Along Thaweewong Road, the road that runs alongside Patong Beach, all the shops and hotels had borne the force full of the rushing waters. The sea reached halfway up Bang-la Road, the main bar strip perpendicular to the beach, seriously damaging many shops, restaurants and bars through repeated waves.

The Thais set about cleaning up and repairing the damage immediately. By July 2005, when I was there, 80-90% of the shops along Thaweewong and Bang-la have been restored and were fully functional. The remaining ones were either ready for occupation but waiting for tenants or else with work in progress. 

Hotels, being larger complexes than shops, would need more than 6 months to be rebuilt; many facing Thaweewong Road (and the sea) were still under construction. However, those that were more than 200 - 300 metres inland escaped unscathed, and have all this while been open for business. Thus Phuket has had no real shortage of hotel rooms after the tsunami.

Open-air bar along Bang-la Road hoping for business

The Indian monsoon lasts from June to September. People have the idea that this means it's raining all the time. Not true: like the monsoon seasons we get in Singapore, it means a mix of sunny periods, cloudy, overcast periods and rain. The rain is welcome, for it means the heat of the day is washed away leaving nights refreshingly cool.

Beautiful beach during sunny part of the day
but where are the tourists?

Many people, especially Westerners, don't know this, thinking instead that it rains non-stop during the "rainy season". Coupled with the fact that it's summer in the northern hemisphere, Phuket's tourism pattern is a strongly seasonal one, with the trough around the third quarter of the year.

White sand, clean beach. It's been a bright, sunny morning, but the clouds are coming in.

Earlier this month, the hotel that I stayed in had, in my estimation, no more than 20% occupancy, and newspaper reports suggest that other hotels have similar numbers too. Restaurants were half empty even at peak mealtimes, and bars worse.

People were still afraid of a repeat disaster, though the chance of two tsunamis hitting the same spot on earth is infinitesimally small. Others were afraid of ghosts and spirits, she told me. At least that was an improvement on the fears circulating in the first few months after the tsunami, when people imagined they might bump into a corpse while swimming in the sea.

Thaweewong Road, running along the beach

The gays bars of Patong are mostly in the northernmost of the 5 sois (lanes) leading to the ugly, insensitive tower that is the Royal Paradise Hotel. In the gay soi, there are roughly two types of bars -– the "open" ones, where customers and host-boys sit around a bar counter and mingle, open to view from the street or lane, and the "closed" ones which are walled in with a door. The closed ones are open to the public, but boast of minimally-clothed a-go-go and shows within.

The gay soi in the day

I popped into the bars at different hours on various nights. Sometimes, I was there between 9 and 11. Other nights, I didn't get there till after midnight. But whatever the time, the bars were always more empty than full. On occasion, there were no other customers in the bar I was in. At most, there were 12 or 13 other patrons, in a bar that could typically sit 30 or 40.

Besides that, my other chief observation was how if the bar promised a "show", it was invariably a cabaret show, featuring cross-dressers. Many straight people think that as a rule, gay men delight in such shows. But they are wrong. I figure that a majority of gay men have absolutely no interest in them, and a significant minority are actually turned off by them. I am.

For one, feminised mannerisms and appearances are of no erotic interest to me, and thus, they're a waste of my time. For another, and more importantly, the subtext of such performances is to reinforce heteronormativity. In every item of these shows, there is a male role and a female role. In the choreography, the male is restricted to certain dance movements and interactions with the "females". They look to and support the diva, but seldom interact with other males on the stage, and then never at all in an eroticised way. In other words, the heterosexual gaze is performed, but never the homosexual one. The "females" either play the diva or her sisters, and they are twirled and lifted by the males. Likewise, they seldom interact with other "females" on the stage, and never in any sensual way.

For a gay activist like me, it is offensive that what on the surface is queer subversion of male-female hierarchies through cross-dressing, ultimately sells a message that buttresses heterosexual conventions and erases homosexual interactions.

The gay soi at night

Tourists like me put up with it where we can, for we understand that in Thailand, such shows are relatively easy to organise, there being vast amount of such talent. Without them, the a-go-go routine in these bars would be numbingly unrelieved.

More erotic, even hardcore, shows would of course have much greater appeal, but they would get the bar-owner into trouble with the police. The owners would find themselves either prosecuted or, more likely, blackmailed.

Yet, breaking the routine is one thing, having cabaret shows that go on for an hour and a half, if not two, is another. And that was what was happening in the gay soi. I went into one bar at about 10 and found the show to be just starting. I nursed my drink waiting for it to end. By 11, it was still going on. At 11.30, it mercifully ended, but then, it was announced (in Thai) that it was the lead diva's birthday. 

To mark the occasion, they put on an extra act, complete with birthday cake and candles which took forever to light (couldn't find the matches, butane-fired cigarette-lighters which everybody offered being considered too crass and were declined, and then when they finally found the matches, they realised that the draft from the airconditioning was too strong....) and which would have added another 15 - 30 minutes to the show.

Except that, the rain having stopped by then, I left. As did three in four other customers.

The aim of these bars must be to sell drinks and their "boys", but if the boys don't get any opportunity to appear on stage during the peak two hours between 10 and 12 midnight, surely, the program must be self-defeating. Crudely though I'm putting it, the fact is, how do you hope to sell goods that aren't on display?

Perhaps, the aim is to sell more drinks, since the number of gay customers looking to book the "boys" are so low anyway. Perhaps the hope is to get the customers to stay on longer in the bar and order another round.

Well, I didn't see that happening. Already unhappy that I had to put up with a cabaret show, I stretched my drink as long as I could, not knowing when the weary show would end. Looking around, others did the same thing. And when the show went on too long, we just got up, paid for that one drink and walked out.

It occurred to me that perhaps to compensate for the pathetic numbers of gay tourists, these bars decided to put on the cabaret shows to attract the straight tourists, but if so, it didn't look like it was working. While there were often one or two mixed couples in the bars, surely, they couldn't make up for the number of gay customers that the cabaret shows put off, and the number of boy-bookings lost.

* * * * *

 
Yet the fact is, there's no easy solution when overall, tourist numbers are so low. It is a shame because Patong in Phuket is wonderful as a holiday destination. In the day, it has beautiful white sand beaches and a sea that is clean (though not crystal clear, mostly because of the sand churned up by the surf). There are easy boat trips to smaller islands where one can scuba-dive. 

In the evenings there are quite a few options for food and entertainment, not boringly quiet as some more idyllic beach resorts tend to be (I'll admit it – I'm no romantic. Pristine, quiet nature is not for me. I want sleaze and fun!). Phuket even has a gay sauna with a small indoor swimming pool.

Bang-la Road is car-free at night

So go. Grab a weekend, grab a cheap flight on a no-frills airline and a cheapish room (while they're still cheap). Go.

© Yawning Bread