[DREW]

Beach road renaissance

General
August saw a welcome increase of tourists to the beach and the street vendors and hawkers were happily accosting shoppers once again. It has been lean times for all, but the Beach Road again has plenty of small shops open ready for visitors. The good news for all you husbands who suffer from a spouse with "shop ‘till you drop syndrome" is that the Beach Road is also heavily interspersed with bars. Let her shop while you drink a few cold ones!! For sundowners I can recommend the Beach Bar at the south end near the Ocean Shopping Plaza . It always draws an interesting crowd.

Black Rose Motorcycle Club
The Black Rose Motorcycle Club celebrated its second anniversary on the 20th August with a Biker rally. This charity group are involved in several bars and clubs on Soi Bangla and laid on a full weekend of food and drink. The main bars involved were the Blue Note, the Kangaroo and the Dragon Club all within easy staggering distance. On Saturday night, they had a bike display on Soi Bangla .This took the organizers some effort as special permission had to be obtained from the Governor himself to permit special use of Bangla. The weekend was well-attended with fellow bikers coming in from several other clubs in the region.

Nicky's Handlebar
Here on Phuket "Biker tourism" has increased over the years. Nicky's Handlebar on the Ratutit Road in Patong do specialist, escorted bike road trips off the island and into the neighbouring provinces. This bar itself is a popular spot with bike enthusiasts and non-bikers alike. The walls are festooned with bike memoribilia and spare parts. Many people drop in for meal and a few beers to soak up the atmosphere. If Nicky is in the house he will gladly give you a tour of his workshop and show off his collection of Harleys and Caddys.

Scruffy Murphy's
Scruffy's on Soi Bangla still enjoys a good crowd every night. The do a daily happy hour price on Tiger draught at 100 Baht per pint up to nine o'clock and draught Chang up to midnight at the same price. The band has doubled in size and with the addition of a drummer, is now known as the Two Red Hot Potatoes. Unfortunately they seem to have strayed from the concept of being an Irish Bar and their music tended to be a mix of Robbie Williams, Coldplay, Oasis and old Beatles stuff. In their defence they were responding to customer requests and it was a young crowd that night. In my humble opinion if you go into an Irish Bar then be prepared to listen to Irish music. Never mind, I still enjoyed myself and I do like their efficient staff who made sure my glass was never empty. Scruffy's is also open all day and has five large screen TVs for sports fans who like to escape the heat and relax in the aircon environment. The food is its usual high standard and they also run a daily specials board.

Molly Malones
Molly Malones on the Beach Road has been recruiting staff and is in the process of completing its repairs and refurbishment. They aim to be ready to open late September and will have the same format as their Scruffy Murphy's Bar .Before being wrecked by the tsunami, this bar was very popular and did a good selection of food and drinks. I am sure it will do as well as before being on such a prime location on the centre of Beach Road . Hopefully their management will soon be able to give us any information on their opening night.

A tale of two Chippies!!
A Englishman decided to do something new in Patong and he set out to open an English style Chippie. He had kicked the idea around with some friends and realized that the concept might work. He took a lease on brand new premises on Ratutit Road and outfitted it with all the correct cooking equipment and decorated the place out just like your local chippie back home. Sounds good so far? One of his so-called friends went further down the street to the OTOP shopping centre and took over a cheap Thai noodle cafe and opened an English fish and chip shop. They have large billboards outside two bars in OTOP with the Union flag proclaiming to be the best fish and chip shop in town. It is little wonder that the Thais think it is easy to rip off farangs - we do it to ourselves!!

Happy Horseshit
While the events of New Orleans were tragic I really took exception to some American commentators who said "It is America 's Tsunami". What total bullshit. Here on Patong Beach we had no warning. The people of New Orleans had four days of live TV countdown.

Thought of the Day
The way to a woman's heart is through your wallet!