My definition of packing “light” tends to be interpreted as packing innumerable non-heavy items and multiple head wear to add versatility to any and all of my colour themed outfits. Our week long trip to Thailand in October was no exception. This strategy does not exactly save on luggage space but to lighten my checked allowance and leave room for shopping, I was wearing every item of jewellery on my person, my black bandana doo-rag which I rationalised could double as an eye mask (should budget Strategic Air not provide this for the comfort of travellers) and my comparatively ‘less-light’ black leather jacket; possibly influenced by late night packing-procrastination bad-ass crime TV watching. This outfit saw my resembling a cast member from ‘Sons of Anarchy’ rather than a Thai holiday-maker.. or so I thought until realising I had unwittingly assimilated with much of our Strategic Air passengers namely Bikies, bogans and people who buy cheap surgery packages on Scoopon…… and I was all but one tattoo sleeve short of an Ed Hardy Commercial. Flight. Yes the flight was uneventful. I was pre-occupied reassuring myself that just because I had never heard of an airline didn’t mean they weren’t legitimate.. and other confusing double negative ideas. Like the fact they didn’t not wear uniforms and see they even published their own limited-scope magazine! But more so the unnerving result of the at least 4 pre-flight security screening checks and body searches whereby at the end of the line there still remained a box full of cigarette lighters and matches being confiscated…the chick next to me considering that somehow putting these items in your zip lock plastic bag with your aerosol deodorant somehow renders them non-flammable?!!! Two movies, two ‘Suits’ episodes and a ‘Gossip Girl later’, after 9 hours it seems hell hath no fury as a bunch of Queenslanders kept from those confiscated cigarettes and tensions in the hot humid Phuket airport were high…perhaps ‘Anarchy’ even ensued in no-shoes… but we did our best not to hang around to find out.. until all of these people or the hundreds like them turned up at our swim up pool bar for 5 o’clock happy hour..
The realisation that our Beach Resort accommodation wasn’t exactly the idyllic deserted location we anticipated did in fact serve us well in instigating the unexpected yet action packed itinerary that followed; if only to escape the haze of cigarette smoke emanating from the poolside deckchairs reserved with presumptuously positioned hotel towels by 7am each day. Staying on the peninsula meant that a daily trip through Patong was inevitable if you wanted to go anywhere. Armed with all you can eat breakfast buffet inclusions; these choices often not repeated more than once during the trip… (Singapore noodles, omelette and jam pancake combination anyone? followed by inevitable regret) we set out many a day and night to explore just what Phuket had to offer.. a short tuk-tuk or taxi with variety of decked out disco lighting stereo options was all it took to find ourselves in the midst of the tiffany-trinket-thai-massage-tourist-mecca town of Patong. It was here we would witness many a tourist experimenting with at least 3 different ways of contracting hepatitis from the fish tank foot spas, omnipresent tattoo parlours.. and pay by the hour hotels.. perhaps they were just using the pool?
Sometimes misguided night time exploits saw us experience a wide ranging entertainment options from Lady-Boy featuring ‘lady gaga’ Cabaret to the slightly less salubrious girly bars and seedy establishments located around the central hub of Bangla road. Unfortunately we would find that “tiger bar” an enormous fibreglass monstrosity resembling some kind of macabre jungle inspired magic cave was not yet open but we managed to drown our sorrows to this end and empty our pockets at the lesser known “snake bar” complete with slightly smaller jungle montage, hostesses, connect four challenges, tequila shots, pole dancing and the introduction to a new and sure to be lifelong friend dressed in green felt; Jackie. In case you are wondering, Jackie is a gender-non-specific board game. I took him home that night. I’ll introduce you sometime… I think you’d get along!
Perhaps in protest to Pad-Thai overindulgence and being burnt one too many times by a “medium’ curry (one of my own making)….or contributed to by the overwhelmingly disappointing realisation that the live ping-pong show was never going to live up to my childhood expectations from early memories of the movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert… (specifically; velocity, amplitude and general/any appeal….was that a budgie?! lacking)… poor judgement lead to one particularly regrettable post-show late night meal at Bushranger’s Aussie bar (I recall we agreed we would never have stepped foot in there during the cold light of day) ….inhaling a hamburger which came with no cheese or mayo or sauce which was just un-Australian.. which Patong, by definition, is not.
If the Aussies on Flight Centre promo-priced packages stay at our Merlin Beach Resort; identified by glad-wrap over their newly designed dragon-hand-grenade-elephant-indecipherable-thai-script tattoos.. swimming being the second poor decision they had made that day….. there was a definite cultural segregation as to who was from and stayed where. The Europeans in their brief briefs bathing suits posing by palm trees in photo shoots of their own invention- I’m told chose the resort Mövenpick… perhaps it didn’t occur to me lest I end up booking into a swiss icecream shop due to a mistaken Tripadvisor recommendation.. and I’m not sure where the travel agents in Asia preferentially booked their clientel but their pre-tour checklist must have included specific instruction around life-jackets and snorkels to be worn at all times notwithstanding if you are actually in water or not. Maybe it was something to do with their insurance… or on good authority that there was unlikely to be enough PFDs and well fitted equipment on the boat for everyone.. (Note to self- attempting to count the number of PFDs on the boat is not such a good travel sick remedy ;)) And the Americans were probably in Cancun. But like one big multi-cultural-amateur-photo-shoot-flipper-and glad-wrap- wearing-family we all came together on the hotel pick up mini-vans and then speed boats that transported us on our island day tours with the thousands of other people doing Phi Phi and James Bond which we can now cross off the bucket list. They weren’t that bad. Just busy ;)
Maybe it is less entertaining and probably less easy to write about the truly beautiful things that Phuket had to offer in our short stay. But if I am to capture these albeit briefly as the night is wearing on… I can honestly say the thai people we met are some of the most genuinely hard working and gentle folk… (except for my masseuse on day 3; knees and elbows in the back contorting me into extreme gymnastic back cracking manoeuvres.. only slightly more scary than an actual trained chiropractor) but there I go again. From the guy who took us out on his wooden long boat to the white sand clear water of Freedom Beach and waited for us for 2 or 3 hours… to the elderly man who made me a banana nutella pancake at 1am for 30 baht, the giggling gossiping girls at the foot spa, to the more than you know number of youthful complexioned 30 or 40 something year old thai women who out of necessity many having left their children in the care of friends or relatives in Chang-Mai to work in tourist service jobs in Phuket… the smiles and catchphrases of “gudai mayte..wheereu from?!” of the cheeky male sales assistants belying the complexity of a simplistic island lifestyle reliant on the whimsical travel indulgences of the more fortunate to survive…. Or maybe I am just justifying my second jimmy choo handbag ;)
Our trip started with a gorgeous beachside wedding dancing under a lantern lit canopy of palm trees while downing exotic mojito, fruit filled and gin fizzer cocktails …. the relatively inflated percentage of sugar to alcohol ratio surely having saved me a killer hangover. Basking in the light buzz of a Bacardi blanket and more-so the giddy feeling of gasoline inhalation, we lit and sent paper lanterns into the night as an optimistic gesture of love and life and at the very least hope of a blast of a holiday ;) and I think it worked. If a jungle ‘safari’; all 30 minutes or so, culminating in wrestling pineapple from an elephant’s trunk and congratulating ourselves on not contracting any transmissible diseases owing to tropical strength repellent and suitably attired harem pants seemed an adventurous end to our trip… it wasn’t really… more daring probably was gambling the rest of the vodka on a game of jackpot in the hotel lobby…. But both of which were nothing in comparison to the risk to your life you take flying coach on Strategic Air with the calibre of Aussie I mention above.. no more apparent than when the captain reports over the intercom “we are re-starting all electronic equipment due to a safety breach. There has been smoking on the plane” has you wondering how long you can survive in free-fall without an engine….. and musing over the irony that you once watched that movie about the Marlboro Man “Thank You For Smoking” while on a plane out of Singapore. And survived. Or is that just a coincidence.? Indeed.
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