Thursday, February 15, 2007

Phuket or Leave It

We're on the ground and running here in Phuket. The harrowing ride from the airport allowed us to continue the tradition of playing 'how many locals can we pile on a scooter'. The tally now is three people and a bird. What is it about developing countries that mandates a complete disdain for traffic safety? The tally will no doubt increase as we get further into the trip. Personally, I am hoping for at least a half dozen, throwing on a dog for good mneasure.

The day today has been a languid one. We're killing time until the boat leaves this evening at 5:30pm, just trying to stay awake as not to disprupt the sleep patterns for the next few days. Phuket is hot and sticky, with a faint odor of sewage. Peggy and I both instinctually made the analogy of Tijuana. However, I've heard a jewish friend of mine compare Palestine to Tijuana. Is every city third-world country Tijuana? However, I can't imagine them selling 'FBI - female body inspector' t-shirts in Palestine.

This is no doubt a heavily overrun tourist town. The majority of the Westerners (another nice way of saying white people) are from Germany, Scandinavia and a few Aussies. Outside of the Aussies, who should be staying in their own hemisphere for summer weather, the crowds here seem to be the senior set. We've guessed on the European angle by the amount of lycra jammed up the cracks of the beachgoers. Miles of cabanah beach umbrellas. Speedos as far as the eye can see, many inappropriately worn on all the wrong people. The smell of radiating flesh giving off the faint scent of sausage. The senior set seems to be content on flopping down on their lounge chairs, tanning heavily and getting up only to have one of the locals give them a 3 dollar oil massage. There is little culture or quality art to be found amongs the throngs of tourist shacks piled to the sky. Bootleg DVDs, suits, and massages are what the people are buying, apparently.

Peggy and I went on an elephant ride today, which was fun but somewhat exploitive and inhumane. Mostly fun. We paid a visibly stoned tuk tuk driver 5 dollars to take us out of town 10 minutes to what could be best described as an elephant garage. We had the cabby sit contently wait for us with his smoke in hand while we mounted up on our elephant, whom Peggy immediately named Elton. If this sounds scary, it wasn't really. However, the sketchy part was when Elton had to cross two lanes of maddening, two-lane, Tijuana-eque (there I go again) traffic. Elton was a juvenille, so he hadn't figured out how to use his ears as turn signals yet to let the other drivers know his intention. I don't know who has the right-of-way when a elephant and mini-bus converge, but I'm glad we didn't have to find out. Elton did a good job of getting us up to a vista point, then turning around and having us lumber back to the garage again. The way down was much more bumpy than the way up. We gave Elton a banana as a tip.

Lunch was a serving of Pad See Ew and some spring rolls. We've both thrown back four soft drinks today each in attempts to keep ourselves hydrated in this stifeling heat. I've labelled it the hummingbird metabolism diet. There are any number of things one can buy off the back of a scooter. Eggs, fried fish, noodle soup, coconuts. Other than the coconut, we haven't worked up the courage to sample the meals on wheels. Soon, I'm sure.

Lastly, there is surprisingly little to be found about the Tsunami. Not any obvious sign that it occured. No visible memorial or air horn system in place. There is, however, a tsunami re-enactment at Fanta-sea, the ultimate Thai cutural ethno-spectacular, complete with dancing elephants, transexual cabaret dancers in traditional Thai costume and the Peanut Sauce Hyper Trio (modelled after the Blue Man Group). Word is that the tsunami re-enactment involves laser lights and spraying the crowd down with water. Peggy and I are making a point to miss Fantasea. There is also this t-shirt for sale (email me if you want one) that says, 'Tsunami: One Year Later and still Shopping, Drinking and F-ing'. Glad to see that all that international humanitariain relief aid really helped out.

posted by ncawthon at 7:32 PM