Phuket

May 2–8, 2013

At the beginning of each film screening (and after 15 minutes of commercials), every single filmgoer at every movie theatre in Thailand must stand up to show respect for the king, in whose honor the national anthem plays from the screen.

All Thais have an incredible amount of reverence for the king. There are portraits of him in every building. Even though he’s 85 years old at this point, the portraits usually depict him in his youth. The king’s likeness also appears on money, which is why tearing bills is prohibited. The bills are passed strictly from hand to hand and never tossed down on the table.

You’re also not allowed to export Buddha statues taller than 15 centimeters out of Thailand. Or Buddha statues made of wood.

Like in every East Asian city, there are masses of wires hanging in the air like tangles of spaghetti. And they hum!

The wires are fastened down with special plastic curlers.

Utility poles that end up on the roadway are lovingly fenced off.

Payphones.

All the sidewalks are equipped with wheelchair ramps.

Young women feeding a cat.

Policemen under a “drunken people crossing” sign.

The Phuket airport is situated right on the seashore. Because all the beaches are public by law, you’re free to stand under the plane’s glide path as it lands (a sort of poor man’s version of Sint Maarten).

In the event of a tsunami, flee this way (see also: Sri Lanka, Saipan, Guam).

Motorcyclists are required to wear a helmet.

A kilometer marker.

Highway route markers.

A license plate.

A fire hydrant.

It’s hot here. Fire extinguishers are located on the exterior of buildings, so that you can dash to the fire with something useful in hand.

In Phuket Town, there are special plastic sleeves for electricity bills hanging outside every house.

Traffic police booths are shaped like the policemen’s helmets (like in Baghdad).

A wedding album in progress.

Fence barriers are equipped with wheels and set up in pairs.

There are modern post boxes with an unattractive pointed profile.

Compact ones on a leg, with a rounded top.

And large freestanding ones with one or two slots and a hip roof.

Children.

The Thai really have a thing for concrete outdoor table and chair sets. They’re everywhere.

Oh, look at the cute elephants!

There are self-service gas pumps all over. A brilliant invention—they’re convenient and don’t take up much space.

It was hard to expect Phuket’s various small towns to differ from one another in any way. Yet each one is trying to outdo the next with the beauty of its street signs. Here are the old and new signs in the capital, Phuket Town.

Here’s some gorgeousness from Patong.

But Rawai completely outdazzles the rest and blows them out of the water. It has the most beautiful street signs in the entire world.

Phuket is renowned for its sex industry. At night, the streets fill with pimps armed with entertainment menus, inviting everyone to their “ping pong show.”

The shows are all more or less the same. The program consists of ladies blowing out candles with their private parts, ladies shooting darts at balloons from their private parts, ladies pulling out fifteen-meter-long luminescent cords from their private parts, as well as the pièce de résistance—the ping pong ball number.

Late in the evening, having seen enough of transvestites and tricks with private parts, I was walking back to my lodgings, ruminating about how this entire industry is every bit as predictable and boring as the food service industry which provides meals on bus tours. There’s no novelty, no individual approach, so to speak.

Here my thoughts were interrupted. Two girls on a moped cut me off and began to offer themselves. Perhaps they weren’t even girls (it’s not always easy to tell in Thailand), but it was definitely something novel and an individual approach: a mobile sex patrol.