Patong, part 1

Friends of mine had been to Patong before, so I had a rough idea what kind of place it was we were heading for. I was on my last pair of everything regarding clothes, if I did not get laundry done soon it would be time to turn the underwear inside out. The hotel looked ok from the outside, but was a little weird inside to be honest. No internet in the rooms, only wireless in the lobby, that's probably the worst hotel so far regarding that.

Laundry places were plentiful and after a few minutes I had found a place that would wash and dry my stuff overnight, but the woman warned me it would be very expensive, 2.2kg at 90 baht per kilo. The hotel charged 80 baht per piece of clothe they would clean, so I would gladly pay her to fix my stuff.
Patong itself is located on the West side of Thailand, facing the Andaman sea, which again then is part of the Indian Ocean. Maybe the name sounds familiar since it was one of the places hit really hard by the big Christmas tsunami in 2004. Now there are plenty of signs that points to evacuation spots in case of a tsunami, not sure they were there before 2004. I was looking at a tourist book about Patong, and it said that this was one of the best party spots in South East Asia today. Hmmm, I will have to check that out a little more I guess, haha
There is a huge concentration of Scandinavian bars and restaurants in the area, mixed in between with the many local spots. This city being on the waterfront, offers an abundant selection of really fresh seafood displayed in front of most restaurants. When I ordered, I was sent to the front to pick my own pieces of food. I got to pick the living spiny lobster, king prawn (25cm shrimp), rock lobster, fish and other seafood stuff. It was then given to the chef who would prepare it. And it was goooood and cheap, must have been my good choices
Watching the sun set on the ocean from a sea side restaurant, sounds good, doesn't it? Unfortunately it seemed to rain every evening, so warm during the day and at night the weather system just has had enough and initiates a little shower to clean the air. South East Asian rain shower that is. The sky opens up and pours water like crazy accompanied with thunder and lightning. Not too comforting, but it does not last long and really does clean the air and lowers the temperature.
That's good, because the dark also signals the beginning of Patongs other offering, the night life. There are bars spread all over the town close to the beach and then there is of course Bangla road, one long road with very interesting and entertainment bars on both sides.

Bar prices are cheap and the competition for the tourists is tough, girls throw themselves at guys luring them into their bars. There are girls dancing on the bar desks, others sitting around ready to chat and play games with you for drinks, which they almost never lose. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, there are also plenty of side streets where things take a little bit different shape, there is a lot of sex tourism in Thailand and Patong is one of the places that rank high on any statistic regarding sex tourism. On the streets there are plenty of people handing out pamphlets for their places offering a little different experiences than what you can get at the local Irish pub.
For some reason, Thailand has a huge concentration of guys who wants to be girls. The first group dresses up like girls, transvestites. The next group will take hormones to stop male hormone production and instead start producing female ones. On top of that maybe have silicone boobs made and the Adams apple removed. These are called lady-boys, can be very beautiful and almost not possible to tell apart from real girls. A big group actually does the actual sex gender change as well, then it becomes very hard to say what is what.
I will stick to the party part of what Patong has too offer, talk and looking is still allowed. Looks like that is a full-time job anyway, haha
I still have room for color on my body and there seems to be enough sun to share among everyone on the beach. I don't have to go far for a beer on the beach either, within seconds of looking at a woman selling beers, she will be next to me with the beer of my choice. Nice!
Hyunju chose to stay a little longer in Patong, maybe not the worst city of them all. It feels good to party a little again after having traveled for so long, just hopping from place to place.