I had planned on climbing the mountain and walking round to long beach in the morning to see a purer Phi Phi. A Phi Phi less caught up in imbibing caffeine and alcohol based chemicals and more about embracing it's natural beauty. This plan was sourly dashed by torrential downfall which made the way all but impassable. Maybe I could have attempted the climb and marched through the wetness, allowed myself to be soaked to the skin but I saw no appeal. The sky was a thick granite-like grey and as overly-dramatic as it sounds held a hue which matched my feelings at the time. I still felt a little drained from Tuesday night's buckets and I was beginning to wonder what I was doing on Phi Phi. I'd paid for another night in my guesthouse at 400 baht a throw and found myself unwilling to move too far from the room. I could soak up the comfort of the double bed rather than soak up the rain. I left once to get Pad Thai breakfast, then I returned.
Phi Phi was expensive. It had "island prices", which usually meant everything was 50-100% more expensive than the mainland. Accomodation was double what it was in Chiang Mai. Food was drastically more expensive. Even 7/11s operated at a higher price. I'm aware this may be in part due to the cost of shipping everything over, but there is of course a degree of profiting off of the holiday makers who have the money to spend. I can't criticize this too much. At no point in time do I feel like I'm paying an extortionate amount of money for anything. Maybe I could buy beer cheaper in some European cities but that's as far as it goes. The rest is still comparatively reasonably priced.
That night I planned to head to the Reggae Bar and have my fight. I'd wanted to do it from the moment I got on Phi Phi but the girl's distaste for violence meant they weren't prepared to hang around and watch grown men kick lumps out of each other for a bucket of alcohol. They did say they'd come and see me fight on that night though, as I'd take it on early so win or lose, I could enjoy the rest of the night without a nervousness sitting in my stomach. With all my training, I felt there was more to lose than some average Joe with no experience. If I got knocked out by some clown throwing wild hooks, I'd feel like an absolute tool. I got into the bar at around 9 PM and signed up pretty much immediately. A few guys were offered me as their opponent but after taking a look at me decided they didn't want to step up to the plate. After twenty minutes of waiting, a small Argentinian guy came round and offered me the fight. He asked to go lightly. Internally I was at a crossroads. I asked myself the question "Do I want to throw down?" and came up with the answer of "No." I didn't want to get hurt and looking at the much shorter Hispanic man, I didn't want to hurt him too much either. I offered him it as a chance not to much around, but to spar. Not too hard, but with a little bit of conviction behind the strikes. He agreed.
The Magician helped warm me up, holding his hands up to get me working my combos. He'd fought semi-professionally in the past and though he'd put that life behind him, was still keen on being my corner man.
That's a video of the third and final round of the fight. As you can see there were times I could have really pushed forward with my combos, but I decided not to. By and large I'd stuck to the agreement, those moments I pushed him into the corners I could have turned it on more and not stopped swinging until he was out cold but what purpose would that serve? I probably could have gone even easier on him, but he kind of caught me in the nuts by accident in round one, so I left my space a little bit of room to have fun with him. In round two, I threw a double jab, head kick combo which whilst not doing him a lot of harm felt fantastic to pull off. Good schtuff.
The Magician had to head off after the fight to do some more work but I was content to stick around the bar and watch some more of the fights. I changed back into my regular clothes and was brought a bucket of alcohol from the bar, which due to my agreement with my asshole wasn't for drinking. I offered it to one of the Northern Irish guys who'd come to watch me but he was sticking to the beer. My Argentinian opponent took it in the end, which I felt was pretty fair - I'll beat you, but I'll give you a drink afterwards. I sat with a group of Dutch and English guys to watch the rest of the fights. One of the scrawny English guys agreed to have a fight but he wanted to back out of the fight he'd been given - against a 94 kg musclebound Dubliner. Despite the Dubliner promising he'd go easy on him, we all sensed something was up and the big lad was made to find another opponent. Rob was still due to fight somebody and with no experience apart from the odd boxing lesson was a little bit nervous about the whole thing. I took it upon myself to be his corner man and warmed him up for his fight. As I taught him some combos, we stopped watching the beefcake Dubliner's fight which had come to an abrupt end halfway through round one. The headhunter had gone swinging heavy handed hooks and put his unprepared adversary on his ass.
He went in the fight ready to take his opponent out. His French opponent threw in the towel mid round two, exhausted and getting caught by the surprisingly hard hitting English man. I think I felt prouder that my protege of five minutes had won so decisively. I sat around to drink a few more beers, though I was sneaking them in from 7/11 to keep the costs down.
Once the Reggae bar closed around 11.30, after all of the fights had finished and it had played its two reggae songs of the night, we headed off to the beach for more of the shit music blasting bars. There were large crowds outside two of the bars dancing to the garbage and I got chatting to people here and there. I ran into a girl who I'd met in Ko Rong and Pnom Penh and was once again amazed at how easy it is to bump into the same people time and time again travelling the SE Asian circuit.
Despite hating the masses of trashy people in Phi Phi, I found enough interesting individuals to keep me entertained on those nights out. A Spanish girl who claimed to be a former actress in an Italian soap opera called 'Il Secreto'. The friends of the big Dubliner, who were positively terrified of their friend. A really good looking girl from southern Ireland also sparked up a bizarre conversation with me.
"Do you know Rory McIlroy?" she asked
"Why Rory and I were out for pints a few weeks ago," I joked, wondering if she was asking the question ironically.
"Oh really, do you know.." she named some other person whose name I haven't bothered remembering.
"No, I was joking about the Rory McIlroy thing, I don't actually know him personally. I know who he is of course"
"Then you should know ____, he's younger than Rory but turning pro soon as well," she insisted.
"I can't say I follow golf, it's really just a game of darts with a club and a walk involved in it. Not enough violence in it for me," I quipped.
"I'm hopefully going pro on the woman's circuit next year," she replied.
I'd really shot myself in the foot with that conversation. Also with my drunk lecherous mind the only question I wanted to ask her was "You play golf, but what else do you do for fitness? You don't get a body like that playing golf." Thankfully before I could embarrass myself any further her friends interrupted and dragged her away. Phew.
Though I may not have propositioned her, I soon found myself propositioned by a Northern Irish girl who for some bizarre reason assumed I was Spanish. She hadn't heard me speak Castellano, she just decided by looking at me that I was from Madrid. I don't think I could look any less Spanish if I actively tried. When she heard I was from the same place as her she invited me back to her hostel "for some fun". I threw caution to the wind and walked with her but the night air and brighter lights of the streets had a sobering effect on me. I didn't know this girl and more importantly, I wasn't attracted to her. Her eyes seemed pretty when she first spoke to me but as I studied her more she just seemed to be a drunk hobbit. She'd had to ask my name three times and questioned where I was from twice. I didn't want to be this girl's mistake and I certainly didn't want her to be one of mine. I decided to back out from the arrangement. Though I tried to let her down gently and said we'd regret it in the morning. She got pretty cross with me, assuming I'd lost interest in her physically. Whilst this assumption was correct, I wasn't going to come clean and confess
"Actually you're right. You're face isn't what I thought it was and I've realized your height/weight distribution isn't what I call arousing."
I made my way back to the beach, drank another store bought beer and chatted to the friend of the girl who'd had the panic attack on the boat over, then slumped off to bed. Along the way I saw the small Northern Irish girl walk hand and hand with an English guy, presumably he'd be more willing to "have fun". Well drunk or not, the girl seemed to have her mind made up about sleeping with that evening. Good for her.
I needed to get off the damn island. I wasn't doing anything but drinking and acting the bollocks.
Flooded Friday
Fuck that was a wet day! When would this fucking rain end?
I paid for my fanned, cold water room for what I hoped was going to be the last night and then I sat around writing and watching TV as an ocean of water crashed out of the sky. Perhaps I could have gone to Ko Lanta that day, but I didn't see the point of going to another island on the same wet coast of the same country. I was as good being wet on Ko Phi Phi as I was going to be on Ko Lanta.
Despite this The Magician and I came to the same conclusion. Provided the boats were still running the next day, we were getting on the damn boat. Come rain or shine.
I ventured out in the middle of the afternoon for some food and a massage. I found a reasonably priced parlour and lay down to receive one of the weirdest massages I've ever had. The girl in her mid 30s did some very strange things which I wasn't used to. She laughed her way through it, tried playing with my dong and when I told her "No funny business" she tickled me under the armpits and towards the end of the strange rub down folded over my ears and flicked them with her fingers. Even with all of this strange behaviour I had to appreciate this masseuse for one reason - she let me lie down and sleep off some more of my hangover and hide from the rain for a few hours more.
It was late afternoon when I woke up, then trundled through lakes of puddles back to my room, slept some more, got up and ate in Papaya again then headed off to the Reggae Bar. I'm getting predictable. Part of me wanted to fight again, but I'd hammered another massive meal into me and I didn't fancy taking a shot to a full stomach. So I took to watching fights again. Some of the fights would be quite funny, in one particular fight, there was a guy clowning around doing forward rolls whilst his obviously more experienced and larger adversary tried to display his techniques. This fight got stopped after the big guy who was getting infuriated struck his foe after the bell rang. In another bout, there was a French man who had trained MMA back home whipped spinning back kicks and axe kicks at his opponent. I'd watched him fight the night before and he really tested his opponents. Part of me wanted to try my luck against the slick Parisienne but my gut as I said I wasn't going to test my gut. By the time I had digested and found myself ready to fight there weren't too many viable opponents around. I took to playing cornerman again for a girl from Limerick. She was quite a big girl and was set to fight her smaller friend. She had the intention of messing around and playing silly with her petit friend but when the little one started getting aggressive and throwing hard, my girl wasn't for taking any shit. This led to a lot of drama post fight, in a way that, if I'm being sexist seemed so typically exclusive to young women. There's the old assertion that men often become better friends after fighting - "To know someone, you must fight them" whereas women become more bitchy. There's videos of grown men knocking ten shades of shit out of each other and in the most gentlemanly fashion shaking hands immediately after
The girls had come to Thailand in a group of around 9 girls. Some knew each other very well, some were sisters, but these two hadn't been the closest before. The fight had opened up a big can of worms they weren't aware of before. Was there some underlying dislike of each other that they both contained? Why had it turned so ugly? My fighter had to do some profuse apologizing, even though she'd only responded to the viciousness presented against her. It took a while for them to patch things up, but as they were sorting things out I took to playing Don King. Some of the other, Irish girls wanted to fight but not each other, so I went looking for some viable competition. There was a trio of pretty English girls sitting ringside on the opposite side of the bar who I tried to convince to step into the ring. It'd be a perfect battle of the beauties bout, England v Ireland but they weren't prepared to step up. They tried to present their male friend as a willing fighter but when I offered him a three round dance he stepped down. I was a little bit too physically imposing. The closest I got to fighting was dancing around the ring with a Mexican girl who was happy to punch me. She tested me when she nut-shotted me and declared that we were playing by her "anything goes ruleset". Understandably I wasn't particularly happy about this and responded by grabbing the girl's left nipple between finger and thumb and delivering a fierce titty twister.
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" she howled in pain and disbelief.
"Anything goes right?" I asked with a smirk on my face. "Ok, how about no nutshots and I won't grab your boobs?"
I laughed as she threw punches to my stomach and ended up only hurting her pudgy little hands on whatever abdominal muscles I had left from the training at Team Quest.
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" she howled in pain and disbelief.
"Anything goes right?" I asked with a smirk on my face. "Ok, how about no nutshots and I won't grab your boobs?"
I laughed as she threw punches to my stomach and ended up only hurting her pudgy little hands on whatever abdominal muscles I had left from the training at Team Quest.
It seemed like the Friday night crowd was more intent on hitting up the beach bars and the bar was for closing soon. Rather than go to the beach bars, I finally got to check out Banana Bar, where the English guy I'd helped out was promo-ing outside. The Irish girls joined me and my little protege gave me an order
"Look after my friend, Ilia please. She's wasted"
I did as asked and followed after the girl I was supposed to look after - a tall, pretty, slim, brown haired girl with blue eyes. How did she know my type? Ok.. In all honesty, I might have preferred another girl in the group looks wise, but I genuinely wanted to prove to myself I was a nice guy, capable of doing something I was asked to do. I wanted to believe I could act chivalrous without having too much of an ulterior motive. We sat in the chilled hip hop playing Banana Bar longue and conversated over a drink. The girl insisted she wasn't as drunk as "her friend's little sister" believed. She was pretty bent on getting drunk though. I didn't share her urgency. I wanted to keep this night a chilled out beer night. After getting drunk twice that week already, I was in no rush to dive into another spell of alcoholic infused idiocy. Besides that my tolerance to alcohol seems to be getting so strong that my sober and drunken state merge. I'm just a little bit louder and more obnoxious when I'm drunk, which isn't something we really need.
When Ilia asked me if she should have another drink, I tried to discourage the girl from drinking too much but she was happy to plow ahead with the vodka and juice mixers, only getting drunker and drunker. When the bar closed we locked lips briefly then headed off to one of the beach bars, where she continued to drink. I grabbed another big beer from the 7/11 en-route but I was drinking it so slowly it had gone flat by the time I'd finished it. Towards the end of the night we ended up getting some snacks from a supermarket and sat to munch them outside. A Japanese girl joined us for a while and wanted to buy us drinks, the poor girl didn't know where her friends or her hotel was and just wanted some company. I had enough beer for one night and was conscious of my morning departure to Lanta. Whilst I would have loved to help the Japanese girl, I wasn't going to go around every guest house/hotel/hostel with her and Ilia was drunk enough that she wasn't entirely sure where she was supposed to be staying either. I thought I'd take care of one thing at a time and make sure the Irish girl got to bed first, swearing I'd go to bed straight after. The rain seemed like it had stopped and the Magician and agreed on boat times, so I didn't intend on staying up too much later.
Ilia and I said our goodbyes to the Japanese girl then went walking in the rough direction where she thought her hotel was. We found it and I walked her in to the building and kissed her goodnight outside of her room. She wanted me to go in with her but I saw little point. Earlier she had asserted that nothing would happen with us apart from sleeping and maybe breakfast in the morning, after all she was sharing a triple bed room with two of her friends. Outside the room though she rubbed my fake football shirt and purred in my ear "We'll go in there and then Liverpool can do whatever Liverpool wants to do". I'll not lie, I was extremely tempted, everything stirred physically but my brain told me no. Why? I'm not sure. My conscience rang again, the girl was drunk. Perhaps she was sober enough to make a decision she wasn't going to regret but I didn't want to take that chance. I recall think I was trying to stick to my decision that I made previously, looking after the girl, making sure she was safe. Lastly she looked, sounded and acted so much like a girl I dated a few years back, without getting more introspective than I painfully already am, there's a danger that I could have started calling her "Sarah".
When I wished her goodnight and walked away she became irritated, accusing me of going off to see some other "girlfriend". I wasn't prepared to deal with the paranoia she presented. She walked with me out of the building anyway, deciding she was going to go back to the shop and buy some more drink. I was done looking after her. There's only so much I was prepared to help her. She could revel in her holiday alcoholism all she wanted, but she could do it alone. If I'd been more predatory I probably could have had my way with her, if I'd have invited her back to my room I'm not sure if she would've declined.
As I talk of these decisions, I don't berate myself that much. A few schools of thought battled it out in my head. There's were the words of the leftist media, which make me more aware of the feminist cause and the notion that there is too much of a promotion of the "lad culture" that has existed since the 90's, putting pressure on men to bed women to make them lads. There were the thoughts that my mother would have for me "Could I not take more time with a woman, to get to know her before I slept with her?" There were my biological impulses saying "Just do it, you'll enjoy it", urging me on. I was prepared to ignore feeling I was doing some greater good. Three times in a week, I seemed to be obeying some confused moral compass, my brain overstimulated with choices, influenced by both my situation in front of me and the words of Guardian articles and Facebook posts.
Also why was it that I spent so much time in these moments? Should I not be seeking something other than sex and alcohol? Why to the point why was it that I spent so much time being influenced by the world wide web? I tossed around the idea of heading off to some Buddhist monk retreat to relieve myself of the grasp of modern day's temptations and interruptions. A week or two of serenity and mindfulness to get some head space could have been the thing to fix me, reset my priorities and give me another point of view. The idea was tossed around a few times but it was ultimately tossed in the trash. It seemed too cliche. To use some more fancy French words I wasn't another one of these faux noveau hippies. I wasn't some kid on his "gap yah" with the pretentious intentions of saving the world.
I may regret not doing going off one of these retreats. After all, you regret the things you don't do more than the things you do. Deciding not to go in advance because of preconceptions of pretentiousness is a waste of an opportunity for a new experience.
Final Thoughts
After an average sleep, I got up to a bright sky, went to the port and bought my ticket to Ko Lanta. The Magician wasn't there like I'd expected for him to be but I couldn't wait for him. I hopped on the boat and didn't look back.
If only one image of Ko Phi Phi stays with me, it may be walking past dumb English kids in tattoo parlours as they sat pouring alcohol down their throats watching one of their friend's get permanently branded with some ink. How many end up out of their heads making poor decisions that leave them with some poor piece of skin art colouring their outter epidermis for the rest of their life. Maybe they get some meaningful and tastefully done Thai style spiritual piece, they'll smile every time they see. Or maybe, as I suspect they end up with some trashy joke piece, they regret the very next day.
Phi Phi may have recovered economically from the tsunami that hit it in 2004 but it's still not somewhere I can in clear conscience recommend a visit to. Part of me thinks that of all my mistakes, it was going there.
Yet contrary to that, part of me wants to go back, have another fight in the Reggae Bar and then behave ungentlemanly - drink until my conscience shuts down and let my groin take front seat in the decision making process. I also felt like I failed to see the good parts, the real beautiful bit behind the mountain. Maybe I made a mistake in opting out of seeing Maya Bay just because I hold The Beach accountable for bringing the Mongol hordes of Eurotrash to Thailand. They may have brought wealth and tourism to the country but they brought their noise and lack of respect with them. Not that I'm any better...
Next.. 2 Days is Enough in Ko Lanta
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