Bye Bye Thailand

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Nov. 12 - 24 : Pattaya and Bangkok, Thailand

We thankfully left the smog of Bangkok after an hour and a half taxi ride that did not get us to the bus station. 2 taxis and much time later we arrived to a waiting Clela and Dan and bus tickets to Pattaya. A beach resort 2 hours from Bangkok. We were quite surprised when we arrived as Pattaya is a huge city and was frankly much nicer than we thought it would be. It has quite the seedy reputation as a sex tourism area and though there is that, there is also much more with many things to keep one busy for at least a week. Also, I really did not think the sex bars were any worse than in Phuket. It is just a reality of Thailand tourism. We stayed the week in Pattaya and 2 days in the smaller neighbouring beach town of Chomtien. We did a bit of shopping as everything is dirt cheap in Thailand, and were lucky enough to be there during one of their big festivals where all the women dress in their beautiful traditional clothes and with their partner place a lotus centerpiece in the ocean with a lit candle, the further it travels with the candle lit the greater the luck you will have in your relationship over the year. It is also traditionally a gift for the sea God.

From Pattaya, we regretfully returned to Bangkok but we did take the opportunity to finally do some sightseeing - doing a Bangkok whirlwind tour in a day - the Wat (Temple) of the Golden Buddha, the impressive Grand Palace, the Wat of the Emerald Buddha, Khao San tourist road, and the democracy monument mixed with a lot of walking. With spent our last night at Clela and Dan's sampling for I think the one and only time Thai wine made from some crazy bright purple fruit, before saying our goodbyes to them after a month and a half of good fun and good bye to Thailand for now.

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