Jeff's working extraordinarily hard and so I'm taking a break away from Bangkok for a little while and heading for the sunny beaches of Southern Thaialnd. Patong Beach in Phuket specifically. It'll be easier for Jeff to fully concentrate on work and get here as early as he can while I get the benefit of beach time.
I'd booked my Nok Air flight only a couple of days before. It was an e-ticket. At the airport all I needed was one photo id to register me for the hour and a bit flight. There was a 45 minute delay, but that didn't bother me.
From Phuket airport it's about a 45 minute ride to Patong Beach and costs 150 baht. I set out in a minibus full of other folks heading for the beaches. Along the way we stopped and were divided up between the minibus and a car. As usual there was a lot of confusion around who should be in the minibus and who should take the car. I waited until everyone else had decided their fate and asked the driver again which one should I go in. This time instead of telling me it was the minibus he said the car. Aha. I knew he hadn't been paying attention before.
I shared the car with an older German couple who were heading for Kata beach, a little further along than Patong that I was headed for. They'd been there before and had some specific bungalows by the beach in mind where they would again stay. They'd were well travelled and awfully nice. You meet the neatest people while travelling.
I'd booked myself in the Tatum Mansion Guest House for 2 nights. Arriving in the late evening I simply settled into the room and headed out to get my bearings. Patong Beach is a high dose concentrate of all the bad tourist things.
There's the Red Light district stuffed with Bars of every kind. Australian, Irish, Japanese, American, Swedish you name it there's a bar there for it. All parading Young Thai girls who shout out welcoming phrases in whatever language they think you speak. Their goal to get the White Middle Aged White Males into the bar. There they go to work on selling not only beer but also their escort services. And it works.
Around town it's common to see Middle Aged White Men with tiny Young Thai girls hanging off their arms. The girls of course are looking not only to get paid for their escort services but to have nice things bought for them. And the 'lucky' few who manage to snare someone to marry them literally have it made.
But there are the cool interesting places too. You just have to look for them. On the beach front there's the Laimai hotel. It's got musical entertainment and a bar outdoors. Then there's the little bar on a corner about a block back from the ocean where the two waitresses will teach you Thai and expect you to speak it back to them the next time you visit.
On the beach the umbrella and chair renting guys are a hoot. They live all their lives here and are so tanned they're way darker than the normal Thai. The sandwich guy is always laughing and sings as he runs along the beach delivering lunch sandwiches and beers to his sun-bathing customers.
There's probably no need to ever leave your lounging chair on the beach as practially everything comes to you. Have a massage, get your nails done, eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, drink beer, buy your vacation gifts and trinkets, get some new clothes, all from the beach vendors.
The conundrum though is that because it's so easy to be there many foreign tourists ignore the fact Thais consider nudity vulgar and sunbath topless. It's an affront to the Thai sensibilities but somehow because it's such a tourist trap people feel like it'snot really Thailand, they feel like they're at home and can do whatever they want.
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