Pattaya

Pattaya is apparently one of the best party towns in Thailand...and I would agree with that IF you are a middle aged/old western guy looking for a Thai Bride, gay, a ladyboy, or just looking for a Thai prostitute to hire for the night (and that's not even an exaggeration!!). We arrived here on Sunday, and immediately liked the look of the beach, but after a few hours of being hassled by every single person on the beach to buy something, and when looking around seeing couples of white guys with Thai girls, we started to realise it was not quite what we were expecting! To add to it, as all the Thai girls are taken, the Thai men seem to be extremely interested in us and attempted to take photos of us whilst lying on the beach! Don't worry we showed them who's boss (by running away).

That evening we decided to investigate Walking Street which is supposed to be lined with restaurants, bars and clubs, in the hope that we may find some other travellers...no such luck. We sat in the most decent bar we could find which happened to be opposite a group of men advertising "Sexy Girls" and watched several groups of men (both young and older) being taken up an alley by these guys and returning hand in hand with Thai girls! After walking around a bit trying to find a "normal" group of people we decided to give up and just head back to the hotel! We only stayed one more day to sunbathe on the beach and then headed down the coast a bit to a smaller place called Hat Jomtien.

Hat Jomtien is much nicer, cleaner beach and far less hassle from people! We've even seen some normal travellers too! It's nice to be somewhere that's more like a holiday place, so we can sunbathe and go to the beach etc. Went to a water park today, and will venture out to the bars this evening hopefully with a little more success than in Pattaya! Staying here tomorrow as well and then will head back to Bangkok for Thursday, ready to meet our fellow volunteers on Friday.

Ciao for now xxx