We were supposed to go island hopping today but Zoe got food poisoning, so I’ve been trying to savor my last bit of legal weed and just wander around town. The town here sucks, though. We’re staying in Bangtao, which is “less developed” than the beaches more south on the coast, but that is rapidly changing because there are resort construction sites in every corner.
I can’t even be mad at the resorts, because I knew that coming into Phuket, I just didn’t realize the extent of how trashy, uncultured, and entitled these tourists could be. Even just in the airport, I got passive aggressively yelled at by some Australian guy. I keep getting a mix of dirty looks from white strangers (most when I smell like weed…mb) or weird-ass gentle self-aware smiles when I’m wearing my friend’s Chang beer shirt with oversized slides and they think I’m a local.
But anyways, today I took a Grab (SEA uber) more into Bangtao’s town (we’re staying on the beach) to see if there was anything more authentic going on. The answer was: no, it’s worse. The “bustling street” I’d researched up online was the cultural equivalent of a strip of boutiques and burger/mexican/luxury waffle joints in Burbank. There was only one Thai restaurant in the whole radius. I’m just so confused…what is everyone doing here?
It’s really harrowing. I keep witnessing disco-balled tuk-tuk’s carrying sunburnt drunk blonde girls or middle aged white couples singing to the American hits radio station passing pickup trucks overpacked with dirt-covered workers off their construction shifts on the beachside villas. There are hamburgers in every restaurant near me.
i didn't actually take any photos of the things that disgusted me so here's a dog at a beach
This trip isn’t a total disaster, though. For my actual birthday we ended up last minute booking a hotel in Phuket Old Town, where for the first time in days we weren’t just surrounded by the most orange white people alive. It was still touristy, but at least earlier in the day it was mostly younger people from more Asian countries. At the very least, I didn’t feel like I was gonna accidentally piss someone off for standing in the wrong place. We also went to a couple of neat bars/clubs at night where there was a presence of people who actually lived in the city.
birthday gift from a bar in phuket town
The next day we did go back to the beach, but I found a more secluded area up north (the luxury resorts are still a WIP up there…) and we were able to watch the sunset in peace.
I think this trip has been a hard awakening to the realities of the ethics of traveling. In China a large number of tourists even in the ‘tourist trap’ places are Chinese, since the countries so big and not notoriously open and inviting for foreigners, so I forgot this could even happen. In a way, it feels like things are too democratized. Industry has made it possible for everyone to experience the thrilling exotic Thai vacation, the internet and ChatGPT has made it possible for everyone to have the means to research and book it. The high class remote-resort experience has become repeatedly encroached by ‘budget’ versions (that people still pay good money for), and there’s only so much land by the beach.
There’s also the feeling that the only way to be having a good time the Phuket beaches is to not fully consider Thai people as human beings. They’re considered essentially slaves at worst, background noise at best, a vacant nightly love interest that smiles and puts up with every ‘if-she-could-speak-english-she-couldn't-keep-this-up’ nothing you drone on about if that’s what you’re here for, but never the people around you enjoying the same luxuries. And there are thousands of people here who seem to be having a great time.
I did some internet research and there are so many Russians here because Thailand basically lets them get away with legal loophole land purchases/business investments. Thailand got their start economically by being a vacation spot for US Soldiers in Vietnam, and now tourism funds so much of Thailand’s economy, with a large percentage of rural populations being supported via checks from family members working in hospitality in the cities. It just feels like a really big clusterfuck of global capitalism that’s screwing over the citizens the most. Fuck GDP!! I wish for the liberation of this country from the west and for all the fat Russian old men to be swept into the sea.
from an art exhibit in phuket town.