Glen’s 40th Birthday Thai Extravaganza: Part Three

Tuesday was a full-on day despite spending most of it at the villa. We had a late breakfast, enjoying a longer lie-in than the previous two days, and lounged by the pool for a good part of it. Around ten am, Dion and I walked down the hill to the main street to an optometrist. 

I had snapped the bridge of my glasses while cleaning the lenses on the first night in Phuket and had been relying on contact lenses since. This wasn’t entirely a bad thing as I should wear my contact lenses more often to get used to them, and while a few days of frequent use had helped, glasses are definitely easier to handle. 

The guy in the shop wasn’t able to repair the bridge so suggested I buy a new pair that the old lenses could fit into. There weren’t any but the next best solution was to buy glasses that are essentially a pair of arms and the bridge with holes drilled into the lenses for them to attach to. For about $160 this would do. I paid a deposit and would return at 6pm to collect them. 

Back at the villa it was soon time to start our cooking class but not before saying goodbye to Rob who had to go home to work. The party was already starting to splinter.

Our Thai cooking experience

Cooking Thai food was one of the activities we’d floated to do while in Phuket. The villa manager organised it all with the villa chef and staff so we didn’t have to go anywhere else and, more importantly, it could all be done in air conditioning. We thought we were only going to cook three dishes but this soon turned into six with three of cooking at any one time.

We made pad thai, spring rolls, tom kha kai, and chicken and cashew. The chef also demonstrated how to make the steamed fish and the accompanying sauce (secret ingredient: pineapple) and we skipped out on doing the papaya salad as by the time we’d got through four dishes, we’d been doing it for about four hours and were failing.

The cooking quickly turned competitive with taste testing and declarations of winners. Ben and Dion did well, I did not. Perhaps. I should never cook again? Regardless, we ate a lot of food, got some new skills and enjoyed ourselves. 

We then all went for a nap or a swim in the pool and gradually, slowly, eventually decided that tonight would be the night we ‘went out’. Meanwhile, I’d collected my glasses from down the road and despite only intending them to be a temporary pair, they look quite good and may hang around a while longer (which is a relief as I hate going shopping).

Gone clubbin’

Glen found an area of gay nightclubs and bars in Patong Beach and organised for a driver to take us at about 8:30. We ended up near Bangla Road which was heaving with a lot of pasty white and very drunk people. The car disgorged us in front of the police station and off we went.

Unfortunately, in my haste to get out and find a bathroom – would my night be over before it began? – I left my phone in the car. I didn’t need it really but I didn’t realise I didn’t have until well after I’d found the bathroom and I couldn’t remember if I’d left it in the car or brought it with me at all. Anna messaged the villa manager and she checked with the driver who confirmed it was in the car and would bring it when they picked me up. Relief!

(This has been one of the great things about doing the holiday the way we have as we’re using the same staff over and over and can have some continuity. If we’d taken our own taxi, that phone would have been gone, gone, gone.)

Unencumbered by my phone, we then went walking to find the place that Glen was after, eventually settling on a club called Zag. As it was still fairly early (about 9:30pm), the gay bars were mostly empty and touts were trying to get us to drink at their establishment. We took up nine chairs out the front of Zag and ordered drinks.

Most went for Chang’s, while others went for gin and tonics, and I went for a Jack and coke – all with no ice, all warm. Delicious. We then sat and chatted for a while but it wasn’t long before the shows started. The shows were…interesting.

The performers stood on a small dais and…did things. One group of shirtless men danced like they were running in extreme slow motion. A group of lady-boys in traditional Thai dress danced to traditional Thai music in what might have been a traditional way but only one of the five seemed to know what she was doing. 

Another group of shirtless men came out dressed with black wings and simply stood there like a very silent auction. A drag queen performed and then the shirtless meat market parade again before it all wrapped up and we were encouraged inside where yet more performances took place…and never ended.

Drag queens, back-up dancers and break dancers performed for the crowd but I don’t think I was drunk enough to really give a damn after watching the seventh performance. I found a seat and watched from the sidelines before it finally ended at midnight. The announcer said they’d be back at 1am so we danced but they actually returned to the stage at 12:30am instead.

Despite meeting some guys from Sydney and Melbourne, and bumping into a friend of mine from Sydney as well, it wasn’t enough to make us stay through yet more awful performances. We left and decided not to try our luck anywhere else. Instead we went across the road to the all-night supermarket and bought snacks and waited for the driver to come back to get us.

I was trying to work out who exactly the club was for. The obvious answer should be gay guys but we’re not all created equal. I love a spectacle as much as the next person but it was to be worthwhile. So were the performances aimed at a clientele who don’t see men dressed up as women very often? Are they from towns or countries that are extremely conservative or too small to support a gay scene? And who’s buying? The parade of shirtless men resulted in a lot of them attached to patrons in the crowd (men and women) so who’s willingly forking over the men? Really all we wanted to do was have a drink and go dancing. Maybe we should have drunk more.

Donna, Callum and Anna had gone off to a straight bar/club down Bangla Road and had a lot more drinks. Even looked like they found some good dancing too. They came back and joined us and we waited on the street for the driver to come get us and take us home. The streets were largely empty by the time we left at 2am and there was no traffic, which was made even more obvious by the fact that the speed limit is only 40–50 kmh so felt interminable.

Much like the performances we’d seen.

We arrived home at 3am and all toddled off to bed.

Everything ends

Wednesday was our last full day with one already gone (Rob) and another to go that night (Anna). Due to the late(ish) night, we got up late, some of us eating breakfast, others sleeping the rest of the day away. Glen, Anna, Dion, Ben and I spent all day in the villa, eating a small lunch and spending a long time in the pool. Anna, Glen and I got foot massages (though I think mine was pretty useless). Simon and Julian went to the beach, as did Callum and Donna. All were back by 6:30 for our final dinner of yet more delicious food and then we said goodbye to Anna who headed back to Sydney.

We rounded out the evening with a few rounds of Telestrations, which provided many laughs and then a quick dip in the pool. Ben and Dion, and Julian and Simon were leaving early in the morning for their flights home so we said our sad goodbyes and went to bed. By the time we got up on Thursday morning, they’d already gone.

With the gradual break-up of the party, I’d gotten increasingly sad. It’s not like we’ll never see these people again but there was something special about the time we spent together. I’m very sad that it’s over and the come-down from this wonderful week has been a little hard to handle. Perhaps it’s that the whole week has been so easy and so magical and so relaxed. Very few thoughts about work, very little stress about what to do, about what food to prepare, about housework to be done, general life crap intruding. How lucky we are.

On Wednesday night, Glen and Dion sorted out the bill, amassing huge piles of Thai baht to settle what we owed from transfers, cooking classes, breakfasts and dinners and a constantly restocking minibar. I’m glad I didn’t attempt to help as it took a long time to work out and that was even with splitting it ten ways (or so I hear. It was better that I stayed out of it). All this was handed over to the manager on Thursday morning while Glen, Donna and I were the last to leave.

We had breakfast at 8, a few dips in the pool, packed our bags and felt generally morose about our time coming to an end. Callum left at 10, Donna at 11:30 in the middle of a game of Bohnanza and then Glen and I at 12. I felt like I did when we left Toronto – and we were only there a week! Apparently we’re the longest staying group that the villa has had with most bookings lasting three or four nights. They certainly got to know us by the end.

The driver took us to the airport, which included one hair-raising moment where we thought we were going to die. He took us down some back streets to an area by a canal and both Glen and I thought we were going to be dragged from the car and shot in the head. He then turned back onto the main street and our heart rates eased.

Got to the airport, joined a queue for an oversold flight to Singapore but managed to still get our seats. Quick flight to Singapore, an hour between flights, and then onto our flight home to Perth. We’ll get in at midnight and Glen has to work tomorrow, poor love, but at least he got to celebrate his 40th in style!