The Chunderchuck Express

6th June 2010

After only achieving a few hours sleep I was up before the alarm and the wake up call came in, partly due to my roundabout game of bed -> toilet -> bed -> toilet throughout the night but also a sense of paranoia that we were going to miss the bus transfer to the Ferry to get us to Phi Phi Island. Once up plan was shower, pack, take bags down to reception, have breakfast, check out and then be on our way.

Breakfast, if you could call it that was ‘interesting’. Firstly it was 6:45 in the morning, we were the first ones there so everything should be all ready to rock and roll, but our requests for eggs got lost in translation 1 scrambled egg arrived as 2 fried eggs and the second attempt of 1 scrambled egg was 3 scrambled eggs with pepper. Coffee was some kind of sludge that was undrinkable which means it was bad as I will drink almost anything if it has caffeine; BF’s breakfast was not any more successful with sausages that were cold and juice that was just wrong. With a few mouthfuls in our tummy’s it was time to check out (and retrieve the itinerary that they had kept which was for our entire trip instead of just their sheet of paper), after a few attempts their EFTPOS machine worked and we were ready to be collected.

Our mini van collected us, then another couple and then one of the biggest bitches we have ever come across. Due to seating her parents were taken in a separate car and she kept pestering the driver for 20 minutes of the trip to call his colleague to confirm they had her parents, despite his assurances and at one point I confirmed to her that he said they were on their way, at which she snapped at me that she understood but she still wanted her parents called, I just retreated and let her rant most of the way to the ferry terminal. Once we arrived bitchface was reunited with her parents and all was well with the world.



We got on the Ferry and waited until it was time to head off.....soon the ferry fondly became known as ‘The Chunderchuck Express’ due to the bad weather and waves we encountered. We both knocked back some sea sickness tablets and I was necking the Imodium like it was going out of fashion to ensure there would be no trips to the loos on this ferry ride, other people were not fairing as well. Many starting throwing up at their seats into sick bags and then others would take the full bags out to the bins passed everyone else sitting down........to this day I have no idea why people sit in their seats and spew, it’s just wrong and really gross and kinda makes you want to spew a bit too.

The monotonous up and down was getting dull, I tried reading for a while but we were both distracted by a prime example of why many Aussies make TERRIBLE tourists. She sat behind us, rough as guts from somewhere in the arse end of Melbourne. The story from what we could gather from her very loud personal conversations on her phone was that she was on the end of a few months of travelling, run down and lonely, couldn’t wait to see her boyfriend again but also had been skanking about a fair bit. She was the typical 20 something travelling trash bag; unkempt multicoloured hair extensions, lots of makeup, not many clothes, mouth like a gutter and no idea as to what was and wasn’t a private conversation that was appropriate to share with half a ferry, she kept it up for most of the trip to different people on the end of the phone until she decided she was going to head down and be the first one off the boat.........if she really wanted that I would have been more than happy to give her a shove a few hours ago.

We eventually got to Phi Phi and transferred from our Ferry straight to a stink (diesel) boat....again no opportunity to get to currency exchange or get any supplies as we had hoped. In our ‘this would be the way we want things to go world’ we would get 15 minutes in the main settlement before we went our resort 45 minutes on the other end of the island, as we were learning things just happened the way they were going to. Back on the stink boat, I was curled up in a corner and BF was happily taking pictures of the surrounds and then patting my head (such a good boy), eventually we got to our bay and we then had to go from normal boat to a little longtail boat along with 4 others, all our luggage and a few people from the resort. Once we hit the sand there was a definite sense of relief the very long (now nearly 5 hours) trip was over and we were there.......PARADISE.



We were escorted up the beach and into reception area which was a sandy path and then several rooms, we sat down and were given a cool towel (devine) and a coconut and pineapple juice drink, to which I commented ‘only if this had alcohol’. We got checked in and escorted to our beach front villa, now often photos on a website make things look better than in real life....not this time, every inch was beautiful. Our bags were already at the room, we were shown around and then left to enjoy. Within a few minutes we were changed and ready to jump in the pool, as we made our way (the whole 30 seconds) to the pool we got excited, a beautiful pool lay before us and it was all ours, not a person in sight. We were in before you could blink and swam away the last few days of travel and drama.

After swimming it was down to business, a walk along the beach until we found a little restaurant we ordered some Prawn and Vegetable Tempura, it was the first real food we had eaten all day so it was a welcome delight. Next it was nap time, followed by cocktail hour where I soon discovered that if you do add alcohol to that lovely pineapple and coconut drink as I commented before, you get a Pina Colada. They soon became one of my very best friends. Then some more relaxing time before dinner where eventually BF got what he had been waiting months for DEEP FRIED FISHAY, the photos of the demolition are pretty good.



With our belly’s full we strolled back to our villa and happily saw that our room had been turned down ready for us to collapse into bed for the best sleep we have had in ages........tomorrow was going to be a good day it was BF’s birthday and we were going to be in paradise!