24 September 2013
For our last night in Thailand we decided to go and see the famous Patong beach area. We stayed in Kata to avoid the crowds so, to get there, we took a 20 minute taxi, through Karon, up to Patong.
As expected, Patong was just crazy from the first moment. As we entered the Patong area, our taxi had to screech to a halt to wait for two elephants to cross the road! Yes, you read it right, two live elephants carrying tourists back from their day trips!
As we drove down the road, a little further, we passed a Cabaret show (with ladyboys (very convincing transvestites) of course. Then, as we rounded the corner to the beachfront, we were suddenly at a standstill in congested traffic which, continued all the way around the beach ring road. We hopped out and headed into the crowds to see what we could find.
The first fantastic discovery was a bargain clothing wholesaler where everything was about a third of the price of any other store we saw in Phuket. Had we known this at the time, we would have bought a whole lot more! But we did manage to pick up a few things.
We headed over to the beach to see the last of the daylight disappear but not before we had watched a paragliding company giving rides (of 5-10 minutes) to a large handful of tourists. Everytime the parachute returned to the beach, the two handlers managed to unclip the person, reset the harness, secure the next person and then push off for another run; all in only 10-20 seconds! Absolutely unbelievable! The one handler also tags along for the ride so that he can guide the parachute in the right direction. He is not even strapped in. He jumps up, swings himself up into the ropes and then hangs on during the ride.
Getting hungry, we ventured back onto the opposite side of the street to search for a restaurant. Distracted by a few more clothing stalls and became more expert by the minute at palming off aggresive salesman. We eventually hit the main party district in Patong. Lights, noise, sex and booze everywhere.
Picture the madness. Salesman everywhere pushing their wares into your face. Lights flashing and music blaring from the hundreds of bars on the strip. Advertisements and flyers everywhere about ping-pong shows which are not really about ping-pong at all. Ladyboys enticing you into the bars, clubs, cabarets and other forms of entertainment that can be found in this place. “Make you a suit sir?”, “Like iguanas, here take photo – and give me 100baht”, “Come, bar good ladies”, “Happy hour here, best price, come come”…
An eye-opening experience to say the least. The exhausted travellers retreated back to the quiet hotel in Kata a couple of hours later. As a last farewell, we chose a taxi with our own flashing lights and disco music to take us back home. Awesome! I think this may just have been the highlight of my evening. Wind blowing through my hair, lights flashing, music pumping and four of us bopping as we sang the few lyrics we knew of the dance music all the way back to Kata.
Patong, you are forever seared into my brain with your colourful lights and your craziness!
