Koh Phi Phi Part II: JEB Stuart Reunion and Fire Shows

Later that night, as I'm standing on the beach with the others (waiting on Matt to finish primping so we could go to dinner) 

who do I see walk by, and up to our hostel but Vafa and Ajmal! I turned to our dinner group and go, "Um excuse me guys, I think I went to high school with them." Everyone was like, "No way!" But I walked up and sure enough it was Vafa and Ajmal. I should preface the following by saying first that Matt and I DID know they were in Thailand. We'd tried to organize meeting up while they were in Phuket for a few days but it hadn't worked out. None of us, however, had any idea we were all going to be on Phi Phi the same weekend. It gets better....not only were they on Phi Phi, they were staying in our hostel! And even better than that...

Me: "You guys are staying here too? That's so funny."

Ajmal: "Yeah we're the first door on the left."

Me: "WE'RE the first door on the left!"

..that's right, we were not only staying in the same hostel, we were all staying in the SAME ROOM! What are the odds?!? It was a ten bed dorm style room and 6 of the beds were Nova kids!!

JEB Stuart (+ one Falls Church) Reunion!!

We all hung out and enjoyed copious buckets of Red Bull Vodkas (literally buckets--as you see in Anthony's hand) and watched the fire shows. The fire shows were incredible!

After the initial performance, they pulled out a flaming jump rope and encouraged crowd participation. Let me tell you, there is nothing like seeing very drunk people jump a flaming rope! Since they speed the rope up faster and faster until the participant can't keep up, it's essentially only a matter of time until everyone gets hit with the flaming rope. It's fascinating to watch. I do wonder, however, if there are people around Thailand nursing legitimate burns. No one seemed too upset at the time but I think that had to do with the buckets of alcohol. I imagine there were some unhappy people come Sunday morning.. After the flaming jump rope came the flaming hula hoop.

Vafa actually braved this and quite impressively I might add. He didn't just jump through it, he somersaulted through it! I was just glad to have my camera out in time to catch this:

It was an amazing time. I have to admit though, while it was hard to leave such a beautiful place, it was quite nice to head home to a hot shower and a private bed. And to give my body a break! I fear I might not have survived more than one night on Phi Phi :-p