Taking a trip to the Thai island of Phuket and strolling down the street by Patong beach is an unforgettable experience. With a multitude of colors from the shops and pedestrians and the green cliff/beach view, images from your trip will remain etched in your mind for the rest of your life. The Patong beach area is commercial - souvenir shops and kiosks of pirated movies keep tourists around like ants to sugar - but the massage service on the beach and the kind of crafts and souvenirs available make even the touristy trip through this Thai hotspot a “different” experience. One such element of unique Thai flavor is the multitude of amateur and student art galleries. Despite the seemingly daunting idea of transporting art all the way back to Egypt from a vacation, to this day, I regret not purchasing paintings from the art galleries along Patong beach. Street art can be found in almost every continent - you have sketch artists along the Seine in Paris and caricaturists on folding chairs in the streets of New York City but the Thai art students in their galleries in Patong still manage to stand out. For tourists, you can bargain your way into a beautiful portrait or a replica of the beach view but I find that more care, talent and creativity are brought into the Buddha depictions and artistic recreations of Thai art. No need to frame, let the art gallery roll your artwork up in a cylindrical travel box and frame when you get to Cairo!
