After over an hour's drive, we arrived at the Indochine Resort and Villas in the Patong area of Phuket. There are a ton of resort options in Phuket. We didn't really care about staying at a place near the beach nor one near the touristy centers of town. We did not plan on doing much sightseeing. We just wanted a good view of the ocean and luxurious accommodations. The Indochine Resort and Villas fit the bill for us.
The hotel's villas are built along the slope of the hills overlooking Patong Bay. Guests can walk from the street level in the heat up to their rooms, but it was a lot easier to be transported by the many golf carts driven by the staff.
We had reserved a two-bedroom villa. It was enormous with a full kitchen, private pool, and a separate building for the master suite. The Kids were just happy that they would have WiFi again after 5 days with none on The Junk.
We spent much of the afternoon doing our laundry and giving our diving equipment a good fresh water rinse. Everything dried pretty quickly in the intense Thailand sunlight. Afterwards, we headed back down to the street level to find a restaurant for dinner. There are not many restaurants right next to our hotel. We had to walk several blocks towards Patong beach to find some eateries. We settled on a restaurant with the odd name of Duck Spicy. The place didn't look very fancy. There was a prominent bar serving up mixed drinks and a big screen TV showing some local soccer match. However, the fruit juice drinks and the seafood dishes were actually really good and at reasonable-for-Patong prices.
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| There was some interesting graffiti on a wall adjacent to the restaurant. |
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| Duck spring roll |
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| Fried seaweed glutinous rice cake |
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| Prawns steamed with glass noodle in a hot pot |
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| Fried crab meat in yellow curry |
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| Blue crab with soy bean paste and coconut milk |
The night was still young after we finished dinner. The Kids were content to hang out at our villa instead of exploring the city. There are many nightlife options in touristy Patong. But there is one type of activity that it is most notorious for--ping pongs. I was conflicted. The rational part of my brain argued that I HAD to go see this type of show because we were only 15 minutes away from Bangla Street--the boisterous area where most of these clubs were located. And when would I ever be back in Phuket again? The more ethical part of my brain stressed that this type of activity was awful and exploitative. In the age of scientific reasoning, whom am I to defy rational thinking. Of course I wasn't gonna go alone. That would be creepy. So, I convinced my unenthusiastic significant-other to come along. Given our medical professions, I told her that it would be for...ahem...work-related research...on, ahem...the benefits of kegel exercises.
We caught a free hotel shuttle that transported us to the Jungceylon Shopping Center located in the heart of Patong. The traffic was terrible, the hawkers were omnipresent, and the crowds of tourists were noisy. We were very happy that we selected our hotel which is in a much more secluded area. We walked a few blocks along Bangla street passing numerous pubs blaring live music and disco clubs featuring disinterested girls in short skirts dancing on tables. We saw the occasional lady boys...at least I think they were. They were much more flamboyant and lively compared to the dancing girls. It wasn't all sex and rock-and-roll. There were some virtual reality gaming places, tattoo parlors, and even a Starbucks!
The one thing that you can't miss, even if you wanted to, are the dozens of locals prominently carrying signs for ping pong shows. These signs list a menu of various "acts" that are included in the show.
These hawkers are likely normal locals who are merely trying to earn a little extra cash by standing there all night holding up a sign. I'm sure they must get some kind of commission. So we just picked the sweetest-looking grandma that we could find and told her that we would be interested in seeing some abhorrent acts of genital gymnastics.
She led us past one of the bars with the dancing girls to a nondescript building right behind it. We were ushered in and greeted by a man who explained to us the rules. He said that there was no cover charge for the club. He handed me a menu and said that we could have a seat at one of the couches, but there would be a minimum order of one drink (liquor or fruit juice) per person. Wait, a minute. I wasn't born yesterday.
"How much is one drink?" I asked suspiciously,
"300," the man replied,
"300 dollars!" I shot back
"No, 300 baht" he responded, pointing clearly to prices on the menu in my hand.
Oh. That's like less than $10 per person, I thought.
"Yeah, we could do that." I told him.
The waitress escorted us to a vinyl couch near the back of the room. She correctly pegged us as the uptight, middle-aged tourists who were there out of curiosity and not to spend money. The Wife ordered a pineapple juice and I got a Heineken. The Wife shot me a disapproving glare because I didn't try one of their local beers. I really didn't want to get both herpes and cholera in the same night.
The rest of the crowd was also a bunch of non-locals ranging from a mixed group of rowdy backpackers to an old Indian couple who fidgeted nervously the whole time they were there. The ratio of women to men was a surprising 40 to 60 percent.
For the first twenty minutes, we were "entertained" by young ladies who danced topless to Western pop songs. And when I say dancing, I mean they kind of swayed back and forth. The glazed-over look in their eyes made it clear that they had no interest being up there. I suspect that they spent the whole set pondering the poor choices that they had made in life. Their lackluster performances were hard to watch. It was so tedious and boring that I even began to think that I should have seen a ladyboy show instead.
Just as we were about to leave, the real show began. Out came two ladies onto the stage. They both had incredible physiques...for sumo wrestlers. These middle-aged ladies were solidly built like tractors. Even if I was foolish enough to drink many beers at the club, I would never consider them to be attractive. This is awful, I groaned.
Then we were serenaded with some high pitched whistling noises. What was that all about?!? The ladies proceeded to lift up their skirts, revealing whistles jammed in censored. They gleefully whistled for a few minutes which started to get kind of old. I'm sure it's a parlor trick that not everybody can or want to do, but I would have been more impressed if they could have played a little tune. Eine kleine Nachtmusik would have been nice.
After those maestros had finished, the next middle aged lady came on stage and proceeded to pull yards of string from censored and wrapped it around a spool. This went on for some time as there was a lot of string! Had she just untied the Gordian Knot with her censored? It was a bizarre stunt, but ultimately not very entertaining.
The next troll lady to perform pulled three eager volunteers on to the stage. She then proceeded to hand each one of them a helium-filled balloon that floated lazily above their heads. She then got down on the floor and spread censored. She grabbed a blowgun, and reached inside censored. Using all of her might, she censored and popped the balloons with the darts. It was an amazing show of might, worthy of being included in a military parade through Red Square. The only complaint that I had was that her aim was pretty lousy. It took her many attempts to pop those three balloons as she missed several times. I think those tourists were lucky that none of them lost an eye to an errant dart.
The show was stopped momentarily as the club's bouncers were accosting a patron at a table in front of us. Guests were warned that a no photography or videography rule is strictly enforced. There is a strict fine by the club if they catch people doing it (and it is way more than 300 bahts!). After a few minutes, the situation was resolved without anybody losing a kneecap.
It was time for the final lady to come on. She was a fine specimen of nature with thighs the size of redwood trees. She danced around enticingly for a minute. Unlike the previous disinterested dancers, we could tell that this lady was a bona fide entertainer. Her radiant smile lit up the room. She strutted her stuff, dancing awkwardly to the music like Taylor Swift at a concert. Her energy was infectious.
Suddenly, with out any warning, she reached down censored and pulled out a freaking bird! The little Tweety Bird hopped around the stage, disoriented by what just happened. The lady then picked it up and brought it over to some of the guests in the front row. One guy kissed the bird. EEW, I'm pretty sure he has gonorrhea now if he didn't have it already. One young lady in the crowd played with the bird, letting it hop up her arm. As it came closer to her head, it looked her directly in the eye and yelled into her ear: "I tawt I taw a puddy..." The performer then grabbed the Tweety Bird, lifted her censored and jammed the little guy into censored. And just like that, the bird was gone.
That last performance took no longer than five minutes. My mouth was agape the whole time. After this shocking performance, we left the club. So many questions raced through my mind that I couldn't find the answers to. That was some Penn and Teller-style magic!
We still had 45 minutes before the hotel shuttle bus would pick us back up, so we headed back to the Jungceylon Shopping Center. I bought some food and drinks at the Big C supermarket, while The Wife loaded up on South Korean cosmetics that are difficult to find back in the U.S.
We arrived back at our villa. The Kids were on their iPads in the exact same position that we had left them over two hours ago. They hadn't moved at all. I hugged The Girl and pleaded with her to never get a pet bird.
*****
Monday, December 31, 2018
*****
Today, our plan for the day would be that we have no plan at all. We would just lounge around in our villa relaxing. It didn't hurt that we had our own private infinity pool with a beautiful view of the bay.
We did rouse enough energy to get dressed and go down to the street level for our complimentary breakfast. There were many dining options ranging from pancakes to mediocre Vietnamese pho. We especially liked their fresh watermelon juice that seemed to be in endless supply.
The short afternoon rains didn't dampen our lounging plans. When you are wet already, what's a little rain. We didn't have to leave our premises for lunch as we had bought ramen from the store the previous night.
We really hadn't planned it this way, but our relaxation day happened to coincide with New Year's Eve. The hotel staff had informed us that the Indochine would be hosting a special celebration dinner that was complimentary for the guests. That was one less meal that we had to worry about. We came down for dinner, and saw that they really put quite a bit of effort into sprucing up the place. They also had live entertainment, as a singer crooned Western pop songs in a Thai accent. They had a slight hiccup when a small rain shower caused their AV equipment to short out for a couple of minutes.
We had been reserved a table by the pool, providing great ambiance. There were plenty of food options at the buffet including meats, seafood, and plenty of sides and desserts. It was a really nice added bonus from this luxury resort.
We went back to our villa to deal with our subsequent food coma. As the night went on, we saw hundreds of sky lanterns being released over Patong Bay. Although historically, this is part of the traditions of Northern Thailand, it has since been adopted by the rest of the country. It's supposed to symbolize good luck as one's problems are supposed to float away.
Close to midnight, the fireworks began. For a five minute span, the night sky was filled with colorful explosions as the city rang in the New Year with fireworks. It was an amazing display at an amazing setting. And we didn't even have to get up from our lounge chairs.
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