After a quick farewell breakfast, I sadly said goodbye to the group, but especially Phil and Natalie. It felt strange to know that for the first time my entire vacation, I would be spending days without Nat there. I made plans to try and meet up with Rachel and her new group when I got back to Bangkok, hugged everyone else, then Karen, Tim, Troy and I hopped into our Tuktuk taking us to Chiang Rai. We drove through the countryside for about an hour when we pulled over. The other group was there as well! We all hugged again. Apparently we needed to switch tuktuks. While everyone moved their luggage from one to the other, I took some portraits of various group members, and a little of the scenery nearby. Then, all to quickly, it was goodbye again, this time for good.
The scenery on the way to Chiang Rai was breathtaking. I hung out back and through the window of the tuktuk, trying to take pictures that would show the scenery in all it's glory. We arrived in Chiang Rai a few hours later. Since we had officially left the tour only that day, we still had reservations at the hotel the group would be staying at later, so we dropped off our things in two different rooms then went in search of a Mexican restaurant we had been told about. We found it after dashing through a downpour, completely soaking us, but the trek through the rain was completely worth it...the food was AMAZING. It was so nice to have something different than cheap American food and Thai. We all ordered massive burritos and snacked on chips with salsa and guacamole. My enormous, delicious meal only cost me around $5.
After killing some more time, a tuktuk took us to the airport. It was rather small but clean and nice. We sat in the back, waiting for our flight, and I taught the three of them how to play Eucher. The first flight was barely full, and we rearranged ourselves so we sat close but each had our own rows. We landed in Bangkok and, thinking we were late, raced from our terminal to the one our second flight taking us to Phuket was at, pissing off a group of Thais as we flew by them. It turned out that we were not late for our flight; we actually had to wait quite some time for it. And wouldn't luck have it, the annoyed Thai men were on our flight as well. They walked into the waiting area casually, glancing at us in disgust.
We played more Euchre, killed time, then finally boarded our last flight. The four of us had the ENTIRE back part of the plane to ourselves. We read the newspaper, listened to music, and entertained ourselves in various ways (ahem) until we landed in Phuket a short time later.
We had no game plan at all when arriving in Phuket. We had no hotel reserved. We didn't even have any idea which area of the island we wanted to go to. Grabbing a simple tourist map of the island, we examined some very important criteria in chosing which area to stay at: 1) which looked like it had the best beach, and 2) which looked like it had the most bars. We chose Patong Beach in the end, having absolutely no idea what it would end up being like.
We hailed a cab outside. At first the drivers wanted to charge us a huge amount of money, but Tim finally found one willing to take us for much less. After racing around at breathtaking speeds, zipping around corners and completely ignoring all traffic signals and lights, we realized why. Karen, stuck as shotgun in the front, was horrified when our driver gave her a big, toothy grin, grabbed a fifth of whiskey from the console in between them, lifted the fifth in a "cheers!" motion, and then chugged the rest of the bottle (it was mostly gone to begin with). We looked at each other in horror. Our cab driver was piss drunk. He stopped at a gas station, not to fill up on gas, but to relieve himself. We watched as he stumbled clumsily to the bathrooms. "What should we do?" we asked each other, wondering if we should just get out and find another taxi. Our luggage was in the trunk though, and the driver had the keys. Before we could decide what to do, he stumbled back, threw the car in driver and squealed out of the gas station. On the plus side, we arrived into Patong Beach in record time.
We had the driver take us to a hotel, as we had no idea of where to stay. We found a place that was relatively cheap and decided to stay there for the night. Karen and I took a room at one end of the complex while Troy and Tim had a room on the opposite side. We changed and went to dinner, exploring the area as we went. We stopped for food at a place that sold beer and western food. Tim and Troy got cheeseburgers; Karen and I pizza. After dinner Tim decided to go back to the room while the three of us decided to walk around and potentially find some nightlife.
I insisted that we stop at the beach. I wanted to see the ocean as soon as possible! It was beautiful...the sky was clear with lots of stars, and the beach was deserted. I took off my sandals and walked in the surf for awhile, then headed back up to the road to explore the bars.
Karen went back to the hotel. Troy and I wandered the streets, looking at stores, until we came across a street that looked much like Kho San road in Bangkok. It was basically a street lined entirely with bars. We set off exploring. We passed an Aussie bar that was, ironically, playing "I come from the land down under". We stopped in. Troy ordered us a traditional Aussie beer and we sat and people watched. The amount of old, white, fat western men hitting on beautiful young Thai girls was shocking. Worse, the girls seemed to like the attention! They wore revealing clothing, enormous heels, and tons of dangling jewelry. We watched the crowd, amused, and told stories about home (both America and Aussieland) until we decided to keep moving.
We found an area that looked like a huge warehouse filled with small bars. We decided to explore. Women were everywhere, dressed revealingly, dancing slowly and chatting with eachother happily. We realized that each tiny bar had at least three or more girls representing it. As we walked through the main aisle, I felt hands grabbing me all over and talking to me in broken English. Startled, I looked to find about six girls, each pulling on an arm, part of a shirt, hand, or my side, trying to convince me to come to their bar. Embarrassed I pulled away and caught back up with Troy, who was unaware of my recent assault. I had just started walking again when a new set of girls latched on, grabbing my hands and arms and begging me to come to their bars. I looked up and noticed, shocked, that none of the girls had attacked Troy...they went straight for me! It was slightly bizzare. I would have assumed the girls would have wanted the man. Troy realized what had happened and laughed at me. We stopped at a bar that looked clean and ordered some drinks. A girl who spoke perfect English chatted with us. She wasn't dressed quite like the others; she had more clothing but still looked sexy, and she flirted with Troy and talked excitedly to me for quite some time. All around us at different bars girls would jump up on the bar and dance on a pole. Creepy western men would watch while gulping beer and pointing. Every once in awhile they would invite a girl over, who would excitedly prance her way over to the man's lap and plant herself there for the rest of the evening.
After awhile I'd had too much of the whole scene, so Troy and I headed back to the hotel. We made arrangements to meet the next morning for breakfast and to look for a nicer, cheaper hotel.
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