West End

February, 2008. Of all places, we were in Patong, Phuket, which is like (Cancun + South Padre Island) x Trannies Gone Wild, or that scene in Jesus Christ Superstar when he comes upon the market bursting with prostitutes, black market machine guns, and ugly postcards. That's Patong to me, an ugly postcard, except that it's alive. It's not even worth writing home about.

While dodging seafood restaurant touts and Ecstasy peddlers, I happened to turn my head to the right and saw this. What a relief from the neon, disco balls and headlights on the other side. I weaved through a sea of tuk-tuks and rushed down to the beach, to erase the sights of Patong from my mind, and because it's scenes like this that blow the postcards out of the Gulf of Thailand.

(Please click on the image to see it better!)

 Thai me up, Thai me down.

The Gulf of Thailand, off Patong Beach, Thailand.