Flashback: Patong, Thailand

The bustling beach town of Patong is the tourist capital of Phuket – a party haven on the water.  It is a strange mix of college kids gone wild, and creepy men looking for Thai dates.  When we first arrived and had a bite overlooking the strip, we noticed several things that were noticeably different from other parts of Thailand.  For one, we were eating at a Mexican restaurant.  Secondly, it was noon and everyone appeared drunk.  But the most interesting thing we noticed was the sheer number of people who were injured!  But these were obvious drunk injuries: sprained leg, arm cast, cuts and bruises on only one half of the body…you know the obvious tell-tale signs of a night gone awry.

Beside the constant party, Patong is specifically known for the high population of “girly boys”.  It was unbelievable how pretty, yes pretty, these woman were.  It was genuinely difficult to tell who was who, until we realized that pretty much every scantily clad bartender was, in fact, born a man.

As many single men flock to Patong for its openness with the sex industry, Austin was understandably nervous to be left alone; a white man having a drink alone at a bar is there for a date.  Period.  But I had to pee so we sat down at a bar and ordered a drink.  My beer came in a regular bottle but for some reason Austin’s Long Island came in a glass shaped as a naked female body.  Well, I left for the bathroom and when I returned Austin relayed the following: he had been approached by a woman he termed the “Madam”, who was much older and was clearly a biological woman.  The Madam invited him to play a game where you hit a nail into a block of wood; first nail in wins.  Austin agreed, thinking that being occupied was better than playing sitting duck.  This game was over within 3 strikes of her hammer, though, at which time she quickly said “I win, you buy me drink!”  So within 5 minutes of being left alone, Austin had lost a few extra bahts and little bit of pride.  BUT, something good came from it all.  Upon ordering a second Long Island, it not only didn’t taste like soda water, but it came in a regular, tall glass.  Austin jokingly asked the Madam, “What happened, no more boobie glass?”, to which she replied, “No, you get big boy glass now”….