Phuket or fuck-it?
Trip Start
May 18, 2008
1
6
18
Trip End
Jun 16, 2008
Phuket,
Thailand
Sunday, May 25, 2008
friday/sat/sun: pukhet
i must say, pukhet is not my favorite place. first, i catch airport security in cahoots with the taxi company lying to me about who is running the public bus. EP wanted direct to patong beach - makes sense - so we take the shady taxi company which makes a pit stop at...surprise surprise...a travel agency. b/c we don't book any overpriced, uninteresting tours, they drop us off at a random location and direct us towards a canal and dead end. the people on the street are ALSO in cahoots with this taxi company and direct us in the same wrong direction! the beaches all have garbage, whether on the shoreline or in the water.
my time in pukhet was punctuated by a few great incidents however:
- the mutual love that blossomed between the gay hotel owners of EP's hostel and myself. they take pity on me and give me a shared bunk room all to myself for cheap
- i befriend a man named chip, a lawyer for an oil company getting his diving license. he buys EP & I dinner.
- get first solid night sleep since arriving
- continue my obsession with public transportation (which has its origins in the ny subway system) by taking the public open air bus to a beach. this beach is probably 10 min away by taxi and 2 hours away by bus, thanks to the mafia who limit the bus service.
- on this bus, i meet a belgian man searching in pukhet town for "teeth whiteners." bizarre, but he offered protection while i searched for my connecting bus. a nice thai woman who works for thai vogue or something like that took me under her wing and found me a beach chair on kata beach
- next to me on this beach are 4 old canadian oil dudes who buy me sustenance...aka beer & water...
- get to see asian fetish dating IN ACTION at the local mall. these people clearly don't understand a word each other is saying. the girl is just going, YAH? YAH??? [giggle]
- get over my paranoia about dying in a motorbike crash...(in tribute to a friend, EH who passed away many years ago in an accident) and drive with EP to laem singh beach.
- decide "phuk-et" to vietnam, i'm going to papua new guinea. what?!?
our return to bangkok included....sex show!! v. impressed with the ladies who can do "pingpong pussy," darts, smoking cigarettes!! i am happy. get scammed by 2nd sex show and i get into bitch fight with crazy thai madam. she backs down from 2800 bhat to 600 bhat, but i storm out anyway and forget my beer! am not happy. i get completely attacked on the male sex show street, asians really don't have a good sense of personal space. i end up yelling, "don't touch me! get out of my face!!" - good thing i have tons of practice doing that from partying at home. :)
