December 6th, 2008, Jomtien Beach, Pattaya, Thailand

The Mature Gap Year Hits Thailand and Lands in Pattaya

Welcome to Thailand

We finally reached the bus depot, well, not quite! A four hundred yard luggage drag down a dirt track at 7:00am and we were there.

We were fairly lucky, I asked a few people where I needed to go and was pointed in the general direction of the place where the buses would be, on my way there an enterprising guy asked where we were going and quoted us 130 baht each, I knew from my research this was a good price, so we headed to the mini bus and they loaded the luggage, by then the price had mysteriously risen to 650 Thai baht, but I still knew that to be right in the lower end of the scale and as a bonus the driver said he would drop us at our hotel which was in Jomtien which is further on than Pattaya, so really we would save another vehicle change and more expense.

Apart from the fact that the air con dripped on sofia continually the journey was OK, it was good to know we were getting nearer Pattaya. Three hours or so later we were the only ones left on the minibus and we were looking for the hotel, at last we located it, It was literally right on the sea front perfect.

The hotel which had been booked and paid for before we left did not have rooms for us as they had decided we were not coming and had cancelled even though we had paid upfront and online, I got a bit strong but controlled and told the guy at the desk that we had paid for the rooms and they were ours and they had been letting them out for extra money, I said I would tell their booking agents what had occurred. That seemed to do the trick, we had to wait for them to clean some rooms,we all felt like hell and really needed to get in a shower, luckily we were soon on our way to our rooms. We were given inter-linking rooms, ours had a nice big bed and a balcony over looking the small but nicely formed pool. The hotel was a real bonus, I basically picked one of the cheapest ones on line and it’s pretty dam good. The RS Seaside Hotel. Thanks to Trip Advisor for the great advice.

The first task was to find somewhere to email Stefan our Son who was already in Pattaya and let him know we had arrived. The signal in the hotel was weak so I set out to find an internet café. While I was gone Sofia had a shower and a lie down as her feet were very swollen, she was awakened by a commotion in the children’s room and a loud knock on the door, upon opening the connecting door to see what the fuss was,  Stefan was  standing there, he looks really well, although we are not sure about the goatee, but his skin is great, he has lost weight and is a pleasant pale gold colour. They all caught up on the news of each other’s travels.  The first time we had seen our eldest son for two months. After I had returned we decided to all head out for some food but first we headed to Stefans place, His digs are quite a way from our hotel so we all jumped on a tuktruck and went all the way down to where he is staying, he showed Sasha and Basty his room, we were not allowed to see!

He took us to Mermaids Dive Shop then we all went out to eat The place seemed to be in a very ‘gay’ area of town but the food was good if a little nouveau in proportions.

Stefan needed to do some studying for his Dive exams so he took Basty with him to stay over and play with his computer games.

We jumped a truck tuk back to the hotel for a pee then went looking for a bar.

We found a little bar just around the corner from the hotel, It was a pool bar where the girls shouted out to all the guys “sexy man come in” these were inevitably very old and ugly dudes!

We played cards Sasha kicked ass right up until the last hand when Sofia pulled out a great hand to finish up on level points with Sasha.

Beer is much cheaper than Malaysia and they have San Miguel Light so good times all around.

[mappress]