Walking to Paradise

Monday 18th February

Today was a day to relax. Originally I was going to go on another tour, this time out to see some other islands, but I was too late booking last night and they were all gone. So I slept late, and then just wandered around the town. For those who were wondering, via email, how my 'marine' haircut is going, it was begining to get a bit longer again, so I found a place to get it cut. I think the number 2 blade over here is a bit shorter than at home, or at least the hair looks even shorter now.

I got bored with wandering around the town, so I decided to go for a walk up into the hills to see if I could find some good viewpoints for some photos. I then remembered being recommended a beach outside Patong called Paradise beach, and I checked it was about 4k away so I decided to walk to it. (Mind you I did give myself an hour to get there, 4k should be doable, and if I didn't I'd turn around, it wouldn't be wise to walk too far in the heat). The roads there were some of the steepest road I've ever seen. The last 1. 4k is up and down a hill that is at least 250m high. And the Paradise beach side is steeper, I reckon it goes down 250m in about 600m.

I made it in 56 minutes, just inside my target time, and I'd say I was the only person to walk to it that day (probably the only person that week/month/ever). But I still felt safer walking than going on the back of a motorbike, which is the other option, because going down that last incline would be truely scary. No wonder there are so many road deaths in Phuket each year.

Anyway for the first time in 18 years I sat on a beach. I was bored after an hour so I had a quick look round. I think I saw the beach that I was actually looking for, based on a recommendation I was looking for the one just North of Paradise, but I couldn't see how to get to it. Anyway it was getting late, about 5.30, and I wanted to ensure I was back in Patong before sundown. I did the walk back in 42 minutes, so the heat does make a difference. (Also I wasn't stopping to take photos, which I was doing on the way out).

In the evening it was off to the Bang-La road area again. This time I was there to take some photos so I can share a sense of how weird it is, as I don't think my descriptions do it justice. You can see all the clothed 'girls' dancing on the bars like in the film Coyote Ugly, from the street, but it is off down the lanes before you get any of the 'shows'. So there are a few pictures from the main street.

(By the way I should point out that todays title, Walking to Paradise, refers to the beach, and not Soi Paradise, which according to the guide book, is the centre of gay nightlife in Patong)

Whether they were he or shes the simple fact is that I just don't see Thai women as being that attractive. Sure you get some really good looking ones on posters for products, but thats like assuming every German girl is going to look like Heidi Klum. Well actually a lot more of them do than the Thai women you see in the bars look like the ones in the posters. The main thing is I'm not seeing what other western blokes see. (By the way its not a racial thing as you do get good looking Japanese and Chinese tourists, and the Cambodians were a lot nicer as well).

This leads to my continuing quest to find where the western women go (or as I would call them the good looking women). I was contemplating the puzzle while sitting in a Dutch bar in Bang-La. I know, I thought Dutch bars only existed in the Netherlands, but they are here, as are bars from pretty much every one of the old 15 EU countries - however I didn't see any Polish or new EU countries represented here so maybe there is a market opening- and there an amazing number of Swiss bars - more per head of population back home than even Sweden or Finland. With three Irish bars (that I saw) we were seriously under represented.

As I said there I was in the Dutch bar when I noticed a bloke handing out flyers, but only to western girls. So off I was to ask him where he was sending them, and it was to a nightclub. So off I went, and the place was expensive, nearly as bad as home. They didn't serve beer, and the Smirnoff Ices were costing 4 euro.

I, of course, failed to chat up any of the girls there, so it really felt like a night club back home.