Pattaya

We just got back from a fabulous weekend in Pattaya. Pattaya is actually a pretty dirty city, filled with prostitutes and gross old men who come to help these prostitutes make their living. We stayed on the "family" end of the city, which was nicer and much quieter. We were planning on staying at one hotel, but when we got there, she tried to charge us way more than she had charged our friends when they had stayed there the weekend before. It ended with her getting angry with us and telling us to never come back, which was fine because the place was gross and there were hotels EVERYWHERE! So we walked about half a block down and found a really cute hotel with an owner who spoke really good English. We were trying to barter on a price when Henrik, who we were travelling with, started talking to the guy in Danish. Henrik is from Denmark and, it turns out, so was this owner...Henrik could tell from his accent. Of course, after this happened, we got really good deals on the rooms and the staff were all really nice to us.

The beach at Pattaya is not very nice, so we took a ferry to an island about 45 minutes away, which has a really nice, quiet beach. On the ferry, we started talking to this German guy, who was married to a Thai woman. The next thing we knew, they were arranging for a sangthaew to take us to the beach on the island and helping us get around. Travelling tip #1-make friends with the locals and your trip will be 100% better and you'll see much better sights!

It was great, they took us there, showed us where to go, and then arranged for all of us to be picked up at the end of the day. One of the Thai women saw that I wasn't wearing a hat--she said that she was a nurse and wanted me to use her umbrella so that I didn't get heat stroke. Thai people are so nice. We spent the day at the beach, which was fabulous, and then went back to Pattaya for barbeque (they have a buffet of raw meat and vegetables, and they put a barbeque in the middle of your table so that you can cook it yourself, it's really good!)

After supper, we decided that we wanted to go out and see the town. It's dirty and gross, but we had to go see it for ourselves. When we got downtown, it was crazy, there were neon lights everywhere and just tons of people. We walked around for awhile and we saw one street that said "boyz town". We walked down the street and realised that it was the gay men's district. We went into one of the bars and sat down for a drink. It was hilarious. At first, everyone was staring at us, but after awhile, it was really good. We actually felt more comfortable in there than in most other places because we didn't have to see any of the old gross men picking up twenty something Thai girls.

There was one waiter who was helping us a lot, and he told us that he could show us some other clubs that we could go to in Pattaya. He said that he would even take us there if we wanted. When he said that, Kelly looked at him and said, "...wait a minute, do you want us to pay your bar fine?". He looked kind of sheepish and then smiled. (By the way, Kelly knew about bar fines because she just finished reading the book "Private Dancer," which is a really good novel that tells all about the prositution industry in Thailand...it's the next book that I'm going to read) Paying someone's bar fine is basically like hiring them...like a prostitue. Kelly screamed and then started laughing and we all said that we were not interested and he just shrugged and kept talking to us. It was weird, but pretty funny, and he didn't try to push us at all, he seemed fine with it.

After we left the bar, some of the people that I was out with went dancing, but I was tired and decided to go home. I didn't want to take a taxi because it was expensive doing it on my own (expensive being about $3 Canadian), so I took a motorcycle taxi! It was awesome, I hadn't been on one yet because I was too scared to do it in Bangkok with all of the traffic. It was great, and much faster than a regular taxi because it could go beside all of the cars when they were waiting at lights. At first, I wasn't really sure how people stayed on, because they never put their arms around the drivers, but I realised that there are handles under the seat that you hold onto, and it feels totally safe. I was even wearing a skirt, so I had to sit sideways, and I still felt safe. I'm definitely going to take motorcycles more often, only on weekends though, I don't know if I would ever feel safe on one in Bangkok!

Sunday was rainy so we slept in, did some shopping, bought some more DVDs, and went home in the evening.

Now I'm back at school and I'm doing exams for the next two weeks. That's right, I teach three year olds, and we're doing exams. Basically I ask them their name, to count, to say some of the alphabet, things like that. It still feels weird giving these kids a grade at such a young age! Welcome to the Asian education system, though, it's all about grades (actually it's all about high grades...if you can't get them on your own, you cheat). Oh well, I made my exam super easy so all of my kids will do really well, although I already had one this morning who didn't know his name! I couldn't believe it! I was sure that they all knew their names, but when you have a class of 25 students and you're only with them for an hour and a half per day, you never really know where they're at.

This is now super long and I am really impressed if anyone actually read to the end of this...I don't know if I would have! I hope you're all doing well in your first few days of school!