Living it up in Karon Beach

So last night Ryan convinced me that maybe I should treat myself to a nice hotel for my Birthday. I looked online and found a place that looked good and had a raving review in my guidebook. It wasn't too expensive by Canadian standards (it's pretty expensive for Thailand hotels I guess?) so I booked it. Now... in comparison to my rat hotel (which was perfectly fine except for the rats... and the kind of shitty bathroom - it didn't have a sink, the toilet was more like a fountain I tried flushing it (I then realized I shouldn't flush it) and the shower was more like a dribble of water) this place is about 4 times the price... I think Railay was an expensive place to stay in (I'll have to write more about it when I get the chance.)

Anyway, I got on another motorcycle taxi this morning and did the 7km ride from Patong to Karon beach and here I am. It feels like going over that hill that seperates the two beaches really made a difference (or maybe I'm just imagining things?) This place is so much more... relaxed and less about the bright lights and stores and more just about the beach. Which oddly enough works really well for me. I've never really pictured myself actually enjoying the beach but I have to say I'm really into the new book I picked up (a compilation of short stories by D.H. Lawrence) and reading it on the beach is really quite nice.

I checked into my hotel and then decided I should walk down to Kata (I think it's another 5 kms to Kata... I'll check when I get back to the hotel)... It was a LONG HOT walk. I'm not even sure what I was looking for? Probably food... anyway... I didn't find it. I ended up walking back to my hotel empty handed, hot and somewhat burnt from the sun. Anyway, Kata wasn't all that interesting - I expected more. At this point I decided I should really eat something (it was about 1pm and I hadn't eaten yet.) I went back out and walked in the opposite direction. Suddenly I hear someone screaming "Monique!! MONIQUE!!!! MOOONIIIIQUE!!" On the last call of my name I recognized the voice and turned around to find one of the girls from the Intrepid tour behind me! YAY! SOMEONE I KNOW!! I ended up having lunch with Kara and Sarah. It was their last afternoon in Karon! Weird.

After this I went to the grocery store, stocked up on beers, juice, and all kinds of snacks and went back to the hotel. I couldn't pick a beer so I opted to just try one of each of the four they had in stock. (hahaha... Chang Beer is not so good... or maybe it was a little hot? I dont' know. I didn't like it. The second one I had... ummmm... It has three letters in it? was okay). As I sipped my beer and watched some BMX stuff on TV (the X-games were on! I never get to watch the xgames!) the phone rang and it was the front desk letting me know that my room was ready. Perplexed I asked her what she meant. "You are in a Gardenview room" (I looked out the window and wondered what she meant by gardenview... it was really just a field overgrown with garbage in it... meh... I wasn't expecting much of a view) "but you've booked a superior room with a pool view" (ohh? I did?) So I agreed to change rooms. The new room is bigger, with nicer chairs and an awesome view! BONUS!!!

At this point I was pretty hyped... I downed another beer (i'm trying to get a beer belly for Ryan - yep, you're a lucky man...) and decided to go jump in the pool. (yeah, that's a great idea... drinking and swimming!) It was fantastic. I then realized the sun was about to set so of course off to the beach I went... It was worth the run across the street. I took a bunch of pictures... listened to some music then went back to my room to do my little happy dance.







Anyway... Yep. I think I like it here. I'm staying for at least another day... I may extend it tomorrow... we'll see...

Now all silliness aside... I'm finding it harder and harder to see the whole old white man / Thai woman thing... I noticed a number of empty bars where there were 5 or 6 Thai women just sitting at the bar I'm assuming waiting for men to come in to entertain... And then every now and again I'll see some man surrounded by more than one Thai woman while sitting in a bar... the women usually look less than enthused... I don't really get it... I don't think there's much to get here... I just find it... disturbing I guess. It's starting to get to me. Now, oddly enough, this also kind of makes me feel safer because other than being a tourist possibly with some money, it doesn't really feel like there's much that anyone would want from me...