My love/hate with Phuket part 1

Mike and I made two trips to Phuket this month (I know tough life). Upon planning our trips we had heard a lot of mixed reviews some people loved Phuket while others offered the advice that maybe grabbing the first bus to Krabi wasn’t such a bad idea. But after a last minute seat sale we decided to make a weekend trip and decide for ourselves. From Singapore the flight was less then a 90 minutes, there was a beach and the beer was cheap – what was the worst that could happen?

So begins the two part series of our trip to Phuket……

Our first trip we decided to stay in the heart of it all – Patong Beach. Trip one took place the first weekend in July, and we were both excited - me about the beach, Mike about ping-pong. So when we showed up at the airport to find our flight delayed an hour we didn’t get to upset instead went for a beer – hey we were on vacation! Then one hour passed by, two, three, four, five, six (at this point the realization that we could have flown to Phuket and back three times set in and I’ll admit I was getting a little bit cranky and as patience is not one of my strong points, Mike had to remind me on a few occasions that he had signed up to go on vacation with me versus my father. Finally, after six and a half hours and at 1:30 am, our 8pm flight took off from Singapore. We arrived in Phuket, ended up paying way too much for a taxi (options were limited), got to our hotel at 3:00 am, and went straight to bed.

At 7:30 am the next day I was up which of course meant so was Mike. We went for a casual breakfast and did a little shopping - Mike needed sunglasses and promised to by me a beer if I went along. We then headed down to the beach where the best discovery was made – we could drink cheap cold beer, play in the waves and shop from our lounge chair! Now this I could do. I was even more ecstatic when the bathing suit lady came to my chair, as I really needed a couple of new suits and they were the right price. Eventually one caught my eye and of course the next words out of my little Thai Bathing Suit lady were “Ah you like for you very good price” I smiled and politely pointed out that an extra large bathing suit was not going to fit me

Thai Bathing Suit lady – “Yes will, you have big ass”

Risha – “That’s not a nice thing to say when you are trying to sell someone a bathing suit”

Thai Bathing Suit lady – “But its true – you big”

Risha – “is the top and extra large too?”

Now this is about where you insert hand gestures.

Thai Bathing Suit lady – “No there you need small but ass big - extra large”

At this point Mike choked on his beer and got up to go play in the waves and let me do my thing. In the end she was right and I have come to accept not only do I have big feet but a white ass to match!

If you look carefully you can see the little Thai dude up top of the guy strapped in. These guys would run along beside the parachute. Just before you took off they would climb up like monkeys and steer from up top – no lifejacket, harness or anything – I watched them for hours waiting for one of them to fall to their death.

Patong beach was fine for a quick weekend getaway and we did have a good time. In low season there is still a fair number of tourists and apparently during high seasons it is noticeably and uncomfortably worst. As long as you stayed on the beach and spent your time in a slight drunken bliss life was good. Once you got up to leave and face the reality of what Patong is, there really wasn’t any escaping the humming of the telephone poles that have to many electrical cables going to them, the run down stores or flee bitten starving dogs, this isn’t a town I would call “pretty”. At night there are tons of bars lit up with young girls dancing on poles, annoying jack-ass tourists and ping-pong, dart throwing he-she shows being advertised, fun to see and a great scene if you are a 19-year old hormonal backpacking teenager looking to get laid, but really after a few days in Patong I could see it getting old pretty fast and I would say run in the opposite direction if you are looking to go to Thailand and have a true cultural experience.

The food and was okay. I have to admit I was looking forward to being blown away by awesome Thai food but outside of the hotel restaurants and McDonalds there wasn’t really much being offered (and we looked) we did try and replicate our Bali experience with street crack pancakes only to be horribly disappointed.

In the end I was glad I went and saw Patong for a weekend trip. Why not? After Bali to say I didn’t have expectations would be a lie and I did enjoy my time on the beach and bought a really cool piece of artwork. On the other hand, by no means did I leave feeling warm and fuzzy towards this place. I was however looking forward to our next trip back, to see our first South East Asia visitor, or better known as Mike’s bromance.