I finally made it to Thailand!
In early November, I took a long weekend to meet up with some friends in Phuket, Thailand. Although this is posted in the ‘travel’ category, I would not consider my weekend anything other than a vacation. We walked around a bit, but mostly just ate and hung out on the beach…life can be rough sometimes!
There were a few things about the island that I found particularly amusing. I had read a lot about the sex tourism in Thailand, but wanted to get a sense of what it looked like, and what it was all about.
Just shy of an hour after I met up with my buddies, I was able to witness the craziness first hand. I did not bother to read about where I was going since I was meeting friends and assumed they had done their research. After the second day, I checked out our location on wikitravel, and this is the description I found:
Patong is the party capital of Asia, with a world famous nightlife and a great beach. Mostly made up of hotels, world class restaurants, nightclubs and various tourist attractions, this is a hedonists heaven of nightlife, with numerous entertainment complexes and countless bars clustered together in and around Bangla Road and the beach road. The town has a very obvious female, transgender and male sex industry to cater to every taste, however to only view it as this is a mistake, it offers so much more, for families and couples too (wikitravel).
Although I am not the craziest person, I did try to explore the more intense parts of the city. I could go on about my observations about sex tourism, losing a game of connect four to a lady boy (what?), and the general feel of being a white guy walking the streets alone in Patong, but I’ll save it for a later post! I learned a lot about the situation the following three weeks, and I’ll probably include comments in my Bangkok post…keep checking!
Anyway, aside from the food, beach, and nightlife madness, I was able to get in a day of diving! While not the best underwater experience, I had a great time. Fortunately for me, I am new enough to the diving scene to have a good time even when it is not great. I have discovered that many of the older divers I know get a bit snobbish when it comes to diving, and some even refuse to go if it is not ‘as good or better than such and such place’.
My decision to dive was a very last minute one. My friends were leaving, and I had a full day to myself. When contemplating what to do, I discovered that my Korean-owned guesthouse had an affiliation with a dive master, and their prices were excellent. I thought for about two seconds, and signed up for some Sunday dives.
My dive master was a sweet man, but at times I was frustrated because there was a serious language barrier. I had lots of questions, but quickly realized he did not understand what I was asking. Oh, and when I say language barrier, I am not talking about Thai or Korean, but rather, Japanese. In our globalized world, I ended up getting hooked up with a Japanese dive master, while staying in a Korean-owned guesthouse in Thailand. Sweet.
I enjoyed my time in the water, my naps in the sun, and some interesting conversations I had with the others on the boat….sure was hard to go back to work!
