Phuket New Year's Eve Extravaganza - Ao Chalong, Phuket, Thailand
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 11 Feb 2012 03:07
7:48.937N 98:22.806E December 30, 2011 - January 3, 2012 New Year's Eve in Phuket is definitely something to write home about. These people know how to do New Year's. Maybe it's because they get lots of practice - there's the Christian New Year, the Buddhist New Year, the Muslim New Year, and the Chinese New Year - all celebrated in one form or another on Phuket. The Christian New Year is especially spectacular because it's very good business to keep the huge Phuket tourist population happy. Besides, it's fun. The happening place for New Year's Eve on Phuket is Patong Bay. Patong is best known for its debauchery. We've never been there, but we've been told (sometimes in greater detail than even we could stomach) about its sex shows, endless rows of seedy bars, sub-standard restaurants and overpopulation of bar girls and ladyboys. Not really our cup of tea, but evidently a certain element of the tourist population keeps the demand for Patong depravity running strong. So, why would we want to go there for New Year's? Because in the land of fabulous fireworks, Patong is said to be the best. So good, in fact, that boaters are advised to remain on board during the hours-long pyrotechnics display to keep a fire watch. Apparently, smoldering cinders from the overhead spectacle have a way of finding unsuspecting yacht decks to land on. Our yacht posse (Storyteller, Lady Kay, Baraka, Harmonie) planned to go north from Nai Harn to Patong on Phuket's west coast, for the festivities. However, the wind was still blowing (around here it seems to only do that when we don't want it to), and the boater grapevine was abuzz with talk of 40 knot winds, horrendous swell and dragging boats in Patong Bay. Ok, we all like a good New Year's celebration, but too much wind and swell combined with dragging boats filled with drunk people didn't appeal. So we bagged the plan and relocated six miles east around the corner to Ao Chalong Bay on Phuket's southern coast instead. Ao Chalong is extremely well protected, so when we arrived, we were greeted with a soft breeze and completely calm water. Dinghy access to the beach is a piece of cake here (as long as you avoid going in at dead low tide when the fringing reef lurking below the surface takes bites out of passing outboard motor props), so there would be no dinghy loading drama or wet underwear episodes. What we thought would be a New Year's Eve celebration slightly on the sedate side, turned out to exceed all expectations. Don't you just love it when that happens? When you're expecting boring or worse, and get fabulous instead? Indonesia was like that for us. We expected to 'get through' Indonesia like it was some kind of unpleasant task, but what we found instead was a vibrant, fun, welcoming people, surrounded by gorgeous scenery and steeped in the kind of history storybooks are made of. New Year's Eve in Ao Chalong didn't quite live up to our extraordinary Indonesian experience, but, it was more than a bit of fun. We all decided the thing to do was have a late dinner at one of the beach bar restaurants on shore, and stay until midnight to watch the fireworks. A solid, low key, relaxed plan. The night started with happy hour on Harmonie. An added bonus to the group were Storyteller's guests: John and Irene from the Australian boat Southern Princess, a fellow World ARC Rally drop-out. Southern Princess is for sale in the Sydney area at the moment, and John and Irene were doing the Southeast Asia land travel circuit, including a few weeks on Storyteller. Once again it was a mini-World ARC reunion with fellow drop-outs Lady Kay, Storyteller and Southern Princess present. After happy hour, we all made our way to the beach (no drama) where a set of mismatched chairs and tables were sitting crookedly in the sand, waiting for our arrival. The first round of big Chiang beers was ordered and the fireworks started. Three hours later and the fireworks were still going. Fireworks and Chinese lanterns. All under a clear sky and the watchful eye of Big Buddha. What a fantastic ambiance - sitting on the beach, Big Buddha lit up and staring serenely down at us from the highest Phuket peak, Chinese lanterns floating slowly in the breeze above, eventually turning into yellow stars when the flames driving them up were no longer clearly visible, and fireworks spreading across the bay in front of us in an endless stream of sparkles. The beach we were on is part of a peninsula that forms the east side of Chalong Bay. It was the perfect vantage point from which to see the fireworks shooting off from bunches of sites around the wide bay. These fireworks were not paltry little flare things making one measly bang sound and shooting off one sad point of light. No. These were proper fireworks. Huge fireworks. Firing off from more locations than you could count (I tried and got close to 50). Poking up from behind the mountains and Big Buddha, we could also see the fireworks coming from what must have been the Patong Beach area on the west coast. Then, the most exciting part: all the restaurants and hotels along the peninsula had their own fireworks stash, and proceeded to set them off, sometimes only a dozen feet from where we were sitting. What followed was a frenzy of banging sound and light. Most of us had never viewed fireworks from directly below before. It was like sitting under a fireworks umbrella. As soon as one fantastic dome fizzled, it was replaced by another and another. We did see one set of fireworks launch sideways instead of up. Not a good thing. Luckily no one was hurt, but there was a lot of hopping and skipping around for a moment as everyone tried to avoid getting speared by a flying piece of pyrotechnic art. Midnight arrived and the fireworks tempo increased to a riotous frenzy. It was clear the various firing sites didn't have synchronized watches because there was a wave of finales over the course of fifteen minutes. It was the perfect end to a Phuket New Year's fireworks extravaganza - a fifteen minute midnight. Things wound down as we loaded back into the dinghies at around 1am. Again, no drama. We dropped John and Sue off at Storyteller and were persuaded to join them and guest John for a last New Year's drink. One turned into several and after three hours of snigger-filled World ARC reminiscing, Don and I rolled into the dinghy and back to Harmonie at 4am. It was a successful night. New Year's Day was very, very quiet. We've never seen an anchorage with close to thirty boats in it sit so quietly. Not a dinghy was stirring. Nice. Anne |