New Years Eve in Pattaya

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I spent a couple of days in Phetburi on the way back up the coast where I went to see a little cave temple just out of town, and also went up to the top of the hill in town via cable car where you can see a couple more temples, a pagoda, and an old home.

After that I went straight to Pattaya to meet up with Paul, his girlfriend Rin, and a few of his mates that I know from back home. Also I met up with Marcus and his family for dinner, an ex-workmate who now works over here.

Pattaya is a very big town with the most bars I have ever seen in one place, which makes it a huge party town. The great thing about having so many tourists and ex-pats here is that there are plenty of modern shopping centres with all sorts of entertainment in air-conditioned comfort. We went tenpin bowling one day, played 9 holes of pitch and put golf another, and saw The Tourist as well as a Thai comedy at the movies. Most nights were spent at 2 or 3 bars for a few drinks , or we would go down to Walking Street which is closed to traffic and is great for people watching. Fireworks are legal over here so leading up to New Years Eve the tourists would buy them and let them off in the narrow streets containing the bars. We all went down to the beach to watch the fireworks and let off some lanterns. It was quite spectacular watching all the fireworks along the kilometres of beachfront.

After New Years I had the pleasure of hiring a pickup truck with Paul and Rin and driving up to Petchabun in central Thailand to visit Rin’s family. Her family live in a very small village about 20 minutes drive from the main town. It was great to see the kids faces when all the gifts that Paul had brought from Australia were handed out. We also spent a day in the nearby mountains just driving around and visiting the tourist sights where most of the time Paul and myself were the only foreigners. In total we spent 4 days in the region and it was a great insight into Thai life.

I have now been in Pattaya for about 10 days, which is a lot longer than I planned. One of the reasons for this is that I found out another mate of mine, Paul S from Australia was in town. I have caught up with him and his mates a couple of nights and been pretty hungover the following days. I have decided that I will go to Ko Samet, which is an island a couple of hours away, for a few days to recover.

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