Pattaya 31/12-12 - 5/1-13

---

When I went to Pattaya, I went there to meet up with my Danish friend, Bo, and to celebrate NYE there. The plan was to celebrate it with Bo's brother and sister in law, who lives there, but she delievered her baby on the day, I arrived, so we wnt out on our own instead. And the Thai people really know how to party. We watched some women outside a bar getting really exited by pllaying with firework. And at midnight we saw a lot of really nice firework. their official firework is so much more beautiful than the firework, we have in Denmark. Later on we found a bar at Walkingstreet, where we had a few beers, talked to a ladyboy and watched the people celebrate NYE in the streets. One of the other nights we went on a "Champagne-club-crawl" and ended up in around 10 different clubs. We went to stripclubs, ladyboybars, bars where you bought the compagny of women, bars where you could buy boys, which apparently is a normal thing for the Thai women to do. it was "fun" to see, how the differen clubs work. On Pattaya it's impossible not to see Thai women with Western men, since it seems like, that is the main industy in that city. But after talking to Bo's sister in law, and watching the girls in the city, I think, my perspective on the matter is quite changed. I find it hard to explain, but at the end, I almos "forgot" that, that was how things worked. The women, I saw, seemed happy, and considered the alternatives most of them have, it might be better for them to find a Western man, who can provide for them, especially if they end up with someone, where it's more than"just" the money-issue. Besides according to Bo's sister in law, the Thai women often "function" as a "tourguide", while the men are in Pattaya - show them around the city, bargin for them and so on.

We did see a lot of other things than "just" the sex-indiusty. Among other things we went to a botanical garden, where we had certain ideas about what to expect in a botanical garden, and there were signs at the plants and trees, but that was where the botanical garden stopped being a botanical garden. It was filled up with concreat animals everywhere, big antz and elephants painting, playing football and so on. The next day we went to see a big teak tree temple called "Sanctuary of Truth". It's really an impressive piece of work. There is only used wood in the entire temple, no nails or anything else, and they will probably never finish it, since they're not nearly done yet with all of the carvings, and termites will probably eat the wood and then it has to be replaced, but impressive none the less. We also saw the "Buddha Mountain", where a big golden Buddha is carved into a cliff and after that we went to a vineyard, where they were making wine and grape juice. we just didn't expect whata we met there. it was filled up with weird things, among other a Dutch area with windmills and wooden shoes, and aso a big "romantic"area with a lot of hearts made out of flowers, big letters saying love and so on. It was unexpected but a really fun place to see. After that we saw a big Chineese temple, which was really beautiful and had a lot of old sculptures.

In Pattaya I also tried the most weird soup, I ever tried - Heart, liver, artery soup with blood in it as well, definitely something differingt, but the taste was actually not that bad.

---