The beach masseuse: Kittiya Jampasri (48 years old)

Kittiya Jampasri

Kittiya Jampasri, known to friends and customers as ‘Toy’, set up business on Patong beach eight years ago. “I’d been selling food for many years but then I went on a training course in massage at Patong Hospital to be a masseuse, and gave up the food business. I went for more training at local massage shops before setting up this place in front of the Phuket Graceland Resort,” she explains.

In the high season she works seven days a week. In the low season, she’s at her place of work whenever it’s not too wet. “On a good day, I get nine or ten customers. But then there are times when I don’t have a single customer for a whole week. There are good times and bad times.”

Khun Toy is a member of the 400-strong Patong Beach Massage Club which sets prices for massages on the beach. Thai massage or oil massage is charged at 300 baht a session, while a one-hour foot massage costs 250 baht.

“I love working outdoors and I like Patong beach. It’s a great place to work. I arrive as early as 6.30 am to clean the place up first, then I have breakfast. The guests start arriving on the beach at around 10 am. If it is a busy day, I’ll skip lunch,” she says.

Patong Beach

After eight years on the beach, she has got to know many customers well – well enough in some cases for them to lend her money in hard times.

“There are customers who come to Phuket every year and stay for long periods – three months or six months. They usually come for a massage every other day. When they arrive, many bring me some souvenir from their country. When they go back, I give them a souvenir from Thailand to take back with them.

“Sometime, when I’m short of money – when I can’t pay my rent on time or I don’t have enough money to send to my daughter for her education, I get worried, and it shows in my face. Some of my customers have offered to lend me a few thousand baht,” Khun Toy says. “They know they’ll get it back.”

She adds, “My friendship with my customers can be very deep and personal. Twice, customers have asked me to look at their private parts to see if there was anything wrong down there. These incidents happened after they went swimming and felt that something had bitten or stung them.”

She smiles. “I looked and gave them some Thai herbal medicines to rub on the sore spot, and they felt better. Everyone was happy.”

The beach guard: Arnon Arnaburong (29 years old)

Arnon Arnaburong

Being a Patong beach guard doesn’t necessarily mean you are as good-looking as the stars of Baywatch and, unlike in the TV series, the work, responsibilities and dangers are very real.

Khun Arnon is a professional beach guard at the north end of Patong beach. When I visited him he was tired, having had only two hours’ sleep. He explained, “Yesterday we lost a Thai tourist and we couldn’t find him, even though we tried hard all day and all night. We found him just an hour ago.”

He says he finds the most difficult part of being a beach guard is getting beachgoers to take him seriously. “On a day like this it’s sunny but it’s still the monsoon season and the sea is rough, so we fly the red ‘no swimming’ flag. Many people simply ignore it.

“When we warn them about how dangerous the sea can be, we get answers like, ‘I’m a good swimmer. Don’t you worry about me,’ or, ‘The sea back in my home country is more dangerous and I’ve survived that.’ We can’t do much more except be alert all the time, ready to go out to help them when anything goes wrong,” Khun Arnon says.

“It’s amazing how many Thai tourists go swimming completely unprepared. Eighty percent of them just wade into the sea wearing jeans and a shirt, sometimes with long sleeves. We tell them that it’s not safe to swim in jeans, but they just don’t seem to care. Many times, tragedies happen simply because of this kind of ignorance. It’s sad.”

Beach guard equipment

Khun Arnon has worked for the Phuket Provincial Administration Organisation (known locally as the OrBorJor) since it started its beach guard project four years ago. All the beach guards get annual training courses taught by Australian experts.

There is good rescue equipment at each guard station but, says Khun Arnon, knowledge is the best equipment. “I think the most basic asset of an ocean lifeguard is knowledge of the sea. For example, at this beach there are riptide currents that no tourist can possibly know about. It’s our job to educate them.”

It is common to see him and other guards walking along the beach handing out ‘Safety tips for swimmers’ brochures to tourists. The brochure is written in basic English to make it easy for anyone to understand.

“With the good training we get, we know how to help people who are a lot bigger than us, but it is still very dangerous. When people are drowning, they tend to grab at anything that comes their way in an effort to stay alive.

“If people would just take us more seriously,” says Khun Arnon, “we wouldn’t have to risk our own lives and it would maybe save many other lives, too.”

The fortune teller: Wiroj Intarawichian (85 years old)

"Mor Doo", Doctor who sees

Khun Wiroj is another familiar face on Patong Beach – it’s been his office for the past 10 years. “You’ll have to speak louder,” is the first thing he says. “I don’t hear too well.” In fact, with his age and deafness (he’s also somehow lost an eye) ‘louder’ doesn’t work and I end up shouting to be heard.

His usual routine is to wander along the beach with his briefcase calling “Mor-doo, Mor-doo” – Thai for ‘fortune teller’. People stop him when they want him to read their palms and check their fortune based on the numbers of their birth date. His fee is 50 baht a reading.

His customers are by no means all Thai. He says many tourists like to know about their future. Language is never a problem – most Patong visitors have Thai company while on holiday or can manage to find someone to act as a translator.

The questions people ask are always the same, Khun Wiroj says. They want to know about their love life, whether they have any enemies, whether luck or wealth is coming their way soon, or how they can get on better in their careers.

I interview Khun Wiroj’s first two customers of the day, Khun Meaw and Khun Lak, and learn that they actually came to Patong to look for him. “We are from another province and we came to Phuket to look for work,” Khun Lak says. “But it’s very hard. We have been to a few places but there is still no sign of any jobs.

Khun Wiroj at work

“We stopped here for lunch and decided to look for him. One of my Patong friends told us that he’s a very good fortune teller. So here we are.”
Before I leave, I asked Khun Wiroj to read my palms. He looks very happy and starts telling me things without even waiting for me to ask him any questions.

“Miss, you will win the lottery but you have to buy [your ticket] only from someone who has similar skin colour to your own.” (Piece of cake, I thought. All Thai lottery ticket vendors have skin like mine.)

“You will later receive some kind of heritage from your parents.” (Hmmm. Maybe my dear father has hidden some things from the taxman and from his daughter?)

When you turn 42 you will receive a great fortune” (I love this man and this is the first time in my life that I can’t wait to be 40 then 41 then 42. Rungtip the Rich!)

Sam Wilkinson went to visit ‘Deng’ a Patong Beach dog.

Deng on Patong Beach

Hello Deng, what does your name mean?

It means ‘red’ in Thai because that’s the colour of my fur. What’s your name? Pink?

No – although I am pink. Tell me Deng, what’s it like living on the beach? What do you see?

I see so many things! Lots of big pink people lying and sleeping in the sun! And then they wake up and they’re unhappy because of staying pink they’ve gone bright red, like me! Why do they do that? Then I see these big pink people being rubbed in oil by brown people and some little brown girl people with big fat pink man people but mostly big and small pink people running around and falling in the sea. Sometimes the brown people rub the pink people’s feet! It’s all very confusing.

How do you eat?

Oh, people give me things here and there but mostly kind people bring me rice and chicken a few times a week. When it rains no one remembers me and I get hungry. The brown ladies who rub the pink people are nice to me but some pink people seem to think I’m dangerous and chase me away with sticks.

Where do you sleep?

Oh, on the beach of course. It’s usually okay but when the heavy rains come we get soaked.

But how come your fur looks so healthy?

That’s because seawater is very good for dog’s fur. I may be a hungry hound but I sure look slick!