Day 5,6,7

Getting to Pattaya

Well the time had come to check out of our lovely 4 star hotel and start the experience of a real traveller! We booked into a 1star apartment for £8 a night. We headed towards the bus station via the sky train... well that was a test in itself! We hadn't really testsed out our rucksacks as such until now...woooo we had a shock. I (Zara) found a serious fault with my day sack. It had no adjsutable straps to attach to carry the daysack on my front so I could keep an eye on it! I was slightly baffled by this as it was specifically designed for a woman so surely the straps would adjustable? You would have to be pretty flat chested for this to fit securely!! It didn't fit me at all. So I had to attach to the rest of my rucksack which meant I was practically falling over backwards! (It didn't help that I had apparently according to Dai "overloaded my bag") oops lesson learnt. I felt like I was giving a 20stone midget a piggy back! With me swaying all over the place and just about managing to put one foot in front of the other we got to the sky train and worked out our route! The station was heaving and we were both sweating buckets (I regretted wearing a grey vest top!). After vast amounts of swaying on the sky train feeling very unbalanced we arrived at the bus station and caugt the next bus to Pattaya...what a relief it was to get on an air conditioned bus!

We arrived in Pattaya two hours later. We had read up on the city and heard a few scams with taxi and tuk tuk drivers outside the station so we decided to walk up the road a little and catch a ride there. After walking for some time we kinda regretted not taking up the tuk tuk's offer of 50b each! Anyway a taxi pulled over and asked us where we were going, we told him our appartment name and he offered to take us there. Unlike Bangkok there was NO meter in the meter-taxi! We got in the taxi and the driver said 200b. We said no we would like the meter on. Oh no they have no meters in Pattaya said the driver its not like Bangkok we dont use meters here! We haggled and got it for 120b and decided not to use any more taxis. The appartment was ok for £8 a night it was huge we had a massive fridge, tv with satellite, air con, a fan and a shower room we couldnt really complain. We headed out in Pattaya and must have been staying in the seedy side of town as the whole place was full of single old men trying to pick up Thai women. The bars had Thai women dancing on poles and shouting for men to come in, it was shocking. We decided straight away that we didnt like the place it was a shame that we had booked for three nights. The next 2 days were spent on the beach getting a much needed tan. One evening we went to explore the famous walking street and it was absolutely shocking, it makes Amsterdams red light district look tame. We saw all sorts there from a kid covered in scorpions to a three year old dressed up as a tart hula huping in the street with her mam holding a tips jar! The bars were full of Thai women in skimpy outfits and ladyboys we didnt stay there long. Pattaya by day though is a different scene the beachers are lovely and there is plently of water sports you can take part in. The whole place is far too touristy though. You have everything there like Pizza Hut, Mcd and Burgerkings... its just like being back home just with hot weather. We also noticed that the Thai people dont like the sun even when they are on the beach. They sit in the shade and go in the sea with all their clothes on. It's not really fair because at least if britain had this climate we would make the most of it.