A Big Adventure

(this happened on) 22nd December 2010 in Pattaya, Thailand

Pattaya, all human life is here

Thailand! I woke up at 7:00am in an amorous mood which i am sure pleased my sleeping Wife no end!

We were doscking at Luem Chabnant Port, apparently Thailands biggest, busiest port.

I left Sofia in bed and went up to the restaurant to get some breakfast, it was much better than what gets delivered to the room so that was a very good choice.

Returning to the room around 9:00am I woke Sofia up and as she got ready I listened to some podcasts (what? oh Kevin and Bean if you must know).

At around 10:00am we walked down the gangplank onto Thai soil (OK it was concrete), we walked into the arrivals hall and joined the scrum around the Taxi counter. By sharing the trip with another (older) couple we managed to effectively jump the queue and of course it saved us some money. 800 baht to Pattaya was fine with us. Walking out of the port to find a taxi really would not be an option as this is a massive working port.

All of the ship planned trips seemed to be to Bangkok which was a long coach journey away and then of course back again.

We love Bangkok but not enough to waste something like 6 to 8 hours there and back on an overpriced coach trip.

And yes we know Pattaya is a bit (LOT) on the seedy side, but it is a dam sight closer and actually can be a lot of fun!

The taxi took around 30 minutes to get to the town and dropped us off right outside of the MIKE Mall right on the sea front.

The sun was shining down and the beach was already alive with people, the clear blue water was already buzzing with boats, jet skis and parasailers.

Our intention is just to re-live our youth and make the best of this one night stop over by staying out all night while being entertained by the energy and madness that Pattaya creates.

We strolled gently around the town stopping to buy some presents and at around 2:00pm we stopped for a bite to eat and our first nice cold drink. Sofia thought she had hit the jackpot as there were three different Ciders on the drinks list, sadly her hopes were quickly dashed as none of them were actually available in reality.

So beer it was. Sofia had a very nice Tom Yum Soup and i had Chicken Fried Rice, afterwards we continued our wanders until around 5;30pm when we hopped on a baht bus to Jomtien the next town around the coast.

This was a trip we wanted to take as two years ago we spent a few weeks in Jomtien and we frequented a place we called the blue bar (due to it’s lighting) but it was actually called the Tequila Sunrise, we were not even sure if it was still there, and, if it was would any of the staff recognise us?

Well, we needn’t have worried because as we walked towards the barNor the owner saw us and immediately welcomed us like long lost friends. We spent a happy few hours catching up and found out that Nor and her Australian Trevor, partner had recently had a baby together. Sadly Trevor was not there he was away working, but Nor soon got him on the phone so we cou;d have a chat.

We stayed for a couple of hours drinking, playing pool and chatting and then it was time to hop on a baht bus back to the madness that is Pattaya.

At this stage I want to tell you that as far as I am concerned it’s the beginning of the end for Pattaya. Why? you ask (go on ask), I’m glad you asked. You see, the trickle of Russians has turned into a fucking torrent. Now of course you must take this as what it is: a personal opinion, but I detest them and the mass of them strolling around Pattaya does nothing to change my feelings. (there is a story behind my dislike, in fact more than one).

We finished our shopping and then hit a bar for a beer and to people watch and then it was onto the infamous Walking Street and into the Lollipop Bar where I enjoyed shamelessly watching half naked young thai girls do their thing while drinking more beer “another San Miguel Light please”. Next we headed into The Blues Factory. Lam Morrison and The Rock Band were simply brilliant, maybe more rock than blues but really enjoyable, Sofia and I stayed for a couple of hours. After that we moved across to Angelwitch, sadly the show had finished but, again I got to enjoy seeing some scantily clad babes shake their things.

Mind you the highight was a female member of the public who slide down the pole from the first floor onto the stage and strutted her stuff and unlike many of the bored looking thai girls this girl was really going for it, good for her.

Regardless of your feelings about these young ladies doing what they do, bear in mind that they can earn (and do) earn as much in one day as their parents working in the fields back home can earn in a month (a much more dangerous occupation with poisonous snakes being just one of the dangers). These girls often support their families and the lucky one’s land a foriegn husband.

We went back to Walking Street and it was still really rocking even though it was by now well past 3:00am. I happily queued up at one of the street trolleys and ordered chicken hearts on a stick, one of my big favorites.

Time for a late night snack

By around 4:30am Sofia was really sagging, so, we called it a night (or indeed a morning) and so we set off to get a taxi back to the port. Earlier in the day we had been quoted 700 baht for the journey, sadly all those taxi ranks were now closed and all the taxis we could find seemed to have parked up with the drivers fast asleep and waking them up did not seem a good option with the few we tried!

Eventually we found an open taxi rank and a few minutes later an obviously just woken up driver arrived, we told him where we wanted to go and we were met with blank looks, a period followed where we tried to the driver that is not that far away and it was where the big boats come in, eventually a light came on and he said OK, he knew where we wanted to go. We really were not convinced but I promised him more money than he had quoted us if he got us there safely. After a few minutes he pulled into a petrol station and I am pretty sure that while filling up he checked with some other taxi drivers on where we wanted to go as once he got in it all seemed simple and some minutes later we were at the port, well we were at a part of the port, after a few u turns and thanks to the driver asking at various points at the port we eventually found the ship, it was through a security check manned by three men, one of whom seemed to be the worse for wear and the other two who seemed very pleased to see anybody at that time of day.

Action on Walking Street

We walked back aboard the boat at around 5:00am.