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Published: August 11th 2006
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Another sunny day and it is time to inspect one of the famous Phuket beaches. Since neither of us has any idea where would be most interesting to go we decide more or less on random to choose Patong Beach and find a songthaew to take us there. The countryside road continues out of Phuket town into the hills and starts to slither up a hillside overlooking a valley below, and it reminds me that Phuket island is more than just a conglomerate of beach resorts. The tranquil midday heat is soon overcome by the noise and chaos of traffic and crowds of tourists along the Patong beach road, we've arrived in the middle of it alright. The place is like a gigantic ant colony, the streets lined with shops stacked on top of each other, desperately competing for your attention. The road is a constant trickle of cars, taxis, songthaews and motorbikes. The pavements are filled with the sounds of a number of foreign languages. Crossing over to the beach side there are loads of beach chairs occupied by heavy farang men, their ginger brown bodies glistening of various oils and there tiny leopard tangas barely covering the essentials. The
sea is full of swimmers herded to the shores by jetskiers and boats, but Kay is not very impressed by the black marks left in the sand from the dirty water. We have our lunch at an Italian restaurant which sadly does not try very hard to make a good impression on us.
In the afternoon I notice that my toe has started bleeding a bit again. I nearly sliced off a small chunk of the tip earlier this morning when I failed to make the necessary calculation to bring my foot over the 5 centimeter threshold in the bathroom, hitting the edge dead on with a painful result. Kay goes to find a pharmacy while I sit down waiting on the pavement outside a bungalow in a resort compound. I haven't been seated for very long until a door opens behind me and a young Thai woman scurries outside and past me. Not very long afterwards a limping old man in small shorts comes outside and leans on my shoulder while asking me to leave. The whole experience borders on the bizarre. As Kay returns we return to the city side of the beach road wandering around among
the smaller streets, where the big restaurants and bars are slowly starting to prepare for this night's battle. There's not a whole lot more to see here really and we go back to the beach road and find a bus stop where backpackers are waiting for a bus back to town and decide to join them.
Back in our part of Phuket town we decide to pick up some food from the local market, spending the remainder of the afternoon getting lost in the small and peaceful streets and alleyways of the local neighbourhood. We return to the hotel with chicken, fruits and those dreaded chicken feet.
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