The other side of Thailand
Trip Start
Jul 15, 2007
1
120
195
Trip End
Jul 16, 2008
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Patong,
Thailand
Thursday, February 21, 2008
One of the places on the trip that we most want to come back to is Thailand, largely because we like what we've seen very much, and we feel like we haven't seen a lot, since we've mostly been vegetating at the Marriott in the remote northwest of Phuket island.
Today we went to Patong, the main tourist destination on the west coast of Phuket. This is not one of the places in Thailand to which we're eager to return. Patong Beach is like a combination of Wildwood New Jersey, Canal Street in New Orleans, and Cancun. There is a nice mall (Jung Ceylon), an unspeakably crowded beach, and countless bars, open-air restaurants and tiny tailor shops.
Plus several mega-strip clubs. Thailand has long been known as a sex-tourist destination, but that does not mean that I am interested in observing it. Our kids were oblivious to the implications of young brown women with middle-aged (or just plain old) sunburned, badly-dressed white men, but Amy and I were not. Even though we were there during the day and the adult-oriented bars weren't even open yet, it was just not a wholesome scene to observe.
