If I had to describe Phi Phi in one sentence: Phi Phi is the Panama City Beach of the Thai islands. The most beautiful shit hole I have ever seen. This town has everything a college kid could want: $5 dollar buckets of alcohol, all night beach parties, sketchy massages, and the most picturesque beaches one could fancy. When we got to our hostel, we were somewhat shocked when we walked in the door. Twenty beds in one room with an isle down the middle big enough for one person to walk down is where we called “home” for 4 days. There was no sleeping in the room, only attempts at resting your eyes. The first night people partied in the room until 8:30 in the morning. The hostel owner was also quite interesting as she tried to sleep with all the male foreigners that stayed in the place.

Garrett and I decided it would be nice to get out of the room, relax, and get a massage together the first night. We knew we were in trouble when two Thai masseuses asked us to have sex in front of them. I think they might have snorted something as they kept sniffling and coughing the entire time we were there. As the massage continued they made moaning noises and kept offering happy endings. I sat up twice and sternly told them that we weren’t interested and only wanted a normal massage. Plus, they obviously knew we were gay as we laid there holding hands during the massage. When the most uncomfortable massage of our lives was over and we were exiting, I told the Thai girls how terrible it was and I didn’t even feel like they deserved to be paid the full amount. Well, Crazy Happy Ending Thai Girl (as I will refer to her from now on) didn’t like that, and tried to punch me in the face. I gave her the 500 Bhat we agreed on for the two massages ($15) and then she shoved me in the back when leaving. Garrett and I had a few buckets in us and began to get to get vocal with her after she just assaulted me for complaining about how sketchy of a massage place it was. That really set her over the edge. The next thing I knew, she grabbed some metal object that looked like a crutch and began chasing us down the street. As she came at me swinging, striking me over the back of the neck, I yelled in front of a large crown “Sorry we are gay and didn’t want your happy endings!” Everyone in the crowd got a kick out of the craziness unfolding in front of them, except Crazy Happy Ending Thai Girl. She got one more swing in on me before turning her beady eyes towards Garrett and hitting him with the crutch. Our crazy little hostel owner then stepped in and attempted to rescue us, bringing us back into the hostel. Our hostel owner then told us she had a gun and if Crazy Happy Ending Thai Girl came back “We shoot her, we kill her”. I wish she was joking, but I didn’t doubt her. Our hostel lady was nearly as nutty as Crazy Happy Ending Thai Girl. One night she even got the loaded gun out to be passed around by all the drunken idiots at our hostel (that’s another story). When our adrenaline finally passed we decided we should just go to bed. One Crazy Happy Ending Thai Girl incident was enough for the day.

Our next couple days on Phi Phi were fun. We spend one as typical spring breakers drinking buckets on the beach, wandering the car-less streets, eating, and taking naps. On our last day we booked a full day excursion. It started out pretty sketchy, like most things in Phi Phi. Our tiny little boat, packed with people, headed out through the rough seas and as it crashed through every wave, a shower of saltwater would rain down across the whole boat. Our first stop was to snorkel with black tip reef sharks. In the 25 minutes we had on the reef, I saw 5! Though they weren’t as impressive as the 15 foot great white I got to cage dive with, the 2.5-4 feet little sharks were still fun to see cruising the reef. That morning we made a stop on Bamboo Island and Mosquito Island and did some more snorkeling. The second half of the trip was more fun than the first. It started with Monkey beach, which was the saddest little monkey beach I have ever seen. Tourist’s outnumbered monkeys 15:1 and the monkeys looked obese from all the crap they are fed. I even saw one monkey drinking a mojito out of a bottle and one drinking a beer.

Following monkey beach we headed to some cliffs for cliff jumping. After climbing up the most unforgiving rocks with crashing waves, we reached the first jump which was a 24 foot cliff that everyone jumps off. If you do ok with the first, you are allowed to do the second, higher, jump from a tree limb 36 feet up. Not many things scare me in life, but heights to get to me. I think that is why I absolutely love them! Sky diving, cliff jumping, tall bluffs, all give me an adrenaline rush like nothing else I can imagine. Garrett and I did the 36 foot jump but it was pretty nerve racking since two boats were very close to the landing spot and they both had running propellers on 13 foot swivel arms spinning in the water.

After cliff jumping we headed to Maya Bay which is the famous beach from the movie “The Beach”. It was stunning, but incredibly touristy. We then went for one more snorkeling session while watching the sunset before our night swim with light up plankton! When the sun was completely set and the sky was dark, we all jumped in the water once more (prop still spinning on the end of the shaft pole about 10 inches above the water). The sea is full of plankton that light up like firefly’s when you move your arms and legs. It was magical. As I dove down in the water facing the darker bottom, I swung my arms left and right and it looked like I was reaching up into the night’s sky throwing the stars around. I’ll never forget how unique of an experience it was. It was a FULL day to end our time on the crazy little island of Phi Phi. Now we are off to Bangkok to meet our friends Jack, Ben, and Rob!