Alas i get ahead of myself, so we venture out early in the morning deciding that being reasonably young fit and able ( by fit and able in retrospect perhaps have the use of both legs would of been more accurate) we'd brush the dozen or so offers in the first two minutes of leaving the hotel of taxis and tuc-tucs aside and walk.
Now being :-
a) Male
b) having a great sense of direction
I refuse to ask people when we come to a fork in the road which direction the beach is and reassure Helen with my unerring sense of direction we'll be at the beach in no time after all in the early hours of the morning after our epic journey i had after all glanced at the map for at least 5 seconds.
So walking in a rather tropical and humid atmosphere we walked and walked and walked. Now after walking for about 30 Min's even i started to wonder if my fantastic sense of direction had got some how messed up in the change of altitudes or time zones or whatever, and begrudgingly admitted maybe we were better walking back to the crossroads and grabbing a tuc-tuc just this once.
So off we headed and fortunately after only five minutes we encountered and pimped out tuc-tuc with alloys, subs and every thing, anyway remembering that all the forums i had read in the run up to the trip, had commented on the Thai's love to barter, i asked him how much 300 Baht he responded ( about $10/£5) anyway after haggling he dropped to 150 Baht, result half price at this point i wondered what else you can haggle on as it turns out, Every where bar the 7/11 and restaurants are up for negotiation.
My mum would love this place, as she remains the only person i can ever recall walking in to a UK dress shop and asking how much discount for a cheque (wtf discount for cheque?) and got it.
Anyway the tuc-tuc dropped us off now literally 2 seconds after being dropped off we were pounced on by all kinds of street vendors, offering every thing you can imagine from Massage's to Chicken on a stick to fake Trainers and Sun glasses and the bleeding tuc tuc drivers asking if you want a tour every few seconds even though they have just seen you turn down 20 of their colleagues in a row so we crossed the road and we started walking down the beach.
Just because its overcast in this photo doesn't mean it wasn't hot bearing in mind it was 10 am and 90 degrees, not bad for a cloudy day. Anyway we walked the entire length of Patong Beach admiring the restaurants and bars actually set on the beach.
It was very quiet and i contribute that to two factors :-
1.) The Clouds
2.) The Time.
Any hows after whiling a couple of hours walking the beach and soaking up the atmosphere of the local stalls on the side streets we bumped into two timeshare sales lads anyway midway through their patter i told them not to waste their time as we were backpackers and by the time we got back to the UK we wouldn't have a pot to pee in,at which point they dropped all the bull and proved to be one of the best points of information that we had found, Recommending places to eat and stay.
So after about 10 minutes chatting we headed off to find the hotel the had recommended and on the way stopped by a Thai Restaurant for a bite to eat, now as the lads had earlier suggested to stay away from the beachfront eating places we went down one of back roads,and low and behold it was a third of the price, for my meal i had Some special Thai chicken fried rice and Helen had cheese Toasties and chips.....that's right cheese toasties and chips we had flown to the other side of the world for her to eat cheese toasties... anyway the entire meal including a beer and a soft drink was £3/$6.
After the meal we carried on back to the hotel browsing all the side stalls, getting harassed every 5 seconds for if we wanted a tuk-tuk,when we got back to the hotel Helen pointed out my bonce was going Strawberry red, to which i laughed dismissively saying there had been no sun so i had nothing to worry about( god i can be so thick some days)
Anyway we chilled in the room had a jacuzzi and got ready for our night on the town.
Now when we ventured out we went to a beautiful restaurant called Saevoy's on the waterfront to say the food was out of this world would to do it a injustice, to be honest i have never been particularly adventurous when i came to food, but i had a real feeling i was gonna enjoy eating in Thailand.
The Start of a heavy night.
As with all the best nights we had figured to have a couple of drinks and slope off to the room nice and early, boy were we mistaken as after the meal we found another beachfront bar with live music on the stage, and one cocktail led to another and another you get the idea.
We aren't tipsy honest.
Don't ask me why i felt the urge to take a photo of the men's room at the bar but to be fair it is the poshest bathroom i have ever seen.
After we had imbibed sufficient alcohol to make us "slightly" inebriated we decided to walk down to Beach at 2am.
At this Point we stumbled back to the room and both passed out promptly, the next morning Helen woke me up at 6:30 am asking me if i was awake? whats with that if i'd of been awake babe i wouldn't of been snoring!
After failing to fall back asleep i left Helen watching My BlueBerry Nights while i had another Jacuzzi, as we were going to try the hotel the Timeshare lads had recommended and as it was considerably cheaper than Bamboo complex had no Jacuzzi.
The C& N Hotel in the hub of everything.
The Room. not bad for £12 a night
After we had sorted out the hotel we ventured back to the beach one thing i should mention i have been fight the Folical fight for some years now,and after losing not just the battles but the war, i decided to shave my head.
Damn big mistake how the hell you can sunburn your bald bonce and neck on a cloudy day is anyones guess but apparently you can.
Sunny day on Patong Beach.
Hiding under a Sun Shade, Dont let the Sun Melt me!
Now the difference between a sunny day and a cloudy day is vast on the beach as your laid there trying to chill, you get disturbed by a vendor trying to sell everything from beer and ice creams, to silk sarongs and fake designer watches.
Every 30 seconds, i shit you not every 30 seconds. One thing is Monday we move to the quieter and more picturesque beaches of Kata.
Well i think thats enough typing for one afternoon and i'll update the rest tomorrow but one thing i will say our second night was so much more eventfull than the first.
So to the next time.
Paul.
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