Grant's Pad: February 2017

Thursday, February 16, 2017

The Clan's China Adventure, Episode 29: Taking on Thailand, Part 2: Beaches, Islands, and Ladyboys

Our first full day in Thailand was an exhausting one, so we got a bit of a late start on Day 2. After breakfast and a nap, we headed to Patong Beach to play in the sand and the water. The water was just the right temperature, and the sand on Patong Beach was very nice - very fine and pleasant to stand in, unlike the beach at our hotel which, while very clear and beautiful, was set on a very rocky lagoon, which makes it not so fun to walk on or lie in.

We were fortunate that the weather forecast showed stormy all week. It didn't rain hardly at all, but we were spared from the fierce sun, yet not entirely - I got pretty badly burned in the few minutes that there was sun.

Thailand Observation #1: Thailand, or at least Phuket, has a LOOOOOOT of foreigners. I am not sure I saw any Thai locals that were not working.

Thailand Observation #2: Thailand is a lot cleaner than I expected it would be. The staff at the beach was really keen on keeping sand out of the bathrooms so you could shower off and go back to Bangla Road sand free, and there was very little trash in the streets despite not being patrolled by armies of cleaning staff like in urban China.

Thailand Observation #3: Thailand is really serious about its royal family. There are images of the late King everywhere, and when you attend a movie or a live show, people stand up at the beginning of the show for the Royal Song and an image of the current King. Kind of neat but kind of surreal at the same time!

That evening, however, we found a better, cheaper way to see the sights and sounds than doing bookings from the hotel. You see, Patong Beach is littered with private tourism companies that will vend tickets and do pickups and dropoffs to basically wherever you need to go. This is pretty key because getting cabs is not the easiest thing in the world to do and I didn't really see any other public transport options!

In any case, our next adventure in Phuket was a visit to the world famous Simon Cabaret, basically a lip sync-and-dance show featuring the famous lady-boys of Thailand:

Photography was not allowed, so you'll have to settle for the advertisement...

For reasons not quite understood by myself, Thailand has this very interesting sub-culture of transsexuals who do a very convincing job of doing their thing. While the show itself was fun, featuring hit songs from major sources of tourists to Thailand such as the U.S., China, India, Japan, and Korea, the after-experience was somewhat terrifying - the lady-boys line up, baiting you to take photos with them and charge per person that was captured in the photo!

For our third day, we decided to head out on the ocean once again, this time on a charter boat to the Koh Khai islands around Phuket. The first stop was to a spot where colorful fish are readily accessible without even really even getting wet!

The second stop was purely a snorkeling stop - Cherry and the kids were pretty tired so they slept onn the boat while I snorkeled. But the last stop was a nice island that the family was able to relax on!

On our last day in Thailand, we spent most of the day in our beautiful resort. The staff was kind enough to let us hang out in the hotel grounds despite checking out at 4PM, since our flight was not leaving until 2AM!