Our driver pulled over without
explanation to pick up a casually dressed transvestite standing on the side of
the road. Sarah and I had arrived on the Thai island of Phuket on a flight from
Chiang Mai, a city known for cultural tourism. We were one our way to Patong
Beach, described on the airport tourist map of Phuket as “hedonistic.” Keng, our
travel agent in Chiang Mai, had booked a hotel for us, referring to the location
simply as “Phuket,” far too vague a name for an island named Phuket that is 30 miles
long. Similar, perhaps to telling someone they’d been booked at a hotel in the
“Bay Area” without telling them whether they were staying in San Francisco or
suburban Pleasanton. Once we hit bustling Patong Beach our driver dropped us at
an alley in front of a hotel with sculptures of breasts in bikinis and butts in
cut-offs filling the front lawn and pointed four doors down the alley to Erawan
Guest House and the room we had pre-paid for. We hauled our own luggage down
the alley in the oppressive heat only to be greeted by a shirtless European boy
with dyed red hair and deeply burnt red face and chest with a small patch of
bright white skin apparently from an amulet he’d been wearing in the sun. A red-faced
British kid with long hair sat at reception as if checking in. He stood up to
ask the other burnt Euro and a black guy sitting on the stoop smoking, “What
are you doing tonight? Or should I say, who you doin’?” laughing
heartily at his own joke as he walked to the corner of the lobby, picked up a large
can of roach spray and thoroughly sprayed each foot and ankle with it. The
lobby was tiled and bare bones, as if housekeeping needed to keep the room able
to be hosed down at any moment. Who knows what went on here aside from daily
doses of roach spray?
We sat down and the boyish Thai
receptionist said, “Your agent booked you fan room, cheap room! Just one
night!” The sympathy in his eyes showed he sensed we were professional women in
our thirties who did not fit in there. He handed us a padlock for our fourth
floor room and pointed us through the laundry room to the staircase. We huffed
up the four flights in the extreme heat, catching a glimpse of a gray haired
white man staring vacantly out the open door of his room. How long had he been there?
I got the distinct sense that he was living in the hotel. When we opened the
door to room 409 we whimpered at the sight of shabby linoleum floors, naked
fluorescent tube lighting, a saggy pad on a faux wood platform that stood
in for a bed, and a giant towel in place of a bedspread. It was truly hideous and struck fear in our hearts, for our
safety, health, and sanity. Sarah asked, “What have we done Madeline?” We
decided to leave the room immediately and try to forget it until we had to sleep.
We had scheduled a 6am wake-up call for the once daily ferry to the island of Koh
Lanta, but were willing to stay out all night if necessary. If anywhere could
support an all-nighter, Patong Beach was the place.
 |
| Crying over the sad room. The toilet was inside the shower. |
Our faith in Keng, our polo shirt-wearing male-to-female
Thai travel agent in Chiang Mai had hit an all time low. If we knew Patong
would be just a one-night fiasco, we could have wallowed in the filth for a few
hours, but we were terrified about what we would find once we arrived in Koh
Lanta, our final Andaman Coast destination. We had entrusted Keng to choose, book
and pay for a 7-night stay on the island of Koh Lanta, known for its remote
location, natural beauty and peacefulness. If Keng pegged Sarah and I for the
kind of girls that wanted to stay in a hedonistic beach town filled with girlie
bars, partying with the European guys at Erawan Guest House ten years our
junior (or 25 years our senior) drinking, doing drugs, and patronizing
prostitutes, where did she think we should stay in Koh Lanta? Our propositions
seemed desperately grim.
We got out
of the third world jail cell Erawan was trying to pass as a hotel room, walking
past tourist shops and large multi-story generic hotels that, contrary to our
normal search for “authentic” lodging, looked so incredibly appealing in that
moment. We longed for anything but the Erawan Guest House. We trekked a few
blocks to the gorgeous beach on Patong Bay, reminiscent of Nice, France, with
foliage-covered hills on both sides dotted with the lights of businesses
classier than the ones in the flat lands. The sand was white and fine, met by
lush greenery and palm trees. We walked in the warm clear turquoise surf just
before sunset. Jet skis and powerboats sat on the beach, spreading the stench
of gasoline and reminding us that we were not quite in paradise. We lingered as the Technicolor sunset took over
the entire island sky while pale crabs the color of buttercream frosting scurried
playfully at our feet.
 |
| Sarah at sunset on Patong Beach, ready to eat the buttercream crab |
We enjoyed a delicious dinner of shrimp in tamarind sauce,
pineapple fried rice with seafood served in a pineapple, and grilled squid at
Baan Sabai restaurant, our toes wiggling in the sand below our table. To reach
the restroom I had to leave the restaurant and cross the street, entering into
frightening girlie bar territory. We had witnessed the awkward pairing of older
white men with young Thai ladies in Chiang Mai, but Patong Beach seemed to be
designed exclusively to bring the two groups together, with bars filled with
listless young Thai girls waiting outside to lure in customers. Sarah and I
were far from their target demographic. In fact, I found it surprising that any
woman would willingly travel to Patong Beach, yet we spotted European
families enjoying the restaurants, some with babies in tow.
Just when I
crossed the street to use the restroom it began to rain and never stopped. We
were not nearly drunk enough after one beer with dinner to return to the Erawan,
so we walked through the steamy rain up the hill to the nicer part of town. We
found exclusive resorts and dining establishments patronized by what appeared
to be upstanding citizens. We tried to imagine ourselves in an alternate
universe in which scheduling a Patong Beach vacation would be acceptable to us,
“Maybe if I was dating someone who was rich and they scheduled the vacation
secretly and booked one of these nice resorts, and we drove straight from the
airport and didn’t see the rest of the town…” I offered. “Maybe then it would
seem okay.”
We chose
Joe’s Downstairs, a classy bar and restaurant perched on the ocean cliff, for a
$10 drink. With prices in Thailand so cheap, this was comparable to ordering a $30 drink in the U.S.. We needed the
fantasy of luxury to erase Erawan and girlie bars from our minds. There was an
American wedding party in the bar dressed in finery. After one drink we
descended the hill in the jungle rain towards the flats, not quite ready to
return to Erawan, we stopped for one last drink at a bar/restaurant with a
Coney Island vibe, offering mediocre vacation food and drinks in a slightly
trashy setting. A British couple on holiday chatted us up while dining and
smiling. Apparently they were having a
grand old time in Patong Beach.
 |
| Grilled squid at Baan Sabai Restaurant |
Back at the hotel with rain soaked clothes, we had two options
for sleeping: shudder with terror in the dark, or blast the fluorescent office
lighting. Thankfully I had packed a travel candle, which we lit as a nightlight.
We would never have been able so sleep otherwise. Despite the candle, Sarah had
nightmares and I tossed and turned. Our wake-up call never happened, but in our
desperation to leave the place we woke up promptly at 5:30am. We hopped in a
shared van, caught a ferry to Koh Lanta and never looked back.
 |
| Sunset on Patong Beach |
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