96 Hours In

Okay, so back to the ongoing story. Crossing from Malaysia into Thailand was fairly simple, get out, get stamped, drive 50 meters, get out, get stamped, back on the road. My first impression of Thailand was not so great, driving from the border to Hat Yai the landscape was more of the same. Mosques & Trees & Roadside shops. The only real noticable difference was the written language on the signs. As usual, we arrived in Hat Yai only to be ushered into another travel agency. As we were buying our tickets, I turned around to see a man walking a baby elephant asking anyone who would listen if they wanted to "feed the elephant" He was holding huge bag of peanuts..... Next came the overpriced super-sketchy bus to Phuket. We got on the minibus for the 6 hour ride thinking it would be no problem. At first it wasnt. Then we stopped in the middle of the night at some crossroads and were usherded onto a different minibus while some of th eother passengers continued with the original bus. Certain death of course. It was at least still comfortable on the way to my doom until the driver picked up five drunk kids who were practically sitting on top of me reeking of smoke and booze. Mmmm. Finally after what seemed much longer than six hours we arrived to meet pickup driver to take us to Patong or Kata Beaches. Unfortunatly Matt and I both hadn't eaten since breakfast around 9:00 AM and it was closing in on 1:00 AM. As soon as we got off the bus Matt stormed off in another fit, this time for food. While the driver and rest of the tired passengers stared and waited for us/him. A descion was made, they left and after more lameness, we found a hotel and I passed out while he went to get some noodles.

Day 2/3 in Thailand.

As soon as we woke it was off to another guesthouse.
This one much nicer and we even had three beds! Phuket Town was a fairly mellow place, but really just seemed like every other big town we'd been too. 7-11's galore and just like every other country wed been to tons of energy drinks. Those in the picture are just a handful of the liqiud speed. After two days of boredom and drinking on the streets, we finally hit the beach. Altough we did go to a bar with a killer cover band, that even played a Jewish tune, signifying we were out of Allahs grasp. We got a really nice place in the Tsunami ravaged area of the island. TV.AC.Pool.Hot Shower. Really cheap and next the beach. Even though we wanted a different beach our driver took us there. They get comission for bringing folks, you get real used to that scam!
The first day was spent beach side and wandering up and down the strip looking for decent food. The main strip of Karon Beach is obviously still recovering. Every where you go the smell and sounds of construction linger. Many building fronts are brand new and even more are badly damaged. The island of Phuket was hit pretty bad. Unfortunatly due to this everything was marked up, and rightfully so. The place was deserted, and there were still tons of shops and resertaunts open. All trying hard for those few baht around. Of course Patong beach is another story.

Five Hours In Patong

Which is where we decided to take a truck to later that night. Hit hard as well Patong seems to have more of the money (read = package tourists or old white dudes looking for teen-lovin') so things were already back to normal. You could even buy DVD of Tsunami footage. The place was packed with package tourist families and dirty old men looking for young girls and boys. As we walked up and down it was strange to see the tourists and their children mingling with the prostitutes and the men oogglling them. Of course there were very few children where we ventured. The guidebook said " Patong is place you dont want to take your children after dark" or something to that effect. Thats an understatement. Nothing could prepare us for the barage of alcohol fueled debauchery we witnessed. Its amazing how you can be amazed, turned on,intrigued, and complelety disgusted with yourself, the world and all those surrounding you at the same time. Or is it ? Just in order to cope with the chaos we had to have two beers. As we walked up the main road staring at the madness ensuing down the 15 or so Soi's (read= alley of go-go bars) we finally ventured down one of the milder ones. Of course we were still acousted by just about every girls on the alley. "Come drink Mister" "You want Boom-Boom ?" Hey handsome", "I love you" and other one liners which so easily dupe even the most uncorruptable of souls. After walking down the mellow one we decide to get one more beer and make our way to the main Soi. You know the one with lady-boys dancing on pole at the entrance. One thing must be said, drinks at Go-Go bars are not cheap. You pay for the company, which in most cases you want nothing to do with. Which makes the fact that you can walk around with drinks key, you walk in to the 7-11 buy a beer at 1/3 of the price of any bar and keep mingling. Of course while your mingling on the main road at safe distance form the bars, you are accousted by aggressive guys in hats grabing your arm or shirt wanting to take you to "Ping Pong Show". But wait theres more. Besides Ping-pong, at this magical show there will be: Darts, Ballons, Smoking Cigarettes, Razors, Motorcylces, Mirrors and Even Letter writing. And im quite sure I missed some other amazing things women can do without any of their appendages. All for free. Of course anything in Thailand that is free isnt.

Okay so we diecide to walk in to the main Soi, preparing ourselves for the rampant grabbing and flirting. We made it to the end only to find what we had really been looking for all along. Lurking in the midst of electro-pop and Thai ballads were the soothing sounds of Bob Marley's "Catch a Fire" eminating from the "Reggae Bar". Heaven in the midst of hell.
The place is full of Thai Rastas, if their is such a thing, and they all give me the obligatory Black Panther style fist to the heart hand gesture, which is mandatory amongst people who think their "Rastas" becasue they have dreadlocks and smoke. We buy a beer. Only one thing missing from a group of dreadies. Ganja. After the first beer, we slowly gather the courage to ask. Of course after much deliberation and me telling my Thai twin in the picture how great it is in California, he says its better here and gives us the most expensive, worst looking,
and least amount of ganja i've ever bought. But, hey that part of the fun ehhh ? They then proceed to tell us we cant smoke at the bar we'd better go back to our room. But we have to walk through the pits of hell before retuning to our smoker frienldy air-coned, cable T.V. having sanctuary. On our way out we decide to have one beer and observe the madeness up close. .To our suprise we arent bothered at all by the throngs of girls. In fact we have to walk to the bar to get our beer and pay our bill. We must look as cheap as we really are. Or it could be my beard and Matts "Dirty Sanchez" look he has grown into. As we our sitting in the heart of this maddness an announcer is shouting in Thai every 15 minutes numbers for all sorts of prizes. As soon as he speaks the girls all drop what or who their doing and check their tickets. After one of these I notice a bunch of girls bothering an middle aged man to get up on the pole next to us. He eventually does, but somethimng else catches my eye. The hundred or more eggs I notice an older lady putting on 8 plates. Next thing I know the announcer is right next to me, and four really, really drunk guys are hovering over plates of hard boiled eggs. All the girls swarm around laughing and taking pictures, spilling their drinks on me and even stepping in front of me to get a better view. Needless to say the next few minutes were utterly disgusting, as the man who was dancing on the pole earlier won both the pilimanary and the finals. To show how macho he was he even ate the other guys unfinished eggs. With eggs in his mustache and allover his face and shirt, he jumped up proclaming his victory as "Hugo the Egg Eating Whore Conquering German (Or Texan I havent decided)". Not really, but definelty more so the less. He was pretty darm happy like he had just won the World Series and was about to say "Im going to Dinsneyland". Of course he wasnt, the fat drunken bastartd was usherds out to get his prized, which he probably ended up blowing at the bar or on some 18 year old anyway. Whew.. .. So as you can imagine we had to leave, it was still early and if thats the kinda shit that happens around 12:30, i dont want to know what goes on at 2:00. After a fruitless mission to find a cheap way home, we paid our cash and returned to our room and stared at the T.V through a smokey haze. It wasnt that bad, but as usual we had 96 channels and there still wasn't shit to watch.

Up next: The Islands, Better Ganja, More Tsunami Stories and Matts Late Night Encounter with "Katuay". Until then - Z