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Published: February 9th 2009
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We arrive at our hotel - the Patong Inn - which is down the end of an arcade of shops on the beach road and very near the center of Patong Beach. Decide on a quiet first night, but still make it onto Bangla Road (the center of Patongs night scene) where we have a drink in a bar called Porn and see some ladyboys in the street.
The next day we have a lazy day on the beach - and luxury there are sunloungers for rent - unfortunately there are thousands of them - the beach is 2 to 3 miles long and it is packed end to end with sunloungers as far as the eye can see. And the beach umbrellas to go with them, which were donated by a Thai Bank after the tsunami so the beach resembles a vast advertisement board ! And you can buy everything and anything on the beach; massage, jetskis, paragliding, bags, sunglasses, spring rolls (yes we got some for lunch - only 50 baht) wooden elephants, beers..................... I'm sure you get the picture 😉 Quiet night tonight, staying in the U2 bar on Bangla Road.
Rather than the beach again
the next day we decide to take a speed boat tour to the Ao Phangnga National Park. This is a huge area of sea with over 40 limestone islands. As we near the park we start to see the island rock formations stick up out of the water in the morning haze - absolutely fantastic scenery 😊 We can only visit a few, going slowly past Panak Island with huge stalatites hanging down near the waterline from where the sea has eroded the cliff face. Next is Hong Island, with its freestanding rock pinnacles next to the island and hidden bays, beaches and caves. Then onto Tapoo Island, more commonly known as James Bond Island as The Man With The Golden Gun was filmed here. Off the boat we get and walk round to the beach (which now has a backdrop of souvenier stalls) to look at the rock pinnicle that the film made famous - and it does look stunning, sitting about 50m from the beach. We do the posy photo pretending to hold the rock up with our hands - well it had to be done - before bartering for a fridge magnet 😉 Then its back on
the boat and high speed towards Panyee Village for lunch. When suddenly the boat lurches to a halt with the engines still running - a big oops - the captain has misjudged the tides and has run aground on a mud bank! The captain tries reversing off but we are stuck fast so its everyone off the boat into 4 inches of grey muddy silt and squelching the men push the boat round and 50m to the deep water channel 😞. Still we arrive at the village which is built on stilts in the sea. The village is basically about 10 restaurants with 200 seats in each, solely catering for the tourists visiting the area. Even though this was very mass market it was typical thai food and very nice. After lunch its onto our last stop, Khai Island, with beautiful sandy beaches and blue water for a couple of hours sunbathing and swimming. This was a great day out, made even better by our tour guide continually handing out miniature and very tasty jammy dodgers - even bringing some to us on the beach 😊 Tonight we decide to see Elvis - well an Elvis impersonator in the Banana
Bar on the beach road. We get some drinks and see 2 other people arrive and order drinks, but when Elvis comes on they do a runner before thier drinks arrive - he is so dire he makes the village club Elvis seem brilliant 😞 - we quickly get out of there and walk down Bangla Road to Crocodile Soi (better known as trannie alley) find a space at the bar and watch the amateur ladyboys podium dancing. One is so good that people are giving him/her 100 baht notes - well Bill decides to get in on this and walks up only for the ladyboy to undo his zipper and point to his crotch, into which disappears the 100 baht. The ladyboy proffers his cheek for a kiss which Bill does only to find it replaced by lips at the last moment - to much laughter from the crowd. We stay there for some time watching the dancers flashing various bits, people cuddling an iguanna and old men walking by with very young thai girls - must be love in the air - or maybe its the smell of money! Eventually Bill goes to the toilet, which is a
large one used by all the bars at the end of the alley - there are ladies and gents, but the gents is full of ladies, well he should have said ladyboys 😉
The next morning we are both nursing hangovers and a lazy beach day beckons - which Sue starts off by having a foot massage on the beach. Later Bill walks up the beach and gets his first thai massage, the girls very strong. Tonight we watch the first half of the England vs Italy rugby game on a screen in a bar in Bangla Road, before heading off to Trannie Alley again. Big mistake - we got talking to a couple who had come to Phuket so that she could get her boobs enlarged. We stayed up very late and ran up a big bar bill - still it was a great night.
The next day our hangovers are even worse and a very lazy day follows and an early dinner and bed. Tomorrow we are off to the Khao Sok National Park.
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