Day 93 - Patong Beach

Caught the local bus today to Patong Beach for 25B. There is definitely something wrong with the Lonely Planet prices because they quote 20B to the beach and all the drivers want 300B. That's kind of a big difference. We finally got to the beach and saw that it was saturated with 100B beach chairs and really fat, burnt, old and topless westerners. Everyone who was topless really should have been wearing clothes and the speedo should be outlawed. It was quite gross.

Dinner was quite good as we arrived during the Patong Beach 2008 festival that featured a whole bunch of food. The beach was lined with food vendors.

In town, we ended up booking a cabaret show called Simon Cabaret that featured a fully transvestite cast. The show was at 9:30 pm and cost 550B. This show was pure entertainment. The theatre was1/4 full but the lighting and set design was amazing. I noticed that all of the cast had implants and were really quite pretty. I'm sure the straight men in the audience were probably questioning their sexuality. All the men looked like women. There were a few really ugly ones but on the whole they could stll pass as women. Unfortunately the dancing and lip syncing were, well, out of sync and they couldn't dance worth a damn. They had no rhythm whatsoever.

After the show, to get a taxi back was hell. I refused to pay 300B to get back to Phuket town. Everyone now wanted 400B because it was night time. I finally found someone who took us back for 200B. The trick is to find a driver who isn't asking you if you want a taxi and/or doesn't speak English. You're usually safe as they won't try and rip you off.