Phuck It

I arrived at the Chiang Mai airport on Tuesday about 25 minutes prior to my scheduled flight departure to Phuket, after spending the past hour driving all throughout the city to drop off other people on my minibus from Pai, despite the pleas of the other passengers and myself to the laid-back deaf-eared driver that I had a flight to catch and I should be dropped off first. Thankfully, the airport was empty and I was literally sitting at my gate - through security and with ticket in hand about 3 minutes after walking into the airport - about 10 minutes before the start of boarding - enough time to grab a snack and use the facilities.

After spending the past several weeks amongst the backpacking community, arriving at a huge resort complete with 4 pools (including pool bars/waterfalls/waterslides), about 10 bars, 5 restaurants, tennis course, putting greens, a luxurious spa, and who knows what else was a bit of culture shock. The place probably had over 1000 rooms amongst the 4 different stories of the resort. Being a Silver Hilton member, I was given the grand treatment - even a free update to a better room - and treated like a King. The place was probably at 10% capacity and there was literally more hotel employees wandering the campus than all the non-english speaking couples and families, and myself. The place was relaxing, and I just chilled, read, and relaxed, but I didn't find anybody of interest to chat up, so I decided to leave after only 2 days, instead of the planned 3.

Phuket is a giant mess of concrete with no real character - even worse - Patong beach is the ubercenter for old fat balding man to pick up and pay for 20 year old Thai prostitutes. It's disgusting to watch these womanizers with a silly grin on their face peacock around with their arm candy. Still, I did have fun messing around with some of the bar girls when I went out one night by leading them that I was interested only to walk away when they thought they had won me over to pay for them. I just finished reading "The Game" which is a hilarious story about PUAs (pick-up artists) and I practiced running some of the silly routines on these girls in the bar. Good times. I also went to Simon Cabaret, which was probably one of the most hilarious experiences of my life. Its a transvestite show with probably 50 actors?/actresses? (lets just call them performers) wearing elaborate costumes with huge feathery hats and tails, with crazy sets like jungle, china, the streets of NYC, etc, lip-singing (poorly) and dancing to Broadway songs and other pop hits. This thing was hilarious and I literally just sat there with my jaw open in shocked disbelief at the hilarity that lay before me.

So that was Phuket, it had some cheesy fun, but was not particularly the scene that I was looking for. So, I said Phuck it, and moved on to Ko Phi Phi island. I arrived here yesterday, and the place is absolutely stunning and also thankfully dominated by young travelers looking to party and have a good time. The drink of choice are buckets (literally buckets that children would fill with sand on a beach) - which contains a mixture of hang-over inducing Thai Whiskey (which is basically rum), red bull (there red bull is much more sugary and without carbonation), and coke. These things keep you going all night - and I hang out with a Canadian couple, a fun two-set of UK girls, and an Aussie girl. Good times. Now, I am leaving in approximately 12 minutes for an afternoon on Phi Phi of snorkeling and cliff jumping. Sound be fun, and I'll keep you all posted of my adventures and misadventures.

Pictures to follow.