Start At The Banana Rooftop Bar & End At The Beach Bars With Fire Shows
It all starts on the rooftop at the Banana Bar and goes from there – from a cluster of lively nightspots to a rockin’ sing-along live music bar to thumping dance clubs right on the beach complete with fire shows, even a kick-boxing place where patrons put on gloves and patrons sit ringside cheering and slugging beers.
It’s nightlife on the island Phi Phi Don in Thailand, a rockin’ destination off of Phuket and one of the best places for singles to meet, mingle, drink and party.
This is where you want to be if you’re looking to party in Thailand. The bars are fun, the people are fun and the place is fun. The beers and drinks are cheap – 90-200 baht at most places – and that just encourages sluggin’ em down.
There’s only a couple of pedestrian-only streets – follow the yellow brick road! – so you walk everywhere. You’ll want to stay near the village (town) where everything is a 5-15 minute walk.
THE CROWD ON PHI PHI DON
A lot of people refer to those on Phi Phi is backpackers, but that kind of brings up thoughts of stringy-haired hippies, and that’s not the case at all here. PubClub.com prefers to call them “flip floppers.”
There’s a lot of Canadians, people from England, a few Americans and people scattered from all parts of the world. We met someone from Gibraltar, yes the place with the big rock. There’s only 30,000 people who live there, so if you can meet someone from Gibraltar, you can meet people from anywhere on Phi Phi.
The dress code here is beyond casual. It’s shorts or skirt, tank/t-shirt and flip flops. Heck, some people don’t even bother wearing flip flops.
Bars serve drinks in 22-ounce buckets and there’s even booths selling these on the streets.
THE BARS ON PHI PHI DON
Every place needs it’s “go-to” bar, the place where you start out your day or night to have a few drinks. A spot that’s comfortable, easy to meet people and also might explode at any moment with a huge rush of people. In Phi Phi,, that place is the Banana Bar.
Located down an alley just beyond the main cluster of bars, it’s spacious open-air rooftop bar that has a beer pong table and shows movies at night. This should be your first stop. In fact, start here before you even go out at night; it has a daily Happy Hour from 4:20-6:20 with 2-for-1 drinks (90 baht beer, 150 baht cocktails).
Here – and elsewhere we’re sure – you can even order from and light one up at the bar.
The food is decent, more sustainable for your party needs rather than a fine culinary experience. And sometimes, that’s all you need, of course.
From there, is all a matter of which way you head next. We suggest going to the left to the cluster of small bars and saving the beach/techno bars for later in the night.
A great place to go next is Kongsiam Live Bar, a small singing bar with no walls. There’s a guy singing and a small band playing and everyone is singing along in a full party frenzy. Squeeze up to the bar, get a beer and join the fun.
Then it’s wandering in and out of three or four other places: Jordan’s Irish Pub and Stockholm Syndrome, which has a beer pong table and a tree in the middle of the bar and a menu that describes its drinks as Strong, Stronger and Strongest. There’s a basic but lively bar right there on the corner too (sorry, we can’t recall the name but you don’t need it).
And then there’s the mis-named Reggae Bar. Misnamed because there’s no reggae here but instead a boxing ring where people – patrons – put on gloves and step into the ring for actual Thai boxing. Even some of the women! As a patron, you just walk in, take a seat and enjoy the show. This is really cool, by the way, certainly a different kind of entertainment that you get at any other bar on the planet.
On the back-side beach, there’s 3-4 bars playing thumping techno. You go up to the bar, get your drink (beer or bucket!) and drink it while dancing on the beach. You can watch or even partake in the fire show. Slinky Bar is usually the most popular of the beach bars, mainly because it’s at the end of the primary street going to the beach.
On that road on the way to the beach is a good place to stop called Shripwreck. It’s a picnic table bar and is an ideal place to take a girl or guy you’ve met on the beach for a few “closing” drinks.
THE DAYTIME BOOZE CRUISE
The bars are pretty quiet when the sun it out but if you want to party in the daytime, get on a booze cruise. These leave on the beach by Slinky and involve jumping off the boat, snorkeling and having monkeys crawl on your back at Monkey Beach (careful, tho, they do and will bite people!).
Inquire about this at Shipwreck, when later puts on a slideshow of the day in the bar.
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