Patong...

Everyone back home has been saying to me that there is only so long you stay stay on the beach before getting bored and need a sense of normality. My standard reply to this is that I'm more than happy to test this theory and at the moment it's looking like I won't be getting tired anytime soon... Challenge Accepted!!

Following a nice few days of doing nothing but laying on a beach, eating amazing Thai food and pretty much just relaxing... I thought that it was about the right time to send another week doing exactly the same thing, but with a lot of alcohol involved.

Before leaving sunny England I'd arranged to meet up with my amigo Lana from work for a few days whilst she was with some of her family and friends (Her mum and dad - Eric and Jenny, brother Mitch and family friend Leandra with her daughter Dimity and boyfriend Jade) in Thailand for a bit more hardcore sunbathing... and a couple of parties thrown in. So Tuesday morning at 7am I was picked up and about to exchange a nice hotel in Ao Nang for a - not so nice - hostel in the heart of South Thailand's party capital; Patong, Phuket. I arrived in Patong at around 4pm; threw the bags into the room and had a quick reccy around the place. I've been to Patong on a previous trip to Thailand; however this was about 8 years ago, and although the main strip hadn't changed, the rest of the place was un-recognisable. Gone are the small stalls selling a few dodgy handbags and wallets and now the front by the beach is lined with large stores selling every fake item imaginable; tees, vests, boxers, bags, electronics etc...

The first night was a pretty tame one. I met Lana and her family at their hotel and grabbed some dinner in a nice little Thai place. The first thing that she said to me was; Oh my God, you are so black!! Which means that all this hard work of lazing around doing nothing has definitely paid off!! Dinner was followed by myself, Lana Mitch heading off for a few cheeky beers along Bangla road. The saving grace was that none of us had brought a lot of money out; as the night could have got very very messy... So we called it a day around 1am and planned to make the next one just that little bit more special.

There wasn't a single day this week where the weather during the day wasn't anything short of amazing!! So the next day was a standard beach day on Hat Patong. The beach at Patong is a very commercial one; it stretches for a couple of kilometres and is just lined very thousands of sunbeds and umbrellas to be rented out. Sunbed owners are constantly coming around offering food and drinks; which means that you can spend the whole day lying down, soaking up the sun and not having to move for anything. The water is also crystal clear and a nice refreshing temperature. We all arranged to meet at around 7pm for dinner, so after several hours chillaxing on the beach doing as little as possible it was time to grab a banana shake (which are the most awesome thing ever) and head but to the hostel to get ready for dinner and the heavily promoted Epic night of partying ahead.

The nights out in Patong were pretty big ones; so I'll save these for a separate post - so mother, you may want to ignore the next couple that are coming along after this as I know you worry a little too much about my apparent 'excess' drinking.

The following day we had all planned to head to a small secluded beach along the island. The main problem with this was that the planned time was early... Needless to say that the hangovers around the camp - well actually just Lana, Mitch and myself - were bigger than any that I've experienced so far on the tour, but after a 30 min taxi ride it was more than worth it to be laying on a sunbed on a beach surrounded by only 20 or so other people. The water was warm and clear, the sun was hot and along the beach, amongst the rocks and between 2 palm trees there was a great hammock where I dumped myself for an hour or so and just soaked up the paradise atmosphere. Lunch came in the form of a nice simple Fried Rice and the hangover was still lingering in the air and I thought that the rice might help soak some of up so that I would be on fine form for the night ahead!! The day was spent answering a lot of questions from the rest of the group and one of us bursting out laughing as we'd remembered something from the night before whilst trying to piece it all together. After the beach we all headed back to the nice big resort that everyone else was staying in and jumped straight into the pool to clean off a ton of sand and chill for an hour or so before dinner. Dinner that night was in a small Thai place just off of the beach front and afterwards we all headed to Bangla road for a few cheeky drinks and to watch an Australian Rugby league game.

Within the majority of the bars in Patong there are Old-Skool games such as Connect 4, Jackpot and Jenga!! Every time we found a Jenga we'd create the biggest tower going only for me to be the one to make it come crashing the ground and then spend 5 mins trying to find all of the pieces. We all seemed to come unstuck whilst playing Connect 4... Whilst sitting in the bars - to make a bit of money - Thai kids walk around trying to get the westerners to buy flower necklaces by the use of pity and deceit. The one we encountered had a proper game plan and a good poker face. He wanted 100baht for a necklace; which we declined... and then went onto bet me that if he beat me at Connect 4 then I would buy one. Challenge accepted!! Ok, so 6 moves later I was 100baht lighter and a little bit baffled at what just happened. Up stepped the next victim who had the same fate; followed by a third. At that point we sent him on his merry little way. Git!

After a couple of hours the older guys retired to the hotel leaving Lana, Mitch, Dim, Jade and myself to hit the town running; which started with an around eagerly anticipated PingPong show... The remainder of this eventful night - including the grand details of the show - can be found within the next posts.

Cue next day. Ok, so this was a bit of a write-off. Having not gotten home until around 4, I decided that I wouldn't be getting up until well after midday; so as 2pm rolled around I thought that the beat plan of action would be to hit the beach, find a nice big sun lounger and curl up and feel sorry for myself for a couple of hours; headphones in and eyes closed.

That evening was a nice chilled out one. We decided that the need for a westernised food was in order, so we headed to one of the Irish pubs in the area - Molly Malones - where I had an amazing Steak and Ale pie, washed down with my first pint of Guinness since being in Sydney about 4 weeks earlier. It definitely doesn't taste as good as back home; but it did the trick. After a couple more drinks a few of us went to a cafe for a coffee; then called it a night around midnight.

As previous, the next day was a semi write-off; hitting the beach at around 1pm and pretty much just laid in the sun for the next 6 hours until it was time to meet up and head to dinner and out for the night. Tonight however had a twist! Tonight was the night - as my good friend Mikey puts it - to be Irish for a day!! St. Patrick's day in Patong was turning out to be a pretty good one; there are 2 Irish bars in the area who were putting on big celebrations and a lot of the other bars were following suit. After dinner and a temporary delay due to an unexpected downpour, we all headed to Molly Malones to drink green pints of Chang and listen to the Thai band start with the whole bar chanting the Wild Rover followed by a rendition of Dirty Old Town.

After a few pints of the black stuff; the majority had retired for the night leaving just Lana an Myself to paint the town Emerald Green!!

Whilst still in Molly's we met an old couple watching the bar who were from Dublin but now live on the Gold Coast. So we chatted with them for a while; trying to understand his accent whilst the Irish Rover was blasting away in my ears, and then - for a reason that in the morning we could not come up with - decided that the four of us needed Sambuca in our lives... The next few movements are a bit hazy; but it definitely involved a lot of shapes being cut across several dancefloors and ended with being in Burger King at around 3am with a Triple Whopper. And yes, it did come back to haunt me.

The next day was to be my last in Patong before retiring to the small hippy island of Ko Lanta to recover from the events of the previous week.

Following the events of St. Patrick's day; I didn't make it out of bed until 5pm that evening. I left the hostel briefly to get a Banana Shake, some crisps and a pack of Nurofen; and then skulked back to have a shower and get ready for dinner. Before heading out I'd decided that today was to be an Alcohol free day; which I thoroughly needed as my body was beginning to rebel against me and was only days away from shutting down and giving up.

We met for dinner at the same restaurant as the previous day and I decided on having the unsafe option of the Panang Gai; which on the previous night almost melted Jade's face as it was so spicy. I'm pretty good with the Thai currys; although this did give me a run for my money!!

After dinner it was all about the business. As one of Lana's sidelines she is also a hairdresser, so having not had a trim for the past two and a half months, I was starting to look like a castaway and all that was missing was my Wilson ball. So we headed back to the hotel where I got the first class treatment of a full hair wash and head massage followed by a great haircut!!

By the time the time my hair was back to normal and less like a bad perm it was around 11pm, and not being tired we went out to grab some ice cream; as a nice cold bottle of Chang was not on the cards. By the shopping complex there were still quite a few places open so we went in Swenson's ice cream parlour where we got matching Prince and Princess sundaes and extra thick ice cream shakes.

After dessert we said out emotional goodbyes and I headed back to the hostel to pack and get a couple of hours sleep before my 7am alarm call to head away from Phuket.

I just want to say a final Thank you to everyone for making me feel really welcome and that I had the most amazing week. It was really good to have a brief sense of normality after 10 weeks of drifting from place to place. It was amazing to meet you all, and next time I head to Oz I'll definitely be stopping by!! And Mitch, see you in London, baby!!!

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