Thinking of Koh Phi Phi

This is written with five years of retrospect which might be a good thing.
We caught a cab in Patong and it was a small minivan thing which they packed to the gills with people from Israel and us two. At first we couldn’t quite catch the language which sounded like someone clearing their throat to spit, but eventually we talked a bit. I found the Jewish magazines odd, upside down and backwards, hmm.
On the boat trip over to Koh Phi Phi it was overcast and rainy, with lots of islands all about. Someone asked me what I thought of it? I remarked that it looked exactly like Puget Sound, overcast rainy, and lots of islands. They looked at me like I was crazy, no really, I’m not kidding!!
On landing we got advice from our Jewish friends about how to get the best and cheapest room. I told my buddy I was tired of cheap-ass rooms and wanted to get the best room on the Island. We had been running really budget sleeping it tiny beds too small for a nine year old boy, I wanted a real bed, sized for a fat American! The island itself is a narrow flat strip of land between two hills, this area where all the tourism and hotels are is only maybe ten feet above the ocean. We ended up at the Phi Phi Island Cabana Hotel. My traveling companion remarked it was the best room, with the best view, he had experienced to that point.
We had a view of the pool and a short distance from there, maybe 75, feet the ocean beach. The http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agCG-rPqM6A video below shows the view we had as the tsunami hits, (two months later) it was literally shot from our room’s balcony on the third floor. There was no elevator just stairs but it was nice for the view, in the future I will know there is also safety in height at this location. The giant Greek urn you see was in the center of the pool with a fountain on top. We could swim in the pool and stand under the fountain spray, it must have been 15 feet up from the surface of the pool so you can imagine the wall of water from the tsunami was a churning muddy mess full of “floating TVs fifteen feet high!
Also when we arrived people were doing the parasail thing on the beach. I figured I would do it the next day but they were gone. At one point on low tide I walked out on the tide flats and the water level was so flat and shallow a person could walk 5 or 600 yards out there looking at tide pools and tropical fish etc in knee deep water. This is the side the tsunami wave came from and it goes to show the water from the ocean’s depths had nowhere to go but straight up!

Looking at videos from 2009 at the Koh Phi Phi location, it appears five years later the area has still not fully recovered. There does not appear to be as many boats and tourism businesses working the area. I suppose many locals had such bad memories they moved away and of course some were never found. Needless to say it seemed very strange that this catastrophe could have occurred at such a beautiful place we had just left.

Victoria Holiday

Living close to Canada I have been there a few times. When young we would often be lured to go because the drinking age was 19. We went up to Vancouver one night just because we were bored to have a late dinner. So it is close and not a big deal from the Seattle area.

The first time I went to Victoria it seemed quite foreign, now not so much. It also seemed much bigger previously, now it seems fairly small and encapsulated. There actually are less people on the entirety of Vancouver Island than in the Seattle area. Victoria is all about tourism and the main income there is tourism. There really isn’t any industry there to speak of.
I had gotten a package deal off of the Victoria Clipper website, http://www.clippervacations.com/ , on the website itself I couldn’t book a package like I wanted so I talked to someone on the phone. We got four nights for the price of three and since they couldn’t get the hotel we wanted they got us an upgrade to a suite at the Executive House, http://www.executivehouse.com/.

This turned out to be a very, very nice room with all windows on two sides, a corner room on the seventh floor. One thing I have always really liked is that coming from the boat dock you can easily just walk to town and many hotels. It was a 10 minute walk to our hotel which is nice. In addition most all of the tourist activities are also quite close, within walking distance. We did take three or four taxis to places like Craigdarroch Castle, http://www.craigdarrochcastle.com/visitor.htm , which is on a steep hill, but were able to walk back down. There are buses and tours to places like Butchart Gardens, which are out of town a way.

My favorite thing was to just stroll down the street and interact with the many street people and performers. Another thing I hadn’t done previously was the “high tea” at the Empress hotel. This was fun but probably something you just do once, it was a tad pricey, about $56 dollars each. It did cover lunch though, we were quite full when we left and had deserts to go, along with an anniversary tea tin! HA! There are many fancy pants shops in the hotel selling cashmere sweaters, Indian art and the like.

We took a little boat harbor tour and since we took the less popular “north tour” we were on the small tug like boat by ourselves. By the time we left I was really ready to go home. I think Victoria is good for about four days, and then it is time to move on. The Canadian dollar is down against the US dollar once again so things are reasonably priced. This is the kind of trip even a very timid traveler can enjoy, in many ways it is less “foreign” than LA!