Blogs from Thailand, Asia - page 2913

i dont remember how many times i visited the country in about 20 years i love it... read more

Pattaya is the place that you would end up with if you combined Benidorm and Amsterdam and gave it an oriental flavour - nothing but huge great hotels and bars full of prostitutes. Everywhere we went there were the cries of "Hello sexy man, I want to go with you!" There were the usual fat Germans, walking around with tiny Thai girls. On the positive side however, after all the secluded, no-frills places we'd been to so far, Pattaya was much more like the resort type holiday that you go to to have a good time - bars, clubs, lively beaches, jet-skis, live Thai-boxing, junk food, ice-cream parlours, decent accommodation etc. etc. We spent most of the days on the beach either growing the skin cancer, swimming or trying out the jet skis. We'd then go ... read more

The lorry dropped us of, literally, in the middle of nowhere and we started our trek. After about three hours, which were not particularly strenuous we arrived at the small Karon village in which we would spend our first night. The meal was basic but filling. We thought up ways to keep ourselves entertained (there was no TV or electricity out here) until we all settled down on the floor to sleep, shitting ourselves at the slightest sound which could, potentially, be some huge great creepy-crawley coming to get us. Just before we all settled down a guy staggered in, off his head with a half empty bottle of whiskey. The villagers whispered to us as he arrived, "Mr Whiskey, he drinks Whiskey!" We were all woken up at half five by a cockerel giving it ... read more

Next we wanted to head north which meant going via Bangkok. This time, we found a guest house which did not turn its fans off at night. Tiny and I set off for the American Express office as they have a service whereby they will accept mail for anyone who has American Express Travellers Cheques. Tiny had fourteen letters from his girlfriend back in England, which considering how long we had been away was pretty good going. That brings me to my next travel tip, although email has probably made it obsolete now. Your parents may not be very impressed about you turning down a job to go off round the world and your girl/boy-friend might be all bitter and twisted about being dumped for a year, but there is a chance that somebody somewhere might ... read more

The boat back to Phuket made a couple of diversions and took four very tedious hours. Again, we arrived to be met by crowds of people touting for business, and we eventually found one in our price range near Karon Beach. It was still basic by most people's standards, but positive luxury compared to Koh Phi Phi. The shower was just that, a real shower! With the money we were prepared to spend, a hotel with a swimming pool was not an option, however there was a big posh hotel called the Phuket Arcadia down the road and it was quite easy to sneak in and use theirs. It took them until our last day to work-out that we were not actually guests at the hotel, by which time we had befriended an American family who ... read more