Twin Beauties
The Phi Phi Islands

By Collin Piprell

First-time visitors to the Phi Phi Islands are generally entranced by what they find. People returning years after an earlier visit are usually horrified. The fact is, this island group remains one of the loveliest in Asia, but uncontrolled development has taken a certain toll.

You’ll find it all on Koh Phi Phi - hidden coves of sublime beauty, crystal waters ideal for snorkeling, long sand beaches, breathtakingly scenic walking trails, and enormous caverns where bird’s nest collectors climb to dizzyingly heights in the dark on rickety bamboo scaffolding. You can find a secluded spot to be with yourself, or you can find lots of company on Ton Sai Bay. While a small section of the main island has suffered at the hands of mass tourism, both islands remain for the most part unspoiled.
 

The Phi Phi Islands are among the most beautiful in Thai waters. Indeed, Koh Phi Phi Le and Phi Phi Don may together constitute one of the most attractive island groups in the world. Not surprisingly, these islands and the surrounding waters have been designated national parks.

Lying just 30 km south of Phuket and about the same distance from mainland Krabi, Koh Phi Phi is a popular destination for cruising yachts, diving day trips and sightseeing day tours. One of the islands has a wide range of bungalow accommodation for people who want to spend more time lazing on the beach or touring the island.

Coming up on Koh Phi Phi by boat, visitors from Phuket are often inspired with wonder, surprised at the scale of these islands, at how scenically different they are from Phuket. Geologically part of a formation that extends through the rest of Krabi Province to Phang Nga Bay and all the way to southern China, jungle-fringed limestone cliffs soar hundreds of metres from the vivid turquoise and emerald waters that fringe these islands.

Inscribed upon the sheer rock faces is a long history of shaping by natural forces. Reddish streaks on the grey-white walls get their colour from iron compounds, deposits laid down in ancient river beds long before colossal geological processes raised these great blocks of limestone. Many caves, some of them staring out from high above the water, were carved out when sea levels were much higher; others are the work of ground water seeping down from the jungle fringe. Beneath the waves, snorkellers and scuba divers find still other caves inhabited by colourful reef fish and lobsters(although the latter tend to be pretty small these days – too many people have been taking them).

These Siamese twins are in no way identical.

Phi Phi Le, the smaller of the two islands, is also the more spectacular. Sheer cliffs plunge hundreds of metres to the sea. Overwhelmingly scenic coves hide away at the end of narrow clefts in otherwise impregnable limestone walls. Mysterious caves beg to be explored. Exceptionally clear waters teem with a rich variety of marine life.

The Viking Cave (so-calld because of the ancient rock paintings of boats found inside, some of which vaguely resemble Viking longboats) has tourboats queuing up through the height of the day to pay an entrance fee. The large cave-mouth, lying at sea level and serviced by wooden piers, opens on a vast cavern, eerily lit by light leaking through holes in the back. The effect of being in an immense natural cathedral is somewhat spoiled by the stench of ammonia from the bird and bat guano that liberally coats everything in sight. You might want to wear a hat.

High above, you can hear the twittering of swiftlets, sense the quick darting of the birds that produce the nests for which Chinese aficionados will pay handsomely to find in their soup. Local villagers climb rickety bamboo scaffolding scores of metres up into the dark recesses of the cave to retrieve these nests, occasionally falling to their death in the process. (You may also notice ropes and bits of bamboo scaffolding on the cliffs outside, where they appear at dizzying heights around caves and crevices.)

Aside from the Viking Cave, Phi Phi Le has to a considerable extent been spared the ravages of tourism development. This is not so much because the area has been declared a national park, as because the commercial interests which harvest the bird’s nests exclude any habitation other than a few nest collectors.

Still, tourism has led to some degradation of the natural marine environment. Anchor damage and collecting have significantly reduced the living coral cover in some of the prime sites just off the beaches, taking up where dynamite fishing and commercial trawling had left off when the area was designated a national park. Even so, there are still some incredible coral formations, and, since jetskis have been outlawed, snorkeling and swimmers enjoy a greater sense of safety.

A short sail away lies Phi Phi Le’s sister, Phi Phi Don, with its scenic bays, lush coconut groves and ample bungalow accommodation. The book National Park of Thailand, by Denis Gray, Collin Piprell and Mark Graham (Bangkok: IFCT, 2nd ed. 1994) describes Phi Phi Don as consisting of “two wooded, hilly lobes attached by a narrow sandy isthmus covered with coconut groves and rimmed with beach on either side. Ao Ton Sai, the more southern of two beaches, lies deep in a bay with the imposing limestone cliffs on one side and low wooded hills on the other. At the southern end of the beach a huddle of fisherman’s huts and longtail boats lends an air of peaceful tradition.”

From a distance, as you enter Ton Sai Bay, you might think nothing much has changed from days of old, so long as you overlook the constant traffic in tour boats during the day and a hotel that challenges the height-of-a-coconut-palm limit on building. Once ashore, however, the illusion is shattered as visitors discover a sprawling chaos of development. Not many years ago, Phi Phi Don supported just two small bungalow developments. By now, an almost urban swarm of little enterprises cater to the tourist. There is even a main street running through the coconut palms along the beach – a veritable gauntlet of souvenir shops, clothing stalls, restaurants, bars, and tour agencies.

Adopting a charitable attitude, and overlooking the rubbish among the palm trees, you might say that these changes have merely created a subdued sort of carnival atmosphere. Yet there is a sense of impending overdevelopment. All that it will take to trigger real explosion of blaring commercial hysteria, one fears, is for the first beer bar to wrench its rock ’n’ roll up to Patong Beach levels.

Other parts of the island have been better protected. The established Muslim and Chao Le communities on the island, including the birds nest collectors that harvest the western cliffs of Ao Ton Sai, each have jurisdiction over their own territories, so commercial tourism in these areas has so far been restrained.

While visits to Koh Phi Phi are often sold as day trips – depart Phuket 8.00 am, arrive at 10.00 am, swim, eat lunch, tour the Viking cave, swim some more and leave – the best way to experience the island is to spend a night there. Where midday is dominated by day trippers, late afternoon until early the next morning the island is idyllic. This is the true Koh Phi Phi.

And some of the changes have been positive. Among other attractions, there is a positive excess of dive shops, some of them offering good value. Part of Phi Phi’s allure lies in the contrasting deep blue of open water with the intense blue-greens of the white-sand and coral shallows. Underwater visibility is generally excellent; and, despite deterioration of the inshore reefs in recent years, there is still some good snorkelling and diving, with lots of fish. Haad Yao, the beach facing south, facing the cliffs of Ao Ton Sai, has some of the best snorkelling around Phi Phi Don, though nothing to compare with what is found off Phi Phi Le. The run from Phuket is short enough to make whenever the weather is fine.

Late December through the end of April or May is the best time for sailors and divers. July and August can present another high season in terms of sea conditions and weather. Ferry trips from Phuket are scheduled from November till May - roughly during the time of the northeast monsoon season – and year-round when weather permits. Try to arrive early in the morning, to be reasonably sure of accommdation.