Windsurfing in Pattaya, and reprieve for the repressed islandboy

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Doran Update:(Doran writes his entries as he travels, but only dishes them out every four days so if he is traveling quickly and seeing interesting stuff, the blog falls behind his progress. I'm now currently in Singapore... its a beautiful clean city... and its expensive. I have two more weeks left in the malaysian peninsular before I fly to Vietnam. But for now... back to pattaya.
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"I have never considered myself an adrenaline junkie. I just really enjoy the occassional fix" - an adrenaline junkie

The bus arrived in Pattaya about 9pm and as I hopped on the "bus" (a pickup truck with seats on the back, flag one down, hop in the back, ring the bell when you want off and pay the driver a set fare) and rode it down both Pattaya and Jomtien Beach Road, I got the quick introduction. This was a holdiay town for northern europeans. Every other bar here offered russian food, the rest of them proudly displayed Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Flags. Old men walked down the street arm in arm with much younger Thai girls dressed for work. The place was lit up like Vegas and every one else in the bus with me was in uniform: Greying hair, khaki shorts or trousers and short sleeve dress shirts, and ready to party.

I was not going to fit in here.

I checked into my "pad". I had a six bed dorm with ensuite bathroom, TV, AC, and fridge, completely to myself my whole stay.

After checking in, I wandered out to check out "the scene". Aggressive prostitutes were trying to drag me in by the arm, everyone and their uncle could and would give you a massage, LOUD music reverberated down entire streets, (enough to make you go insane if you werent at the source, in which case you'd go deaf) and almost everyone in these bars were either the middle-aged men or much younger thai girls. I was technically on the "quiet" side of Pattaya.

I grabbed extremely overpriced food from a street vendor and some beers from 7-11 and drank them on the beach. The beach itself was beautiful. Lined with palm trees, clear blue water, and empty white sands, this was my kind of beach. This was my first time on a nice beach in years and as I sat in the sand I felt a stirring in the back of my conciousness.

It was the repressed island boy in me.

I left my island home at the age of 18, an islandboy to the core. However, years of living in the cold, fast-paced UK left this Islandboy behind and this fundamental part of my personality slowly got more and more repressed until all that remained was a near-forgotten seed deep in the core of my personality. Sitting there in the sand in Pattaya though, beer in my right hand and the waves lapping at my feet, I felt this seed begin to sprout once again.

I did, after all, come here for the windsurfing. Not for the prostitutes.

The next morning was a slight dissapointment. First of all no wind. Second of all, the beach had dissapeared right up to the waterline underneath the impermeable shade of the Thai Umbrellas and deck chairs. This beach was now occupied. I did my best to hold the mental breakdown at bay and wandered off along the beach. I am sorry, extremely overwieght middle aged men in speedos are not my kind of thing. Neither is extremely overweight post-middleaged wome out there in bikinis, it was miracle the could stand up without tipping over! I walked the whole length of the beach, having passed 62,843 guys trying to get me to rent out a jet-ski.

To kill some time (wind often picks up in the after noon)I headed for a blank spot of beach to join in on the only activity anyone here seemed to be interested in: sun bathing. I laid out in the sand and started dosing off to sleep when I noticed that up the beach from me two non-overweight, non-post-middleaged blonde women in bikinis that actually fit were laying out on the beach. Closer inspection revealed that one was a rather attractive girl, most likely a daughter in her late-teens or early twenties, and the other was her young-looking mother. I went back to my half nap, but soon heard some talking coming from the direction of the mother-daughter pair. I looked over again. Both mother and daughter, true to their european roots (eavesdropping revealed they were ukranian), were now sunbathing topless, but at the moment a middle-aged english chap was busy trying to chat up the mother. The man's choices of words were scandalous enough on their own, but then you have to considered that the mother spoke almost ZERO english and so the lad was talking to her through the daughter. After listening to the english gentleman talk to the daughter about how he'd had a thai girl the night before for free, and how he would take her mother to bed, etc..., etc..., I was disgusted and sunburned enough to get up, rinse off and walk away.

I was not going to fit in here.

It wasn't until about 2pm when the wind picked up. Suddenly it was BLOWING! I rushed out to the beach and sure enough: IT. WAS. BLOWING. WOOHOO!!! I looked up and down the beach and instantly spotted way down south about 10 kites and 10 windsurfers on the water. I had to get down there! I started off at a quick pace reasoning that I could make the distance in an hour, but soon I came to an impassable canal and had to start hiking along the road away from the water. I had been walking less than two minutes when I inadvertently discovered the most effective form of transport on these small back roads: Hitch-hiking. I hopped in the back of a pick-up and got driven maybe 5km down the road where I hopped off and headed back to the water. 3 rides later I made it to the water again.

Pulse racing, I stood on the shore and watched the boys out on the water. My hands were twitching from their own volition and my mind was going at hyper speed trying to decide if I would still be able to do this sport. Finally I had a chat with Bird, the thai guy who worked there and we talked shop: gear, boards, sail sizes etc... I was a little intimidated. I hadn't windsurfed in good wind in over five years, the kit would be new to me and the sail I'd be using was an 8.0 (sq. meters). Back in Guam, this was the biggest sail I'd had and I was always hesitant to use it, here though I knew i'd be way out of shape and way out of pratice, so I mentally prepared myself for tomorrow's beating.

As I walked off though I was STOKED!!! I hadn't felt like this since my last sky-dive! That night I had trouble sleeping from the excitement tomorrow would hold.

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I hitchhiked to the beach in the morning, this time I had the system down and got there in no time. I met Greg, the husband of Amara, who together ran amara's watersports. An extremely sound aussie, greg worked me out a discount and set me up with a 122 starboard and 8.0 sail. I was pyyyyyshced! I carried the kit to the beach and downhauled and outhauled the sail before attaching it to the board. My hands were shaking... Finally I picked up the board and sail and carried the rig out into the warm water. Luffing out the sail, I positioned myself for a beach-start.

The moment of truth had arrived. Would it come back quickly or would I just SUCK? I caught the wind with the sail and it pulled me smoothly out of the water, and I was off!

The day went extremely well! The wind picked up such that it was howling for the size of sail I was using. I screeeeeamed across the water, having trouble keeping the board on the water, and pulling off one very decent chop-hop that took me flying a meter into the air. The biggest hang up was that I was out of shape. After only an hour my forearms were shot with the strain of trying to control 8 sq. meters of sail in intense wind. It was too much for me really, but I was loving it. Finally I decided if I didn't take a break soon I would drown. So I did a tack (too tired to try and jybe) and found I could not point the board down-wind enough to head back to the beach! I finally made it back though, estatic that I could still rip it up, and I proceeded to nap on the beach for two hours to let my swollen arms recover from the shock. After my nap I only managed another half hour before my arms screamed at me that they could not take anymore of the strain. I was too tired to water-start period. And my hands could no longer grip the uphaul tight enough to pull the sail out of the water. It was time to call it a day.

Hitch-hiking back I was one happy tired puppy. Sure, my jybes and tacks had been shaky at best, sure I spent a lot of time in the water, sure I drank about 5 liters of seawater in the process, but I could still fly! Once I managed to find the unfamiliar footstraps and tuck in the back of the sail... it was VROOOOOM across the water, the board became an animal, and I became a (mortal) god. I had forgotten how scary this sport could be!

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The next couple of days were a repeat of the first. I woke up. ate. hitchhiked. windsurfed. hitchhiked. and ate. I had trouble sleeping. My whole body was in pain. My hands were ripped up, my eyes were sore from the water, my left ear was starting to get infected, my skin was sunburned, my arms could barely move, my calves and feet were constantly cramping up on me and my sides ached like there was no tomorrow. But I was happy. Before leaving Pattaya to head back to Bangkok, I stopped off for one last meal at the restaurant that had become my regular spot. She served me real spicy food.

Food in Thailand had already become a frustration for me. Good thai food is brilliant! But I was already sick of mediocre thai food. It sucks. The biggest issue is a country wide hesistancy to make spicy food for foriegner. It frustrates me to no end. My first day at the place though i learned why it is the way it is. I sat down and ordered, the friendly lady said, "don't worry, we make not spicy." and I instantly replied, "NO!!!!! i want spicy, i like spicy, phed phed phed!!!" She was surprised but said it would be no problem.

When my food came out, a tomyam kun, it was delicious, very delicious, and spicy enough. The owner plopped into the chair across from me and talked away ate me while I was eating. I enjoyed the company, she was friendly. After a while though her talking stopped, and she looked at me funny and asked, "That's not spicy enough for you, is it?"

"Its pretty good."
"Oh! I am so sorry, you can eat spicy food, next time you come here I make it real spicy, I make it extra thai spicy, next time you come here!"
"haha ok Ill be back tomorrow"

At this point, two young russians showed up, and the guy (the only one who spoke english) helped his female friend order some food, the same thing as me it turned out. The owner of the place asked "You want spicy" to which the girl replied using her fingers as a reference point that she wanted it a "liiiiiiiiiittle bit spicy".

10 minutes later, the food came out and i watched as the russian girl took a small sip. Her face nearly exploded, and she dropped her spoon a. I turned to the owner, "Maybe for russians... you make no spicy, K?"

(The next day she made my food proper spicy... it was goooooood)



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