We were initially planning on booking a tour of James Bond island today, however after spending all yesterday diving we were exhausted and decided it was better to have a rest day. I read several not terribly exciting reviews of the island, so we decided it was probably for the best anyways. We ended up having a lazy morning on the beach instead. Todd spent the time reading some magazines in the sun, while I spent some time sketching out some thoughts I’d been having about one of my computing projects, a distributed file system. The sun was strong, however there was a bit of a breeze so it didn’t feel as hot as it did on Friday. We went for a dip in the ocean to cool down after about an hour or so of beaching, we then returned for more sun. After another hour or so we went back to the hotel, at around 1 PM or so.
We showered, dressed, and went to find lunch. We ended up back in the street by the big resort complex at yet another restaurant; Todd had the fried rice for the first time of our trip, while I had a green curry. After lunch we went back to the hotel where I read while Todd napped, he was feeling tired and wanted to have enough energy for the evening. After a couple of hours the sun started going down, so we decided to start looking for a dinner location. We took a walk along the main drag of Patong Beach, where we ended up choosing another small Thai restaurant to eat at. I was starting to feel a bit sick to my stomach at this point, so I ordered a fried rice because it was the plainest thing available, and even still I didn’t eat more than half. We walked around for a bit before returning to the hotel; we played a couple rounds of crib. At this point I realized I’d gotten more sun than I expected and was starting to feel the heat of a bad sunburn, so I had a quick 15 minute nap with cool towels on my shoulders to help draw some of the heat out of the burn.
After a quick rest we got dressed and went looking for the gay district in Phuket. It was about 10 PM at this point. We’d read ahead of time to search for the Royal Paradise complex but it was a bit difficult to nail down exactly where it was. It turns out that Google Maps is not the best when the addresses are in a different language than the one you search in. After taking a few wrong turns, and being offered free admission to more ping pong shows than I care to remember, we found ourselves at Boat Bar, one of the local gay establishments known for their twice nightly cabarets. We arrived at around 10:30 expecting to see someone else there, but we were the only 2 patrons present! We ended up ordering a drink and sat on the patio while we waited for the bar to pick up. After arriving we learned that the first show was scheduled for midnight. After about 20 minutes a group of friends from Great Britain and Australia showed up and chatted with us for a bit; after learning we were on our honeymoon one of the guys bought us both drinks. Todd and I each ended up having 3 drinks over about 1.5 hours, finishing our last drink just before midnight. We entered to watch a few drag queens performing, however near the end of the second act I suddenly felt ill and left the bar to get some fresh air. I was sick on the street, though I don’t think it was due to the liquor. The walk home cleared me up, and I was feeling fine by the time we went to bed.
