While these days Thailand’s southern beach areas are best known for dead tourists, not-so-dead wood too awaits the more adventurous travelers. And since there are only so many illegal Burmese immigrants around to blame your local troubles on, the authorities on Krabi recently devoted a day’s efforts to cleaning up the island’s most troublesome hot spot. ‘Cuz rumor had it that some of those damn farang – who are almost as good as Burmese for finger-pointing – had been filling the local phallic shrine with dildos.

Thanks to Thailand being as sybaritic as it is religious, Phra Nang Cave – aka the Princess Cave – should be on every budding queen’s must-see list when holidaying on Krabi. Located on the far end of Phra Nang Beach, the cave is a shrine to an Indian princess who was killed in a shipwreck. Or she was the wife of a local fisherman who was lost at sea. I’m not sure how the legend of a dead princess and one about a dead fisherman’s wife who lived out the rest of her lonely days in the cave pining for her husband’s return managed to become intertwined and confused, but then since the result is hundreds of dicks who really cares?

Come to think about it, I’m not too sure how either legend ends up being about safety on the seas or getting knocked up either. But along with those two stories comes those two beliefs. Or you can combine them, kinda, sorta, and claim the shrine is where local fishermen go to pray for success with their day’s catch. Which doesn’t explain how having good luck with fish translates to dick either. Other than that some claim Phra Nang Cave resembles a vagina. But since the one thing everyone can agree on is that the only use for a vagina is sticking a dick or two in it . . .

Which, at least, helps explain yet another local legend that claims if anyone carves a wooden dick and releases it at high tide anywhere along the Krabi coast, it will eventually end up in Phra Nang Cave. There’s a penis tie-in to yet another legend surrounding the cave too, which says that if a person enters the cave with a good heart, food will drop down from the cave roof to feed them. But if they enter with a bad heart, a great wind will usher from the cave and blow them tumbling to the other end of the beach. Not that Phra Nang Cave is the only place in Thailand you can get a blow job. Even, occasionally, a legendary one. In any case, that’s a lot of legends. And a lot of dick. Both of which the locals are generally in favor of. Farang dick, not so much. Which is why officers with the Noppharat Thara National Park and beach guards recently spent a sweaty day diligently searching the cave for foreign dick. But before we get to the meat of that story, let’s look at another not so legendary one.

Phra Nang Beach, with its beautiful white sand contrasting with the emerald expanse of the Andaman Sea has been called the second most beautiful beach in the world. Thanks to the massive limestone cliffs which block any possibility of making a road to the spot, the only way to get to the spectacular little bit of paradise is by boat. So back in the mid 1990s, The Dusit Group, Thailand’s premier resort chain, decided the only way you could improve on the pristine beauty of heaven was by building a 5-star, exclusive, $1,000 per night, 100 pavilion hotel. So, once again, we’re talking about dicks.

Ignoring every legend they’d heard of, not to mention a few hundred wooden penises, construction of the resort plodded along smoothly until the night before the grand opening when some of the construction workers decided to have a little Mekong whisky party in the Phra Nang Cave. Reportedly, the workers were from Isaan in the northeast part of Thailand, which is almost as good as illegal Burmese immigrants when you need someone to blame for a catastrophe. Which is usually the outcome of any Mekong whisky party. And in this case, the outcome was a fire that torched the penis shrine (that the diminutive workers burned the gigantic penises in a fit of jealousy is more of a rumor than legend).

Forget what you’ve heard about the dangers of a woman scorned, because that ain’t nothing compared to the ire of a few hundred penises scorched. While the Issan workers will still trying to decide which of their crew looked most like a Burmese, thanks to their whiskey-infused bonfire a local woman on the other side of the peninsula became possessed by a spirit and began babbling in tongues. Locals claimed Phra Nang’s spirit had take over the woman’s body, pissed about her shrine being destroyed. One of the tongues she babbled in must have been Thai ‘cuz the word went out that Phra Nang – undoubtedly because she couldn’t pronounce Myanmar – said, “The people who do this have the big house, but soon everything come down.”

Quicker than you can say Palad Khik (which is what Thais call wood dildos used as an offering at phallic shrines) word spread of the return of Phra Nang and the dastardly deeds of the Dusit Group. Hundreds of Thais gathered in protest in front of the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok demanding the government stop the Dusit Rayavadee from “trespassing on Krabi’s national park.” Which probably would have been more effective at ground-breaking than grand-opening, but then that woulda meant the loss of lots of local jobs. The Dusit Group responded, showing how much the Thai peoples’ will meant to them, by rolling out a red carpet down Phra Nang Beach to the waterline amidst the sound of champagne bottle corks popping to welcome the hotel’s first guests arriving by hydrofoil jet ferry from Phuket. Phra Nang was not amused.

Pop, pop, pop went the bubbly on the beach. And then bam, pow, kaboom went the hotel’s generator, exploding and shooting flames into the sky in what appeared to be a volcanic eruption. That’s what happens when you mess with a goddess’ penises. And with no backup system to power the resort’s air-conditioners or to recharge foreign-made dildos packed away in guests’ suitcases, the hotel’s inaugural batch of the rich and famous were escorted back to the boat for a hasty retreat back to Phuket.

The Dusit Group’s PR department immediately went to work to prove their not-so-grand opening was merely a badly timed glitch rather than a curse and after bringing in a new generator ordered a large cement spirit house to be ceremoniously built in the cave with the sacrificial offering of a goat to not appease Phra Nang’s spirit, wink, wink. But the goddess didn’t want goat, she wanted penis. And that night, a Thai woman who worked at one of the bungalows was possessed by a spirit. Once again. ‘Cuz Thais will beat a curse to death just like they do a good joke.

Whether you believe in local superstitions or not, the locals do. Management of the Rayavadee awoke the next morning to find many of its employees ready to call it quits. Which kinda puts a dampener on holding a grand opening even when you’ve already held a trial one that didn’t go quite as planned. Bowing to the inevitable, and recognizing that when your heart is set on penis nothing else will do, the Dusit Group directed their remaining staff to spend the day in Phra Nang Cave carving replacement phalluses to turn Phra Nang’s frown upside down. which should have put an end to Phra Nang’s curse on the Rayavadee, but considering since then Gwyneth Paltrow has stayed at the resort . . .

Today, local fisherman and boatmen leave offerings in Phra Nang cave to ensure safe travel on the sea. Or to find true love. Or to get their wife pregnant. Or to have a successful day fishing. Not that it really matters ‘cuz unless they make their pilgrimage at the break of dawn they can’t get near the cave thanks to all the touri who want to take a selfie among the hundreds of erect penises, many vividly painted, many sporting colorful pieces of cloth. And a few far too realistic looking and made of silicone. Which doesn’t bother Phra Nang, but did piss off local authorities after a photo of an adult sex toy sitting in the cave appeared on-line (uh, that’d be a dildo and not Gwyneth Paltrow).

After a long, hard, sweaty day of thrusting themselves deeply into the dark, moist cave, the officers found the culprit: a single dong-shaped offering which the local media described as “a large, pink faded sex toy”. “We believe it was left there by a tourist who doesn’t really understand local beliefs,” said Komart Paenkerd, who works for the Krabi Provincial Cultural Office, adding, “Since antiquity, it is believed by locals that putting wooden Palad khik penis carvings in the cave will evoke the spirit of Phra Nang and ensure that you find true love.” So wood penis good, silicone penis bad. And any penis equals true love. Which is a legend I can get behind.

But let’s leave the last word to Khun Paenkerd. “I would like to inform tourists that sex toys are inappropriate as an offering,” he said. “Locals worship the spirit of Phra Nang with hardwood only.”

And that is as it should be.

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