With a long weekend in our sights, the other interns and I decided to finally get a ferry to Koh Phi Phi. This is an island off the coast of Thailand that is known to be a big tourist hub and party place. It isn’t quite the same place as the well-known full moon parties, but it’s still a lot of fun.
We arrived and I was grateful for some of the girls letting me sleep in their room as they snuck me past the front desk people after they checked in. We decided to see what there was to do in the cool little town full of stores and restaurants. We ended up renting some kayaks and kayaking to monkey island. It was an okay experience but crowded and not a good representation of good animal-human interactions so I think we had more fun just kayaking around and swimming in the clear water.
Unfortunately, due to the partying we found a ton of trash in the ocean around us, so we spent most of the time kayaking back, just filling the front of our kayak with all the trash and plastic we could find. We were a little late on the return but with all the trash we collected, the rental people were grateful and didn’t charge us.
I ended up searching for a shirt to wear out that night as my usual lack of fashion sense left me without any going out clothing. One of the girls picked a see-through, crocheted black one. I thought it’d be funny heading out dressed in some dark blue elephant shorts with little pieces of balled fabric dangling off, a see through crocheted black shirt, and bright purple sports bra.
The nights were the most exciting parts there. There was this bar where if you sign up and agree to a Muay Thai fight and you win, you get a bucket of alcohol with a mixer. It seemed fun to all of us so we went and watched for a bit before a bunch of us signed up. The ring was in the middle of the room with the normal mat and bands covering the sides. It was elevated so everyone could watch. It was a crazy experience as I was called up and had to put on the head piece, gloves, and shorts before giving the okay to face my opponent, who happened to be my coworker.
We had a really fun fight, though definitely a few times one of us nailed the other person by accident. It’s hard not to accidentally hit hard, when you feel like you’ve got these giant cushioned gloves and headpiece, but we both got a little rattled all in good fun. I will say I think we may have gotten some old men a little too excited seeing us up there fighting as they cheered us on depending on the color we had, either blue or red. We got medals for participating and I technically won with a bucket of alcohol for us to share. There were so many of my coworkers that fought that we had a table just filled with all of the buckets of alcohol that no one could remember whose was whose. We stayed there for hours watching people fight. There were some serious fights that you could tell people had an issue with each other. One guy got his shoulder ripped out of the socket and one other guy threw his friend out of the ring onto the table beside us that snapped under the pressure and force of the falling guy.
We saw a fight happen outside the ring that flung our table upside down as well, before both the guys were thrown out. I’m not even sure how that happened. We did get to see some real Muay Thai fighters who were in training and that was a cool experience, seeing true hits and kicks rather than just drunken brawls.
Eventually, we moved onto some new bars. One of my coworkers and I got sick of those bars and went in search of something more exciting. We saw some flashing lights down a side road and went that way all the way down to the beach. There was fire dancing that we watched for a short bit before the fire limbo caught my attention. As I was watching a guy came around and tied a ribbon on my leg and I was waved into the line. After every successful limbo I got a free shot on the other side and was sent back around. Before long I was the last one and the lower the bar got the better the prize. Eventually, I was being handed full beers and then finally a bucket on my last attempt.
We also jumped into some long rope jump rope to earn free shots. We danced for a bit then remembered the others and found them back at the same bar. We told them about the beach and made our way back though it was already the early hours of the morning so it was starting to finish up. We stayed as late as the music played and then stumbled back to our rooms.
