The streets of Phuket are very different from Singapore. There were billboards everywhere. Some of them warned motorcyclists that they would be arrested if they didn't wear helmets so what happened was that they wore their helmets, but their pillion riders didn't! Unlike Bangkok, there was a lack of metered taxis and the tuk-tuks were different.
Patong beach was hidden behind a hill. The huge main road broke out into smaller ones with hotels clustered beside them. There were a lot more ang mohs than there were locals!
We reached our hotel but the room wasn't ready for us yet, thus we went to walk the streets of Patong beach. There was the familiar 7-11, McDonalds and Subway outlets. There were also countless shops boasting of high speed internet connection.
We had our lunch at a small coffee shop near the beach. The food was okay and it was great that we did not spend much. It's hard to expect stuff that was dirt cheap as it was such a popular tourist destination that people bringing big money in would hardly bat an eyelid seeing their prices. Us budget people were having a bit of a tough time!
The beach had great waters and waves, but the skies were grey and cloudy. There were jet-skis, parasailing and all sorts of sea sports but we wanted to wait till we were checked into our hotel room before we did all of it. There was lots of touting and all for the same services! I was quite bewildered when one of the ripped teenage guys came up to us and asked us to do parasailing and said jiang luo shan to us, which was parachute in Chinese!
We visited a lot more shops and all around, they were trying to use all sorts of accents and languages to persuade people to buy their products! It got really hilarious when I witnessed one guy greet an Australian with "How'd you do, mate!" and proceeded to make small talk with the guy in brilliant Aussie accent. Some of the ang mohs remained polite, while others were numb to their approach.
After a long walk we made our way back to our hotel.
And this is the room for Deevana Patong. We paid $108 for 4 nights, which works out to about 27 dollars per night. The room was decent but it kind of sucked that there was only one electric socket that was a two-pin. The hotel offered adapters but the one that we borrowed didn't work. When we went back to get a replacement, they had none left! That was a little frustrating.
We spent the afternoon lounging around the hotel pool, playing with the volleyball and swimming. It's sort of small, but there were another two in the compound. Ours was medium in size. The largest one had a bar in it, but I didn't get a chance to enjoy that!
After that we dressed up and got ready to go our for dinner. I had a chance to explore the hotel and it was really lacking in facilities. It's considered average. I mean it did say that it had a gym on its website and when I went to see it, it was the size of my hall room!
We had dinner at this roadside place that I felt was freaking expensive. Okay, so maybe it was acceptable seeing the number of seafood dishes that we ordered but it wasn't very delicious or anything. The one that made it worth the money was the stingray, which was rather big and had thin layer of green curry instead of the usual chilli! It was spicy but I didn't stop till everything was finished!
After dinner we continued walking along the streets. The various food restaurants continued touting violently as we approached. We were like walking pass a slew of shouts promising the best prices and best food - in at least 3 different languages. When I gave a smile and told one of them that we had eaten and were full, he caught me by surprise by giving my stomach a squeeze. Okay, so it was a friendly gesture and he was joking, but it was damn lucky I gek my stomach in time! It felt more like a punch and left me a bit winded. It hurt like mad at least for the next 15 minutes and that made me rather pissed.
There were countless stalls selling tour packages. Countless. Along a single street it wouldn't be rare to see about 20 stalls promoting and selling the exact same tours with the exact same brochures. Seriously. We'd find one every 3 meters!
We stopped randomly at one of them and booked a tour with this lady. She was much more knowledgeable and fluent in English than the other 2 we had approached in the morning. We decided on the Phi Phi Island tour for the next day and closed the deal at 1400B ($60).
We took a walk among the very famous Soi Bhang-La. It's easy to see what it's famous for! I have never been to Pattaya in Bangkok and I heard that it looks almost like this. I was quite amazed by how blatantly they were selling sex. This was just by the road which was closed at night for the crazy human traffic instead. There were several transvestites beckoning us to take photos with them for a tip. On top of that were the ladies on the bar tops. It never fails to get a crowd to gather and I went back there every other night... the place was a dizzying fever of dance, alcohol and sex. It was practically a zoo. We saw this huge iguana perched on this guy's shoulder as he trooped down the street freaking tourists and getting them to take photos with it.
We ended the day with a Thai massage. I enjoyed it thoroughly although it wasn't my best one. This probably ranks #2 of the 3 massages I had in Thailand. However the one that was the lousiest was probably the most memorable as a tranny did a massage for my friend and tried to turn him on by "accidentally" brushing against his crotch a couple of times, demanded that we leave a tip and spanked my ass goodbye. But that, is another story.
Check out more photos from my first day in Phuket here. I don't know why they aren't half as good as those I took in Kukup. Guess I need to sign up for some photography course or something!
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