A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

The two Phi Phi islands, known to Thais as Ko Phi Phi Don and Ko Phi Phi Ley, are sad, disheartening places that serve as a showcase for how unchecked tourist development can destroy paradise. I've seen bad tourism management before in the third world, in fact it's the norm rather than the exception, but Ko Phi Phi would emerge victorious in any How to Wreck an Island in Ten Years or Less competition.

The setting is absolutely gorgeous. Out in the middle of the Andaman Sea, Phi Phi Don, the larger of the two islands and the only one suitable for tourist development, is shaped a bit like a Star Wars Imperial TIE Fighter, with a wing on either side and a narrow connecting stretch in the middle. The two large wings are mountainous, with one featuring periodic sandy beaches separated by rocky headlands. The other is basically undevelopable due to the steep te4rrain, cliffs and lack of sand beaches. As a result of these proscriptive geological factors, 95% of the development on Phi Phi Don is on the tiny connecting arm of land in the middle, and the sandy beaches up one side of the south bay.

Into this small area, sometimes only a few hundred yards from the north bay beach to the south bay beach, are packed literally hundreds of dive operators, tour operators, restaurants, minimarts, guesthouses and bungalow resorts, internet outlets, massage rooms, and shops selling widely varying qualities of tourist crap. It's possible ot watch a different American movie (knockoff DVD) continuously from breakfast to the small hours of the morning, and it is an act of either strong willpower or fundamental good sense to escape Ko Phi Phi without a tattoo, piercing, beaded cornrows (which seriously haven't looked good on anyone since Bo Derek) or dredlocks. For the less self-mutilatory but still fashion-conscious backpacker there are henna tattoos and hundreds of toe rings, ankle bracelets, sarongs, and low-riding and very low-crotched Thai "fisherman pants", which I strongly suspect have never been spotted on an actual Thai fisherman. The crazy thing is that backpackers frequently moan about places getting too commercialized, yet they flock to places like Ko Phi Phi. I'm thinking that by "commercialized" they really mean "unaffordable".

Uncontrolled development translates also into uncontrolled garbage, a problem which is evident on Ko Phi Phi in the piles of trash and empty water bottles you see periodically. The coral reefs are being affected by careless anchoring and runoff from large beach resorts. Although much of the islands are national park, there has been no attempt to discourage developers from building practically right up to the high tide line, already necessitating the construction of long concrete breakwaters.

Ko Phi Phi Ley, the smaller of the two islands, is undeveloped (due in part to the clout wielded by birds-nest collectors but primarily to its rugged rocky cliff terrain) but is nonetheless heavily touristed. I, of course, was one of these guilty tourists. Every tour company on Ko Phi Phi offers the same snorkeling tour -- around the two Phi Phi islands and up to Banboo Island slightly to the north. Apart from the snorkeling itself, a major selling point of these tours is a visit to Maya Beach, where the appalling Leonardo di Caprio movie The Beach was filmed.

During the filming there were protests in Bangkok that a US moviemaker could buy access to one of Thailand's pristine National Park beaches. However, judging from the fact that the film company removed two to three tons of garbage from Maya Beach in their first week of production, not to mention the fact that no one appears to have picked up a single bottle or cigarette packet in teh four years since filming wrapped, I'd say they probably didn't have much room for criticism. Pristine it ain't.

If you ignore the garbage (difficult) and the 27 other boats motoring around the inlet (impossible), the setting is lovely, like all of Ko Phi Phi. The snorkeling is great (apart from the place where the little stinging jellyfish-like things were torturing us) and physically the place is a paradise of soft sand beaches, rocky cliffs, tropical forests and exotic wildlife (we saw dolphins!). With a little imagination you can picture how amazing it must have been ten to fifteen years ago and it just breaks your heart. I can only hope that not all of Thailand's beaches will go the way of Ko Phi Phi, but the Bangkok Post is full of stories of the bribery, corruption, and even murders involved in the ongoing development of Phuket. Thailand has amazing scenery and lovely beaches, but any potential visitor is advised to do some serious research before selecting one for a vacation.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 7:18 AM