In June, 1979, Patong Beach was but a half dozen small bungalows and the large Patong Beach Hotel about mid way on the stunning horse shoe shaped bay.
Patong Beach Bungalows were usually full of happy German tourist.
The big Patong Beach Hotel was mainly for bus tours/Nicorman-types,short stays, “see 4 countries in 4 days” folks. The ONLY place on Patong with air conditioning and hotwater!
Scandia Bungalows were always full of jovable Norse, they rarely slept during their “winter over” from the land of the Northen Lights. They were usually good natured and were just glad to be out of the cold.
The newly built 7 Seas Bungalow were a place to stay away from, mostly “northen” European lowlifes, daily fights and trouble was this place!!
Valentine Bungalows,run by Mr Singh was a complete garden delight! The “old chinaman” kept the place ship-shape, the gardens full of tiger lillies and birds of paradise. Although there were only 4 small bungalows, they were ALWAYS full. There was usually little or no problems at Valentines.
Bayshore Bungalows, just south of where Holiday Inn is now, were the backpackers choice. Similar to Valentines, but not kept up as well, but OK. If you stayed at Bayshore, you’d need earplugs, cause the crickets would chirp at about 100 decibles!! [for sure!!!!]. They had GREAT curry at their little cafe too.
SeaView Bungalows was at the extreme south end of Patong Beach, where the rice paddy creek let out into Patong Bay. We’d stay there only if none of the other bungalows had rooms. They were really far from , but they were clean, had a nice cafe.
Naturally every bungalow compound had their own “stories”, mostly at the expense of the other bungalows…:-)
The expats, tourists and travellors made up the majority of people that stayed in Old Patong, atleast in the bungalows on the beach.
ALL women still wore sarongs in those days, their were only a few “working” ladies there, we became friends with both, one turned out to be the mysterious lady that looked like a cross between Mae West and Tina Turner, I’ll just call her “Lydia”, but anyone there then knows who she is. The other was a wild one, I’ll just call her “3”, any other talent in the area was imported from Bangkok, and of that, there were few.
I won’t discuss what happened at 7 Seas, it was considered little more than a hognam serving Mekhong…
too be continued…
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