The chaos I refer to mainly centres around the western beach of Patong, which is the tourist heart of the island. The chaos radiates from an unknowable number of girly bars where sleazy western guys who are old enough to know better harangue Thai girls, whose sole reason for being there is to ‘service’ the never ending stream of john’s trawling for sex. This was our first encounter with Thailand’s extremely prosperous sex industry and it surprises you by it’s sheer scale. Now I’m no prude and the moral high ground is somewhere I probably have less claim to occupy than most, but the greasy streets and alleys of Patong was somewhere I just didn’t need to see let alone reside. That said, the island itself was actually pretty cool, the beaches were surprisingly nice given the enormous amount of development and some of the southern beaches on the west coast have surf during the monsoon.
Our plan as we were staying in Phuket town was to hire a motorbike and then do day trips around the island to various beaches and places of interest, and this is exactly what we did. The hostel where we stayed was literally right in the centre of Phuket town and a stones throw from many extremely cheap and tasty restaurants and a fabulous street market that came alive in the evenings. The food around where we were staying was fantastic and so cheap sometimes I almost felt bad only paying them what was owed on the bill. For instance for breakfast we had an old Chinese bloke serving up roast pork, with mouth-watering crackling and an amazing sauce over rice for about $1.20 AUD each. We came back day after day to this guy once we found him. The market was awesome and we could wander around at night tasting a little from several of the stalls and get our fill for about $2 AUD each. One stall even sold large bugs that looked liked cockroaches for those with stomachs of iron, needless to say we gave those a miss but they did make for a great photo.
The temperature on Phuket was delirium inducing and there was little else to do during the day except take refuge from the heat at the beach. We found a really nice beach called ‘Had Kata Noi’ (little Kata beach) and we parked up here on the hired deck chairs, eating fresh fruit from the vendors who wander endlessly up and down the scorching sand plying their wares. To say it was a nice would be a bit of an understatement, all I can say is we were both pretty content. The island is also home to a ‘big Buddha’ as many places in Thailand seem to be and we just about stripped the engine on our rented scooter by forcing it to drag our not inconsiderable western backsides up the kind of hill that would give a mountain goat the trembles. Once up there we realised the big Buddha was covered with bamboo scaffolding and was in the throes of being renovated but the views from the top of the hill over the island were spectacular and well worth nearly killing our scooter for.
We spent a week on Phuket and each day was spent exploring the island, wringing the life out of our bike, swimming at the beach and eating fabulous food. One minor drawback came when we parked our bike on the side of the road in Patong and after doing some shopping in the manic street markets we came back to find our bike locked to the bike next to it and a ticket attached. Apparently we had parked in the wrong place but with no signs and in a nation where scooters fly along footpaths and seemingly park where they please this came as a real surprise. So it was off to the police station and here we encountered an affable police bloke who explained that contrary to appearances you can’t just park wherever you please and 300 baht ($10 AUD) would get our bike unlocked and see us safely on our way. I had assumed it would be a case where the supposedly cash-laden foreigner would have to pay a little kickback to the policeman for ensuring that things went our way. My doubts were completely and pleasantly unfounded and for only the measly parking ticket sum we were off and blazing on the scoots once again.
On one particular morning we decided to take up an offer that was on a flyer at our hostel whereby you could visit a local spa resort and use their sauna, swim, gym and spa facilities for as long as you like in exchange for 200 baht (about $7AUD). Anyone that knows me knows I love good sauna and spa place so on one unusually cooler morning around 27 degrees) we headed off to the fancy spa resort to relieve a little of our holiday tension-ha! The next few hours involved lurking about in the tiered swimming pool set amongst beautifully landscaped gardens and in the sauna, steam room and spa. Pretty much everywhere except the gym! Very relaxing stuff. Kate got bored of this before I did but we both went away feeling like a hundred dollars.
On our last day we decided to visit a Gibbon farm on the northern edge of the island about an hours ride from Phuket town. If you’ve never seen a Gibbon (as I hadn’t) then they are similar to monkeys except they have a ‘painted face’ which gives them a remarkably human appearance. By painted face I mean the fur around their nose, eyes and mouths is a different colour to their bodies and they look as though they are wearing a strange kind of furry make-up! The place we visited was a Gibbon rehabilitation centre and was home to all manner of abused and maltreated inmates. The idea was that the Gibbon’s at the centre would be rehabilitated, if possible, and returned to the wild. Some however were so traumatised and in some cases physically abused that this would never be possible. The Gibbon trade in Thailand is a pretty brutal one with some Gibbon’s being stolen from their mother’s by poachers once their mother has been shot and killed. Old Gibbons are no use to poachers and young ones can be trained to interact with humans either as pets or as ‘performers’ for people to use on the streets for the entertainment of the public and of course tourists.
The Gibbons we saw were all confined and we were only able to see the front row of cages as these housed the most abused and damaged Gibbons who would, unfortunately, never be released back into the wild. The reason for putting the ones beyond hope closest to the humans is that the staff are trying to break contact between the Gibbons and people so they can have a greater chance of being successfully released back into the wild. Hence only the no-hopers were allowed near the front closest to people. I wasn’t aware of this but Gibbon’s actually ‘sing’ to one another. By sing I mean make incredibly loud, eerie noises that send shivers down your spine. One particularly hard done by Gibbon, who was obviously a little mad, had a piercing cry that when you heard it, made your hair stand up on end. This Gibbon had lost a hand and a foot to an abusive owner that had dished out a near fatal beating when she had taken play with her owner’s small child a little to far and inadvertently bitten the toddler. To hear this cry was to be filled with anguish at what this undeserving primate had been put through and our visit to the centre was not only enlightening but also pretty sad.
With that our time on Phuket had come to a close and it was time to prepare for our all day journey to Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand. This meant catching a mini van to a place to Suratthani, then a coach to the pier where yet another ferry awaited to bring us over to the island. This would mean we had now crossed from the south west coast over to the south east coast and to the three main jewels in Thailand’s island crown-Koh Samui, Koh Phangang and Koh Tao. As we were travelling a few days ahead of Koh Phangang’s world famous full moon party the buses and ferry we caught were filled to the brim with excited backpackers all in the process of converging on Koh Phangang’s Had Rin beach. Some seemed to have already started drinking and were well on the way to being pissed in anticipation of the main event of the full moon party. We, via a short ride on a super speed boat were also in attendance at the full moon party on the night of the 30th of March but more about that next time. ‘Til then. TC.
We parked our motorbike inside the guesthouse overnight! Strange but true!
We found a local market near a shopping mall and sat down for a good meal. I was being adventurist and decided to eat some local food - fish paste-thing (not sure if it had fish as I couldn't taste it over the lime leaves flavour). It came packaged in a banana leaf.
Motorbike heaven!! After a long bike ride around phuket, we found a local shopping area which had millons and millions of motorbikes! More than I have ever seen in my entire life!
The cockroaches Tim was talking about. I wasn't that adventurist to try these - yuck!!
Me at the local food market. The best and cheapest food around.
The truck filled with market veges!!
A Gibbon.
The big Mingmongkol Buddha under construction. The image is 45 metres high and 24.5 metres across at the base and is made of reinforced concrete which is covered with white marble
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