Patong, Phuket, Thailand
From my balcony, I look down on the street, where motorbikes and scooters dominate. There is a Family Mart shop (convenience store), a beauty salon, a 7-Eleven and some motorcycle renting shops across the street. The motorcycle taxis are gathered on the curb next door. The street is lined with various, non-uniform buildings, some with rusty tin roofs, other with dull colored corrugated fiberglass roofs.
The place has a small town feel from where I stand, but a walk away from my home betrays the truth – it’s a vacation party city. Hundreds of bars, bright lights and endless market stands.
I am currently surrounded on three sides by lush, green island mountains, much like I imagine Hawaii would look like. To the other direction, I know the ocean is pulsing against the sandy shore, just around the corner from my view.
In the distance, a few blocks from my street, I see the nice hotels and resorts, geared toward the tourists that come from the beaches, and for the ‘girls.’
I enjoy the sound of cars and bikes below me on the street and the sound of a language I don’t understand drifting through my window, even as I lay in bed awaiting sleep. For some, this is too much noise, for me, it is somehow the sound of ‘belonging’.
There are innumerably more motorcycles than cars, and motorcycle taxis are more common as well. Our few days in Bangkok made us fully aware of the need for bikes, since they are more economical and efficient. They weave in and out of cars, head the wrong way down roads, and carry way too many people! It seems anything goes on a bike; I have seen babies under a year sitting in front of the driver, or between the driver and passenger, kids young and older, whole families of four on one bike, grannies, teens, business men and women, beach goers, people carrying dogs, suitcases, and one man I saw was carrying a computer tower in front of him while he drove. Nearly all people wear flip flops or some type of sandals. The street below me is actually designed for bikes more than cars, narrow and diagonally parking along the curb for bikes only.
There are few ‘real bikes’ as guys at home would classify them, but mostly small bikes and motor scooter style bikes, like nothing I have seen at home.
The weather is sticky and hot – 80%+ humidity and 90+ degrees, but I like it. I still say I prefer the heat to the cold, though some on my team have a different opinion.
I notice there are more male tourists than female, which is to be expected, given that much of the tourist industry is ‘the Thai girls.’ The tourists stand out boldly; I notice particularly the middle aged white men, wearing their Hawaiian shirts, sandals, with shorts too short, who have rented bikes, with a small young Thai women riding behind them. A part of me wonders about their stories, though in most cases I am sure they are not ones I can rejoice in. The women are likely like the bikes – rented for the duration of the gentleman’s visit to the island.
I could stand here and watch the people below pass by all day and not tire. My spirit is in prayer, as my mind takes in the lives of those below me. This is my home for the next three weeks.
