Beaches, Rain, and A Lesson Learned


So this past Saturday it was pouring rain. When I say pouring, I mean the pool overflowed, little ponds formed out on the walkway to the lobby, and you couldn't even see across the street. Needless to say we didn't go anywhere that day. Our day consisted of eating breakfast at the buffet in our hotel, grabbing a few Chang beers, and playing rummy in our hotel room all day.


The rain finally stopped later in the evening and R and I headed out to grab some dinner. My girlfriend could predict what I will get every time we go out for Thai food. So this night, I kept to that prediction and got some Pad Thai. I must say I was slightly disappointed. I think that because it took about half an hour to get our food, it didn't seem as good. The place was in a cool setting though outside next to the busy road running through the center of Patong Beach. Since it rained like crazy that day, the temperature was nice and manageable. By that I mean it was probably still 85-90 degrees but with relatively low humidity.

After dinner we finally managed to make it out to Bangla Road which at night gets shut down so no traffic can cruise through. The street is lined with bars and clubs. There are also streets that offshoot from the main road that are also lined with bars. The street is packed with people and vendors. R and I hopped around for a few rounds and really just enjoyed the scenery. For some reason or another, the locals here are really proud of the “lady boys” in Patong Beach. Our taxi driver when we arrived in Phuket had told us about the “lady boys” and various shows we could catch with them. Anyhow, the “lady boys” were quite interesting to see.

Sunday was a lazy day lounging at the beach and enjoying the sun. We weren't exactly energetic so after catching some food at an “Irish Pub” we cruised home and watched a movie before crashing out. Monday morning we spent a few hours in the lobby catching free internet and skyping with our girlfriends (miss you A!). We then headed out to McDonald's for a taste of home. Man, those were some amazing fries! The Big Mac wasn't bad either.



This is the part my girlfriend won't really like reading (sorry A). We passed a few scooter rental places and randomly decided to go ahead and rent one for a day. We headed out to find some “better beaches” that we were told about by some other tourists at the beach the previous day. After an hour out and an hour backtracking, we arrived at Karon Beach. Walking up to the water, we could see that the water was much more blue and the scenery was a little bit prettier. That is until we got right up to the waterfront and saw more trash than that at Santa Monica beach! There was trash laying around everywhere as if there was an all night party the night before. We took a picture or two and headed back towards Patong Beach.



Around one of the turns on the way back we spotted cones in the middle of the road and police officers slowing traffic down... Great, a police checkpoint! An officer directed us to the side of the road where he asked R and I for our drivers licenses. This is about the time when we both realized that our wallets were back in the hotel's safety deposit boxes. So he wrote something on two pieces of paper and handed them to us pointing to a booth on the side of the road. There were tourist-looking folks all around.Many of the tourists were arguing and cursing at the two officers in the booth. R and I just laughed and took pictures holding our tickets. We knew we weren't going to get out of it by yelling and putting up a big fuss so why not laugh about it and move on? After paying 500 Baht each for driving without a license, we were back on our way.





We ended up back in our hotel room watching some TV and laughing about the day's follies. Now it's time for cheap food (since we are now both down 500 Baht) and maybe some lounging by the pool. The lesson: don't leave your hotel room without your wallet and driver's license when renting scooters! Lesson learned.

Oh, and for my girlfriend- I was wearing a helmet and there was essentially no traffic around :)