Coral-less Reef

            During the planning of the trip to Thailand, everyone kept telling me that I needed to go to Koh Phi Phi. To get idea of this islands beauty, they said, this small island that lays about 30 mi south east of Phuket, Thailand was where they shot Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Beach. I had never seen the movie and I didn’t look into it because their words had convinced me so well. I then used their words to convince my girlfriend that it was going to be a great, romantic place to go.

So, fast-forward about 2 months and now we were landing in Phuket. Though my hopes for this island started dwindling once I saw how many tourists companies catered to it, I still tried to keep my head up and hope no one else wanted to go there. I mean how many people could actually fit on an island that that had the area of about 10 square miles.

From there we took a van to the port where we then caught a boat to the island. Though the boat ride was beautiful, I kept noticing little things that didn’t seem right. Cargo ships, brown water, plastic jellyfishes floating by, a Sean Kingston looking man filming himself riding the nose of the boat like Rose in Titanic. As we then pulled into the port, I was scared.

Crowds. Crowds. Crowds. To get away from the people though, we decided to hire a Ruea Hang Yao, private long tail boat, that took us to a even smaller island known for it’s snorkeling. Those hopes that were destroyed by the arrival to Koh Phi Phi slowly rekindled on the way to this snorkel heaven. I was scared again.

As the sand barge stopped our boat, we jumped out and swam to where the snorkeling was supposed to be done. The little snorkel tube makes me a bit claustrophobic so I took a deep breath and dove. Couldn’t see anything. I dove deeper. A fish! As I approached the bottom, the water became a little clearer, but what was unveiled was disappointing. I went back up for air and dove again. While swimming along the bottom, all I could see were piles and piles of lifeless, white coral being picked at by tiny fish.

On the way back to Koh Phi Phi from this smaller island, I was disturbed. I couldn’t stop blaming myself and every other tourist for the destruction of the coral reefs surrounding that island. Are there no regulations pertaining to the environment from which tourist companies make money? Is there no resting period in which travel isn’t allowed that allows the environment to regenerate and grow? Does the money that is generated through tourism distract the government from the issues caused by tourism? Or do people just not care?

We got back to the bigger island, as it was getting darker, we then walked to Koh Phi Phi’s biggest bay to watch the sunset. We walked past boats resting in the sand, we talked about things forgotten.

Though places like this are suffocated by tourism, I realized I wouldn’t be able to see them without being a tourist.