It wasn’t a total loss when it came to the beach. We couldn’t sunbathe, seeing as how it was overcast for the whole trip, but that didn’t stop me from splashing around in the ocean like a fool. I hadn’t been to the beach since I was a little kid, so bad weather or not I was damn sure gonna take a dip!
Luckily, my wife has a waterproof camera so I was able to get these kick-ass shots while out in the ocean. I’m just glad none of the murky underwater photos showed a big eye or something. That probably would’ve freaked me out. I’m always worried about going too far out where there might be sharks and who knows what. It seems like some new weird fish from the depths of the ocean is turning up on shore and being discovered every week.
As far as beaches go, and I’m basing this mostly on what I’ve seen on TV, Patong Beach is average. It might be great when the sand is dry. Also, the storms churned up a lot of the silt from the seabed along the shore so the water wasn’t very blue, except on the far right side where we were when we took these photos.
The weather kept us from going to Phi Phi Island to check it out, which we’d planned on doing, so it looks like we have an excuse to go back.
After I took a short dip we walked along the beach for a while and as we got closer to the middle of the bay the water turned an ugly brown and there was trash on the beach. I can only assume that during better weather that’s kept clean for tourists. There weren’t too many people on the beach while we were there.
A few interesting things to note are that the beach chairs provided aren’t free. Someone will come along and try to charge you 100 baht to sit in the chair, so just bring a beach towel. Also, be wary of the guys renting out jet skis. I didn’t deal with them but heard they try to rip off tourists, especially with supposed maintenance requirements at the completion of a rental.
The last cool thing about the beach is that it’s literally right along the road. You step off the sidewalk and onto the beach for most of its length, so when you’re done you can walk to a restaurant in just a few minutes.
Bradley Farless 
@Rowena: Ya, it was a shame. We were really hoping to get out there, but it gives us an excuse to go back, hopefully when the weather is better! There are other things we want to do too, like ride elephants.@Anonymous: Thanks for sharing that. I'd never heard of the Maldives and it looks like a fantastic place to visit. That's one of those 'big' vacations though, so we'll have to save up for that one. I read up on the history, culture and geography of the place and it looks really nice!
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Too bad about Phi Phi island. I was hoping you'd be able to visit 😦
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The whole place felt pretty safe to me, as long as you minded your manners and acted civilized. We didn't see anything 'bad' going on.Stay tuned for more! ^_^
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Patong Beach no longer as nice as it used to be.Try out Maldives. You will love it.
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Pretty beach anyway :-)Phuket brings a lot of memories for me. Not so much for the water sports but more the night life.My girlfriends and I had a drink near a boxing rink and then later we visited a ladyboy club. It was interesting, but I was still worried about what could potentially happen though.
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