Patong Beach, Phuket

After a week at the isolated luxury of the Marriott complex at Mai Khao beach at the northern of the island, I moved down to the Courtyard by Marriott (using some Reward points) at the island's biggest tourist area at Patong City.
This place is not at all isolated. It is a beautiful sweep of a bay and white sandy beach that has groups of hotels, restaurants, clubs, dance clubs, bars...straight, gay and Katoey(ladyboy) areas. One must pick a hotel carefully as noise can continue to 5 am at some of the clubs. There a large number of Europeans escaping winter from Scandinavia, Germany, the UK, and Russia that come here for R&R. Of course, Australians are here as they find anywhere that is fun.  And there are many Chinese, Japanese and Korean tourists too.
The water and beach are delightful with warm, clear, calm, clean water, and beautiful sand with opportunities for boat rides, jet ski rentals, parachute flights attached to speed boats or sleeping in a cheap rented beach chair with umbrella.