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Wilson's World Tour
We were all set to leave Pai and catch a bus back to Chang Mai, however Sam's aversion to buses and a case of sickness meant I relented and splurged out on a 'taxi'. In actual fact it was money well spent, rather than a minimum of four tortuous hours, we got there in two.
We were both really excited to be back in Chang Mai as we'd arranged to meet up with Marsha, one of the girls we'd done the trek to Machu Pichu with and who was now also in Thailand. We had a great couple of days together, catching up and Sam was in her element, buying lots of clothes in at the markets.
We'd booked and internal flight with Air Asia from Chang Mai back down to Bangkok, from where we made our way down to Sam's dad's by bus. Trouble was, for only about the second time on the whole trip, I got a really bad stomach upset, to the point where I didn't think I'd make it onto the plane !
Somehow I did and managed to hold it together untill we landed. We then had to cross Bangkok to get to the bus station. Once there it was fairly easy to get a bus to Pattaya as they leave every 20 miutes or so. It took about three hours and thankfully I managed to get a bit of sleep.
I got off the bus, feeling really ill, dirty and sweaty and to add insult to injury my flip flop decided to fall apart ! So when Sam's Dad collected us from the bus depot I must have looked like a right tramp !!.
We returned to Sam's dad's house, I sadly had to go straight to bed (it was early afternoon !) and left Sam to catch up.
The next day I was feeling much better and began catching uop with Peter Nim and the rest of the family. We stayed with them for ten days and had a great time, relaxing at home, watching bad movies and subjecting them to our wedding video. Sam had told me about 'Super Sams bar' on cosy beach, a small quite bay around the corner from the very noisey main Pattaya beach. 'Sam' is the charasmatic Thai owner and serves up great food, cold drinks, all from the comfort of your lounger ! We spent a couple of great days there. The sea is so warm, it feels like being in a bath, almost too warm.
We also all went to Koh Samet, a local island which offers a more laid back Thai experience. We hired a motor boat and sped across form the mainland in about 20 minutes. It is very unspoilt considering how close it is to the mainland and the busy city of Pattaya.
On our last evening we all went out for a lovely meal where they had traditional Thai dancing in beautiful coustumes and a Thai band. From there we crossed the road and went to the other extreme, 'The Tina Turner bar' It was a hilarious mixture of pantomime, kareokee and strictly come dancing ! There was a succession of performers from Elvis to the now world famous Tina Turner who lip sinked to various songs whilst incredibly un-interested backing singers/dancers addded to the mix. The other big thing about the place is that most of the 'women' who worked and perfromed there were in fact men ! It really was a night of contrasts !
It was great for me to spend some time with Peter, beacause when he came over for the wedding it was only the second time I'd ever met him. We both left feeling very relaxed and refreshed and in some ways were not really looking forward to getting back into backpacker mode and especially not in India !
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