You thought a busted hard drive, some writer's block (my mind was Thai'd up), and some lesson plans could slow me?!?! Well, considering it's been a whiiile since my last post, you are correct.
I've been trying to decide how to approach this post for a while and, until now, I only had a Thai-tle, a crappy intro about Thailand, and a mancrush spelled l-e-o. Let's hope I can improve on that....
Thailand is a country that's always been atop my list of countries to travel to. That probably has to do with watching "The Beach" as a youngin' and endlessly dreaming about Leo really getting into the idea of a young twenty-something stumbling upon a solitary beach paradise. One of my favorite scenes is the montage with Moby's "Porcelain" playing in the background. I liked the song so much I even recommended it as an 8th grade graduation song. All of my classmates loved it (duh?) but my teacher claimed the lyrics symbolized suicide. And considering it was Catholic school, it probably wasn't the best choice. She also shot down my suggestion of "Tonight, Tonight" by The Smashing Pumpkins (SHE ended up picking "I Hope You Dance" by Faith Hill or someone else crappy......still a little bitter). But I digress...
After a week in the culturally-rich Malaysia, we landed in Phuket, Thailand, the land of ping pong shows, cheap crap, whores, delicious pad thai (given), and non-stop party. In our trusty Lonely Planet, they said something like "charming beach town," which is an absolute joke. In their defense it either (a) has been subject to extreme, unsustainable tourism in the last 5-10 years, (b) is describing Phuket Town and not Patong Beach where we were (the birthplace of seediness), or (c) was written by Charlie "The Machine" Sheen (too late?).
The answer is probably (a) and (b). We had read that much of Thailand is developing at a rate faster than they can handle due to the rapid influx of tourism money. Phuket was a case in point. It felt like a cross between South Beach, Mifflin St. Party, and what I'm picturing Costa Rica to be like. Thankfully, we only had to stay about 24 hrs there until departing for Koh Phi Phi. Unfortunately, there are no direct ways to get to Koh Phi Phi without going through Phuket. So for those of you planning on hitting paradise I'd recommend not spending more than you have to in Phuket, or more specifically, Patong Beach. Don't say I didn't warn ya.
That one night in Phuket we spent wandering the streets looking for no good. After drinking some Changs on the beach watching the sun set, haggling clothing vendors for items <$2 (so ridiculous how cheap some of the crap is in that country), denying the upteenth ping pong show promoter, hooker, and tuk-tuk driver, grabbing more Chang road-sodas, taking photos with the smallest dog on the planet, and partaking in some world-class people-watching (i.e. Aussie-watching because every tourist in Thailand is from Australia), we hit up some bars.
The bar we went to was called The Pussy Penitentiary or something like that (who could've possibly seen anything bad happening here?). Why we decided to go there you'll have to ask one of my fellow partner-in-crime's (we were with girls too, I promise.....and by "girls" I mean other American girls that I teach English with in Korea.....I promise! No, really!). It wasn't as bad as it sounded though if you don't count the Thai girls dancing on the bar. Get rid of that and it felt like any standard open-air beach bar (No, really!). The funny thing about this place was all the dainty Thai strippers bartenders would challenge you to a game of 'Connect Four'. If you lost you had to buy them a drink or something. My buddy Sam challenged one and she crushed him without even appearing to try! Give Bobby Fischer a few months to master this game and these Thai ringers would have given even him a run for his money. It ended up being a pretty fun/interesting place to spend a night in Phuket.
Thankfully the next morning would be spent on a boat to one of the prettiest places on Earth...
