Once upon a time in Phuket Town

After the choral performance (see previous post), I went and found a motorbike rider and asked him to take me to some live music. He didn't know what music meant, so I mimed some flute and guitar action, he got my drift, and for 750 baht, which is about $30.00 NZ, he offered to take me on a 5 minute journey on the back of his motorbike to find some live music. Having got at least a little bit more savvy since I arrived in Thailand, I realised this was too expensive, and negotiated him down to 40 baht, which is under two dollars. This was still too expensive, it probably should have been in the 15-30 baht range, but I figure getting ripped off by anything less than a dollar NZ is sort of alright.

The bar he took me to was great. It was a proper Thai bar, full of Thai people, with a Thai band playing (good) Thai music. Very wholesome, no westerners in sight. I met three girls (photos below) and we drunk and danced and made merry for several hours before doing what seemed like the Thai equivalent of the 3:00am Burger King rush at the Noodle House (more of a shack really) down the road.

Getting to the Noodle Bar was a bit dicey, as before we set out, she explained that she would have to drive slowly because she was drunk (she mimed a kind of driving motion and then a wobbly motion), so we set out 3 of us on the motorcycle, with me sandwiched between two Thai girls, all of us with no helmet and only flip-flops, riding (very) slowly to the noodle house. The policeman who was parked on his motorcycle next to us when we set out turned a convenient blind eye and the girls' took no notice of him at all.

After dinner (which was delicious, one of the best dishes I've had in Thailand so far), I had travelled through so many streets that I had no idea how to find my way back to the hotel, so I gave the hotel's card to the girl who was driving, and the three of us remaining set out on a hotel hunt. We had to stop a couple of times to ask a few locals for directions but we got there safe and well in the end.

Seeing as the girls had been so nice and all, showed me a good night and taken me out for dinner, and dropped me off at my hotel, and we had been getting pretty cosey on the motorcycle, I figured a kiss on the cheek goodnight wouldn't be pushing too many cultural boundaries. It was at that moment, out of the dimly lit bar and in front of the bright hotel lights, that I noticed she was starting to show a bit of 5 o'clock shadow. It was at that moment it dawned on me that in actual fact, I had been partying it up all night with a group of fairly femininely dressed young men.

Photos below. Only in Thailand.