal together was a breakfast of garlic fried rice and coffee across the street from our hostel. The ferry shuttle picked me up at 750 for the 8am ferry. 

The ferry was about an hour and a half and was a reasonable size. I sat on the top deck and started talking to a German named Martin who just finished his masters degree. There have been so many Germans traveling. I'm not sure if it's the bigger traveling culture or the relative wealth that sends them all here. 

After the ferry I went to check into my hostel. It was a single room dorm with about 15 beds directly by the door to the street. My standards for cleanliness and comfort have gone way down since leaving home and the hostel had AC, which made it perfect. It might be the hottest day I've had since leaving India. 

I went to meet Martin, a Swedish girl and another girl from Alaska. She's one of the only Americans that I've met so far. We all hiked up to viewpoint in the center of the island and were rewarded for the climb. While we were relaxing at the top, someone proposed and everyone started cheering for them (she said yes). My new friends wanted to head down pretty soon so I told them I'd meet up with them later. 

Soon afterwards I started talking to a group 5 from Botswana, one Columbian and one Brazilian. They're all working at TCS in India and some work only a few hours from Juanga. It's crazy how small the world is. I went to eat lunch with them and we had a ton to talk about. We played frisbee on the beach for a while and then watched the sunset while drinking this awful Thai whiskey. This is definitely more of a party island than the others I've been to. People say you haven't been to Thailand without going to Koh Phi Phi. The beaches are all taken straight from a postcard and the island has no motor vehicles. It has some package tourists in addition to the backpackers and has a much more energetic feel. 

After sunset, I went to shower and change (into my only other outfit) and went to meet some of the friends I'd made at the banana bar. No one I recognized was there yet so I started talking with some girls from Denmark. They're was a beer pong table there, and while we were playing (with Thai rules that are all wrong) some of the people I knew showed up. One of the games we played was with some South Indians. I really think that out of all the nationalities I've met, Indians are the most hospitable and friendly. We all walked back to the beach together and danced for a while along a few of the clubs there. The music quieted down around 2:30 and we sat for a while by the waves before heading back to the hostel to sleep. 

-AB