Phi Phi Islands: Paradise costs 100 euros «

Phi Phi Islands, Thailand, where Leonardo di Caprio starred The Beach.

We arrived to Phi Phi Islands from Phuket, capital of sexual tourism in Thailand. The ferry had a good sample of all kinds of low cost travellers. We felt like home, mainly disembarking and seeing that the port was a hot spot for innocent tourists’ hunters. While our fellow travelers were going crazy trying to find a room, we decided to seat in an area outside a bar in front of the sea to ease our hunger with a cold beer. Experience is a rank, we thought. When all the naïve tourists have fallen for the worst hotels at the highest prices, sales will come up. A couple of hours later it poured down and it flooded the island, and also made us emerge form our lethargy. But it was too late already. Even the most remote motel was full. Pants up and flip-flops down, we walked the main street up and down so many times trying to find a decent room to stay, that half of the island knew us at the end. At the beginning we found it funny, but at the end it was not funny at all. Much less when the night came and a foul smell invaded everything. The sewer of the island had overflowed, and the crap started to mix with the dirt and we could not tell crap from mud anymore.

This was the paradise that we have been promised. The tsunami that destroyed the island a few years ago took 300.000 lives but at least gave them the chance to start over. It was a very expensive balance and, although it sounds frivolous to say, even more because they didn’t know how to take advantage of it. Now there’s no trace of that giant wave, a couple of posters saying the obviousness that the escape route is to go up the mountain and that’s it. It is said that, after the disaster, it took them very little time to rebuild the same cabins on the same sand with the same logs. Many people were starving, so they had to hurry and, as soon as they finished counting the bodies, they started the sell the paradise on sale. And when somebody sells a pig in a poke, it can turn against them. It is exactly what happened to them. Not that there are rats all over the island, but if you try to imagine where the poor relatives of Mickey Mouse would go on vacation, you cannot stop thinking that they are running around under the planks that cover the main street of the Phi Phi Islands, the shabbiest street ever.

It is as shabby as the only motel that we finally found. Fifteen Euros that, after surviving there one night, we thought were too many. At eight o’clock we were already trying to find another place rest the following nights. If the previous day was our social introduction, today we became close friends to most of the islanders. Those who didn’t greet very warmly, made fun of our desperation to find a decent room. But those who follow, achieve: moving some palm leaves out of the way, we found a path that took us out of the Horror Island Show, to lead us to our dream hotel. One hundred Euros. That was the price of Paradise and the room of the Resort Cabana Hotel where we are staying. The foul-smelling Phi Phi Island has turned into a wonderful island. From this bed where we are lying, we can almost touch the sea, we have an exotic garden around us and, a little bit further, behind the luxurious swimming pool, some islets emerge like in a movie set. One hundred Euros is not a lot of money, much less if that is the price of paradise, but for our budget it was too much. So we continued looking for a room for the third night in the Phi Phi Islands. Finally we found what we were looking for: a cabin on the beach, simple but clean, with a couple of new mattresses. Ten Euros each. As soon as they throw us out of the Garden of Eden, we are going there because at that price (100 Euros per night), we come back home for Christmas. Like Saint Claus.