A few days in Patong

When the airplane landed in Phuket, it was pouring rain. Lightning and thunders lit up the sky and my ears, wow it was loud. I managed to get through the horde of taxi drivers standing by the arrival gates wanting to snatch my bags and give me a "cheap" ride to my destination wherever that was. Just past the guys, there was a couple of stands selling tickets to a mini-bus service that starts driving when the mini bus is full. Unfortunately I had been waiting a long time on my luggage, so when I finally came out there were only 4 of us who wanted to go.

We had to sit and wait until the next airplanes would land and eventually fill up the airplane. 4 more people showed up and everyone sighed in relief sine we had already been waiting for 30 minutes. But no, the driver still wanted to wait for an extra passenger. 15 minutes later even the driver got impatient and he jumped into the car and off we went.
I arrived in Patong at the old place I had stayed a couple of times before. The owner "New" was so happy to see me back. I had been given a bigger room for the same price as I was the only guest. Her husband was in Australia to see to his son who was getting married, so she had stayed back to take care of the place.
I unpacked my stuff, took a shower and ventured out into the night to see if I could find some familiar faces. To my big surprise, a lot of places were not there anymore, businesses had changed names or locations. Even the big Tiger bar complex had been closed due to a fire earlier that year - lightning had struck the place, at the same time as the owners new Tiger bar complex on the other side of the street was suffering from no customers. Yeah, right a lightning did that, very convenient...
Oh well, nobody I know here now, I thought, I might just hang around Patong for a while and then decide where to go next.
Found some good Thai food to eat and went back to the guesthouse. I had a friend coming to see me that night and so had some time to prepare for the arrival party. Fill up the fridge with water, beer and other necessities after a long flight.
Just after midnight there was a knock on the door, Thomas had arrived and we could finally have a beer together again in the same place as 12 months earlier.
To work a little on his jet-lag, a couple of drinks were needed and since the fridge wasn't that big, it soon became clear we had to take the long walk down to the party street, Bangla Rd. Oh well, hard life indeed. It was quite late before we gave up that night, but we both felt we had given ourselves 100%
Next morning it was with a little bit of hangover that we went to the beach to relax a little. Felt like we had been here yesterday and not 1 year ago.
We found a place very close to the guesthouse where Rambo served fried noodle dishes for 60 baht, which is around $2. For that you get a´decent sized portion with any meat and banana, melon and pineapple fruits for dessert. Can't really beat that.
After lunch we dragged ourselves over the road to the beach, where we could rest a couple of hours, while having a few beers served directly there in the sand. Nice.
After cooking on the beach it was very important to stay hydrated, so last time we had been here we developed this good habit of getting a Piña Colada on the way back to the guesthouse. We had gotten to know some bartender that would keep waiting for us and when they saw us coming up from the beachthey would already start mixing the drinks for us. That is service!
But apparently the people in the bar had been swapped out, all but one. She actually remembered us, so we laughed a little at that. Kind of an empty feeling when everything looks familiar, but none of the people we used to know, was there anymore.
We chose another bar as our "base" the next couple of days, we found one just opposite of the ladyboy bar area, where they were entertaining an entire city every night. It was interesting enough to see new tourists stopping there to see if they could tell the girls apart from the guys, seeing a ladyboy for the first time in their life.
Went to check out a lot of different bars and shows, saw a lot of things I could have been without. I thought I could not be impressed or surprised, but oh boy was I wrong, haha. We had a good time, but still it felt a little like something was missing. We knew all this, but we didn't see any familiar faces anywhere, a little disappointing.
One night when we were walking through some of the many bars in the new Tiger establishment, girls pulling you from left and right trying to get customers to their bar. At some point one of the girls dancing on the bar pulls my shirt, I got a little annoyed that now they had girls on the floor and the tables pulling me around. I looked up and was very surprised to see a familiar face. There was Tiki on the bar, I looked around and suddenly recognized everyone in the bar - and they too remembered both Thomas and I from earlier. Thomas got so excited that he bought an entire bottle of rum for us. At least that is how I remember it...?
Over the next couple of days, we spent quiet a few nights here, it is always nice to be around familiar friends and familiar faces. But even Bangla gets too much sometimes and we had been scouting for another smaller place where we could be safe. Turned out that one of the closest bars to our guesthouse had the cheapest beer we had seen in Patong, so we gave that a shot. Bar 8 was the name. A narrow permanently covered area with a small bar on one side, nothing special.
For some reason it seemed like it attracted a little bit more mature crowd that us, but there were so many interesting people passing by this place that it was an experience in itself. The girls working there were quite funny and friendly. They often bought fruits and food from the street and shared it with us to let us taste some different things. I mean, it is not difficult to buy these things ourselves, but knowing how to eat them and so on, often makes the experience better. Got to know a lot of local fruits here, like the one on the right, which looks like orangutan balls, but is in fact called something similar, rambutan. Crack them open and inside is a big ball with a stone inside. Easy to eat once it is open.
There are a lot of temporary restaurants around Patong, that come out at night setting up their kitchen and eating area. They have a little bit cheaper prices as they don't have any expenses with running an actual restaurant in terms of rent etc. We figured we would try one of the more established restaurants, because they must surely have better quality than the temporary ones, that's why they are still in business, right?
You basically pick your own food from a display of fish, squids, shellfish and mussels, everything you want is there. Thomas did the picking, they did the cooking, but to be honest, the food we had been served at one of the other places, was 10 times better. No more experimenting!
Over the next couple of days, it was more beach, more Piña Coladas, more great food, more Bangla, more Bar 8 and a lot more hangovers. Thomas got his big wish fulfilled when he got to perform at Bangla himself, joggling limes among half naked girls.
'Being a little tipsy, the funniest things was probably seeing him run around with the ass in the air, trying to catch those rolling limes.
Vacation times don't last forever, and it was time for Thomas to leave again. This had been the 2nd annual ThankGivings gathering in Patong, now already a habit we are unable to stop.
Goodbye Tiger Beers, Bangla, SangSom Rum, see you next year