90. PHUKET

 

 
 I detest theme parks but I checked out Fantasea in Phuket with some boring fellow travellers to see what the fuss is about. The show was quite good, the Thai tourism people have honed tourist attractions to a fine art for the mass market as everything about this huge complex was highly commercialised and all about shopping

The Thais never forget to inject their cultural and traditional dances and costumes, something they are proud of.
This dance, the costumes and the accompanying music is almost 'Malay,' like a ronggeng.
 
The Malays in Malaysia may deny it but the Hindu influence is strong in their makeup. When I studied Malay as a second language in Malaysia, the early Malay language had words that were of Sanskrit origin. Because their language was so new, they had to come up with more words and these were increasingly from English.

Malay brides still use henna tattoos on their hands and feet and it used to be they were proud of their shadow puppet cultural shows which depicted stories from the Ramayana. They used to have folklore characters told in stories they were proud of as 'Malay' until they decided those characters' names were too Sanskrit or Hindu and were deleted from their culture and books.

The Malays in Malacca intermarried with the early Chinese arrivals so too with the Portuguese who settled there. In those early days the population in old Malaya comprised many tribal peoples, sea gypsies were common in port towns and seaside and island communities. In the jungle clearings there were orang asli reservations - that name became an embarrassment to them and it was changed to bumiputras - sons of the soil - which basically means indigenous or aboriginals - so what's in a
name? The DNA says it all...














 



This has been made to look like Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, I wondered why. The Thais and Cambodians are not exactly the best of friends. Are they saying that Cambodia is theirs? Would some time in the future, this place will be marketed as a genuine Thai ruin.....there are some pretty savvy tourism brains in Thailand as I've seen what and how they've marketed very successfully the River Kwai bridge etc (Post 71) and their Tiger Monastery. (Post 70)


Another area that has made Thailand such a huge success in the cut throat tourism business - their girly bars, their transvestite shows, their sex trade. The Thais are terribly accepting of their very many lady boys, they see them as good for business and many work in the restaurants as waiters. Patong is chok-a-block with such bars and the girls patrol the streets.

A large number of visitors are from the Middle East and they are there with their children - what an eye-opener this must be for them..

.....as for potential bombers, they must hate what they see as moral decay and corruption of the soul and businesses pandering to those who seek this.....

Phrom Tep Cape outside Phuket Town was lovely, my kind of scene. With so much natural beauty off their coasts, the tourism guys have their jobs cut out for them.
Poor little rich red dot Singapore has to spend millions constructing edifices to attract the tourist dollar....


For someone who dosen't enjoy sun, sea and sand, I hopped on a speed boat on a field trip to check out 7 islands

The ancient rock formations were most interesting - encrusted with barnacles. The water level must get that high or it was that high a very long time ago...

Canoeing through the channel takes one into a lagoon that was peaceful, cool and quiet. Butterflies flitted around my head, there were mudskippers on the mangroves. Despite the large number of visitors, the little critters were unafraid.







































Like something from the Blue Lagoon - to get here, I left my boat and waded through a dark tunnel with a torchlight through ankle-deep water which at one point, reached my thighs. I had to be careful I don't cut my head on the sharp barnacles above and was wary of sea snakes and leeches but was assured it was safe...


 













Would hate to bump into this Swamp Thing in that channel






For a long time, this piece of rock and the surrounding area was marketed as James Bond Island due to it being a film location.....

After that adventure, a massage and some fish spa was therapy for the soul - not for the ticklish.
They must starve the fish for they attacked my feet with gusto.


Phuket has changed drastically since my first visit. It's messier and crowded, bazaar shops spill over on to the beachside and close to some classy resort hotels, making security a problem.

It has lost its class, peace and quiet and it was no fun anymore to walk along the beach. The shops sell the same things, cheap copies of branded goods and cheaper tees and 'resortwear'.

The tourists, large numbers of middle aged pot-belly white men and single younger white males with foul mouths, there for cheap booze, food and girls, drugs and ladyboys. Sigh....why do Thailand's beach resorts all go this way?