Scots VS Monkeys // Koh Phi Phi

Rabid Monkeys, a close shave with sea urchins, kayaking, partying, thai boxing and the best pizza of my life: the final destination of Thailand was definitely an adventure, and its fair to say the island of Koh Phi Phi Don has my heart.

Now, you know that moment in films when there are coincidences, or those cute moments and you’re like that’ll never happen to you? Well, travellings taught me one thing, they can happen. So after arriving on the island, finding the hostel office, meeting our nice hostel owner, and being shown to the hostel, we went into the building next door where we could store our bags until the room was ready. So there Sam and I are putting our bags into the locker in a hallway of the hostel building in a quiet part of the island, when the front door to this ISOLATED and RANDOM building opens and I watch as Ariana (one of our scholars) walks in the door! In a flash she ran outside and I heard her scream “James guess who I found?!” And thats how we were reunited with the dynamic duo that is James and Ariana.

The other large group to arrive that day also bumped into us by accident, as we’re sitting in Cosmic Restaurant (massive recommend if you are on Phi Phi, the owners run the hostels we were at too and I wouldn’t recommend anywhere else), and I am watching people pass by, when I make eye contact with a familiar face, and another and another, and I realise its the Scots. So cheers are made and hugs are exchanged as we all reunite laughing at the chance they’d go hostel hunting right next to where we stayed. Some of us hadnt seen each other for as long as 2 months so it was amazing meeting everyone again, and envying a few of the tans too!

Our first activity on Phi Phi that day was kayaking (something I had never experienced before). As we set out to sea on our little kayaks, we rowed around the corner from the main beach to Monkey Beach. This cute little beach was a quiet paradise, with the only method of getting here being boat, kayak, or swim, it was a lot emptier than the other beaches. The coast and surrounding jungle is also filled with adorable monkeys… well, I thought they were adorable at first. If you ever go here, take my advice,lock your belongings away (rucksacks aren’t safe). This blog’s title wasnt kidding when it says: Scots VS Monkeys. They decided to raid our boats, and when I say raid, boy did they have a good time. We were relaxing in the water letting the waves push us towards the shore as we chatted and avoided getting run over by docking taxi boats when we notice three monkeys jump into our kayaks on the beach. Immediately they looked into our boats looking for something and then proceeded to dive in and steal our water bottles. The thiefs then ran from us, unscrewing the bottles and began drinking our water (at this point I didn't want it back).

Our concern now though was our rucksacks containing our valuables in them, so we ran to them trying to get the bags. But a monkey had beat us to it, promptly UNZIPPING Max’s rucksack (which he usually struggles with due to the dodgy zip) and making away with a packet of mints (to our humour they were empty) and some soap.

The problem with these monkeys is if you aggravate them, they will attack. During our short trip there we saw several people have bags torn off their backs, sunglasses stolen off peoples faces (shoutout to James here), and even a few brutal bites. So our method of defending the bags became gently nudging them off the kayak with a paddle. Although I wouldn’t reccomend that either, considering Max had a monkey simply grab and climb onto the paddle he was holding.

Even our paddle back to the beach (where we didn't waste time getting a tans) was an adventure, Max and I were fascinated by the sea urchins and attempted to pick them up with our paddles whilst nearly falling into the sea (to anyone who isn’t aware, sea urchins are dangerous, this is a stupid idea). Another time unfortunately we had a broken kayak and put it this way, I am horrible at rowing, so Max I owe you, if it hadn’t been for you we would’ve drifted out to sea. 

Just kidding I would’ve totally jumped out and swam…

Thailand is a stunning, beautiful country, that I WILL be returning too! My last night on Phi Phi was spent with the remaining six scholars taking a stroll up to the viewpoint on the mountain to watch the sunset. Boy, was it worth the sweat and long walk. Camping up there is going on my bucket list. The view was beautiful and we were up there so long admiring the view that many of the tourists had cleared out by the time we left.

So this post more than any other is most definitely, to be continued…

-Claire