[BTman]

(01-06-2012 10:26 PM)P Dog Wrote:  

Yo shoot some more data on Ko Phi Phi! Is December-January its high season? What other nationalities are there besides Swedish? Any word on prices?

I've been looking for a spot to stay in this time next year when I graduate and this shit sounds like heaven. I'm +1'ing all three of you for this golden find.

Getting There
We flew to Phuket from Bangkok. There are a ton of flights from BKK-HKT so you shouldn’t have to pay more than $150 r/t. I would skip Phuket completely. It is overrun with the worst kind of tourists, mostly loud, fat, drunk Brits/Americans/Australians looking for pros. I was there a few years earlier for a wedding and stayed 1 night in Patpong and was completely disgusted. There are some nice isolated honeymoon type spots on Phuket if you’re interested

Accommodation
Anyways on to Ko Phi Phi stayed at a place called Phi Phi Banyan Villa. Probably on the nicer side for Ko Phi Phi but I would avoid. They are very strict about bringing guests back to the hotel at night and have about 4 security guards checking names off of a guestlist. (Been meaning to write a posting on tripadvisor about this, but the Roosh forum trumps them every time Actually there are quite a few hotels owned by the same people so I would avoid the whole chain of them strictly for that reason. There are 1 or 2 luxury hotels as well but they are generally on their own private island so far away from the action, so I would avoid those too. I would call hotels up beforehand and specifically ask about the guest policy before booking a place.


Nightlife
The great thing about Ko Phi Phi is that there is only one real area with nightlife. I don’t remember what the area is called but it’s obvious once you get there. All the bars are on the beach and pretty much everyone hangs out there. It’s kind of a all night, the worlds about to end, dance party vibe. Being well dressed, smooth and talking a good game doesn’t work very well here. What worked best for us was drinking buckets of red bull vodka combined with adderall and proceed to go jump around like a monkey and take over the party. Goes against what I usually stand for but it seemed to work here when usual tactics failed.

Like I said earlier the island is filled with Swedes, generally on the younger side. Probably 19-23. They’re very friendly and will hangout/flirt with you all night but like Deb-A said they’re very hard to close. I had some success with this gorgeous Serbian girl while I was there, but she wouldn’t do much…girls and their morals these days. Other than Swedes, the second largest group would be Danes, followed by equal amounts of Australians, Canadians and Brits. Met very few Americans there… I didn’t see any pros on the islands so if you looking for that I would stay on Phuket. Also if you look over 30ish and/or out of shape I would maybe reconsider coming here. It’s a very young crowd and the older looking guys in my group were definitely at a disadvantage. The better looking/more in shape u were the better u will do.

One thing to be on the lookout for is when the full moon party is. If you’re looking for wall to wall people, partying their asses off check out Ko Pha Nan which is on the otherside of the peninsula. Ko Phi Phi loses a few people to that during full moon, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you are looking for. There is still a smaller full moon party on Ko Phi Phi and it is still pretty good. (I’m not a fan of huge crowds, so the party on Ko Pha Nan wasn’t something I was interested in going to) One of my friends did make the trip over and had a blast.

One last thing I think the vibe is very different in the summer time (can’t confirm this though) but I don’t think you’ll get the large amount of Scandavian tourists during their summer. They come obviously to escape the cold. I was there in March.


Other things
You can hire a fantail boat for really cheap (prolly less that $20) and they will take you around the island. Or you can hire a speedboat for about 4x as much and you’ll be able to see about 4x as much. Also watch the movie “The Beach” before you go. It was filmed in Ko Phi Phi and you can take a boat to the island where it was filmed. It’s a nice beach but they’re nicer beaches around.

Definitely check out this place called Papaya to eat. We ate there probably about 4 times. Easily the best food we had on the island. Prices are cheap. A full dinner with apps and drinks is probably like $10. Also if you’re in BKK you can get suited up relatively cheaply. If you’re interested I have the name of some tailors I used. I didn’t really like BKK much I thought it was kind of trashy, but the islands were awesome!