There’s something about rainy days, when you’re traveling and staying at hole in the walls with lots of young 20 somethings, that you get the chance to re-live living in the college dorms. This morning it rained, and rained, and rained… so Kristen and I had “game time” in our room and met some of the people in our hallway at the hotel. Kristen played solitaire…
... and i played some soduku.
Since everyone was camping out in their rooms at the hotel, we all opened our doors, turned on some music, and hung out with each other. We ended up meeting Julia, our next door neighbor who’s from England, but has been living in Phi Phi for the last 10 weeks working at a scuba diving place. She’s a total sweetheart. We also met “Dave squared,” 2 (22 year old) English guys, Dave and Dave who have been traveling for the past year together all over the world.
We were all starving, so we ran through the rain to a restaurant down the street. We invited Dave and Dave to come along to lunch with Kristen, Mike and I.
We spent a couple hours at lunch, since the rain was pouring and the conversation was so stimulating! While the others were discussing rock climbing, I talked to one of the Dave’s for a long time about his upbringing. He grew up in Dubai from the time he was 7 - 14, and he explained how that kind of messed up his life a bit. It’s so interesting to me, the stories people have, that you would never expect or know unless you asked. Everyone has a past… and when you travel and meet new people everyday, you get stories galore! I love it!
After the rain settled down, we all decided to hike up to the viewpoint, which we had heard was really beautiful!
The viewpoint is 186 meters above sea level.
It was definitely, without a doubt, the best viewpoint I’d ever seen to date! I wish you could see just how turquoise the water behind us was… It was unbelievable! Me and Kristen.
We spent 4 hours at the viewpoint together… This is just about the sweetest cat I’ve ever met. I even shared my ice cream with her!
Dave (England), Dave (England), Kristin (Australia), Me, and Mike (New Orleans) at the viewpoint.
Mmmm, oreos and ice cream! Cheers!
The pathway leading back down the mountain...
Where many of the locals in Phi Phi live…
I couldn‘t resist, I was dying for another massage, so I came here, a place that Em had recommended to us a couple days ago…
This is Lampai, my masseuse. She is a total sweetheart, with a really sad story. After the massage, we sat and talked for a long time about her life. She opened up about how she left her husband 3 years ago to move to Phi Phi. She is a masseuse and a prostitute here. Infact, most of the women who work as masseuses on the island are also prostitutes. She said many men ask for “happy endings” which is an HJ, and costs 1,000 baht ($30) and that‘s how they are able to make enough money to live. She said 2-3 times a week the tourist men will ask her to come to their room for sex and to stay the night, which costs 2,000 baht ($60). Her story completely broke my heart, and I could see it in her eyes that she was not proud of the life she had created for herself… but rationalized it by the idea that it was her only means of survival.
After talking with Lampai, I headed back to the hotel to meet Kristin. We went out for dinner and a mojhito at a bar owned by a 31 year old Irish guy who has been traveling the world for the past 14 years!
It started pouring again, so we headed back to the hotel… Kristin thought it was hilarious that I was doing pushups on the stairway bar and snapped my picture. Hey, if I’m in a bathing suit all day, I can’t just sit around eating pancakes and rice all day and not do a little working out! J
