Dog Days

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Dog Days

“There are a lot of three-legged dogs around here.” I remarked as we all sat on the bed of our hotel room in Pattaya. This comment likely seemed no stranger than the décor of the room. All the walls were a shining white, accented with black and purple zebra-striped trim. At the head of each bed there was a beach sunset painted in purple and pink. The rooms even had little balconies that looked out onto the beach, or road in front of the beach as it were, which had the same magnificent zebra-stripes painted on railing. The stripes gave the rooms a kind of cheap and trashy feel, which is exactly how I might describe Pattaya.
Pattaya is a city known for vice. It is the sex trade capital of Thailand and according to the locals it is controlled by the Thai mafia. Unlike most other parts of Thailand, it can be a bit dangerous and our Thai friends warned us about going out after 8pm. We told them not to worry, as we had no desire to go out at any time of the day in this city.
I’m sure many of you are wondering why we would head to such a festering wound of a city? Why on earth would we trade in a beautiful beach for a loathsome metropolis teeming with foreigners and prostitutes? Well, we thought it might be fun. Of course we were wrong.
One of the main factors influencing our poor decision was the fact that we knew people there. Our friend Danni’s uncle, Rhys, lived there with his Thai wife, Suwandee, and their three children. On our last visit we had stayed in Pattaya with Danni for nearly a week and had had a reasonably good time. It wasn’t as much fun as the beach, but then again few things I had experienced in life equaled the utopian beaches of Ao Nang. So on our last trip, Danni and Rhys had showed us around, and being the awe struck tourists that we were, we failed to notice that the place was a bit of a shit-hole.
So first things first, we called Rhys as we were about to leave Ko Samet, home of the worst roads for motorcycling on this planet, and arranged for him to pick us up at the Bus Station. We promptly hopped in a van near the pier, and headed to Pattaya. The driver of the van was a maniac, even by Thai standards. He drove about 100 miles per hour, regardless of whether we were on narrow city streets or open freeways. Michelle was petrified and would routinely make “O-my-God-were-gonna-die” faces as the driver came alarmingly close to other vehicles as he weaved in and out of traffic. Emily and I sat back and tried to relax as we contemplated our mortality.
There were some British guys in the seats in front of us, who dozed off as soon as they got in the van. The one seated directly in front of Emily was a rather portly lad in a yellow shirt that fell asleep with his head resting on the passenger side window. This blokes hair product (I’m pretty sure it was Crisco) was applied in excess and promptly began to smear all over the window as the van swerved and bounced all over the road. By the time we reached Pattaya, his head grease had covered almost the entire window. You couldn’t see out it at all! Of course, this provided endless amusement and was a much needed distraction from the crazy driving. Did I mention that while the driver was very adept at accelerating he was remarkably inept at braking? He would pump the brakes, HARD, every time he wanted to slow down or stop. It was very nauseating.
So we arrived in Pattaya and the van dropped off the British guys first. They were left off in some touristy little place very near the sex district. I wonder if the prostitutes charge extra for having too much hair grease? Then he drove us to the Lotus where we were supposed to meet Danni’s uncle.
He showed up in a large yellow KIA van with his wife and youngest daughter Jessie. We greeted them and then threw our stuff in the van and headed back to their place. On our way back to their house we stopped at the school near their home where our friend Danni had taught English when we came to visit her in Thailand last March. The school had expanded a great deal and had grown into a behemoth of a prep school, with swimming pools, multiple buildings, a huge courtyard out front complete with gardens and fountains. So we picked up the kids, dropped our bags at the house, and headed out for dinner.
We went out to eat at an Italian restaurant owned and operated by Thais. I’m pretty sure that this Thai family has yet to make it to Italy, or even the Olive Garden, as the food did not resemble any Italian dishes I have ever encountered. But then again, if I went to a Thai restaurant in Italy, owned and operated by Italians, I wouldn’t have high expectations.
So we had a nice dinner with a couple of much needed glasses of wine and then headed back to the house. Rhys was kind enough to let us crash there for the night. We stayed in an upstairs bedroom where the children usually sleep. There were two double beds with rails where Emily and Michelle slept and a pad on the floor where I crashed. The accommodations were surprisingly comfortable and the days festivities had used up all my energy. I found myself drifting off to sleep almost immediately.
The next morning we took our showers and gathered our bags and headed to a hotel. He had offered to let us stay at his house for the entire time we were in Pattaya, but with three rambunctious children running around the house and a puppy with a penchant for nipping at ankles, we found ourselves needing a little more peace and quiet. So we headed to JomTien, which is a beach located immediately next to Pattaya.
JomTien was a much better fit than Pattaya would have been. There are very few foreigners on this particular beach which means that the hotels are cheaper and significantly less sleazy. It also means that we can walk along the beach without having to stare at the hoards of 65 year-old obese Westerners and there 18 year-old Thai girlfriends. This suited us just fine. We drove down the beach for a few kilometers until things got significantly more peaceful and more reasonably priced.
We stopped the van at a little beachfront hotel called Holiday Beach, got out, and asked to look at some rooms. They showed us around and Rhys and Suwandee haggled with the staff until we got a pretty reasonable price on our rooms. We thanked Rhys and Suwandee, and they left us at the hotel to get situated. We headed up to our rooms, put our bags on the floor, and breathed a huge sigh of release. We basked in the silence of our little zebra striped sanctuary as the traffic outside was drowned out by the hum of our air-conditioner.
We spent the remainder of the day relaxing in our rooms and occasionally heading out to find some food. The neighborhood we were in was very odd. It was comprised of little hotels and shops next to large abandon malls. Many of the malls were obviously built with high-end retail shops in mind. One remarkable structure had a giant tile plaza out in front with numerous fountains, one of which featured a large smiling brass fish which would have been squirting water from its mouth if the mall were still operational. The entire front half of the mall had lofted ceilings and glass walls, allowing us to peer inside the abandon structure. The current occupants were a couple of Thai families who appeared to be making use of this immaculate structure while the tenants were likely recovering from an expensive mistake.
As the sun set and the temperature began to drop into the comfortable range we headed out for dinner. We stopped at another Thai-Italian restaurant. I still am not sure what we were thinking. I can only surmise that we were missing Western food and that overly-full feeling that accompanies your typical American meal. So we ate our pizza, and chatted about economics, Michelle’s new favorite subject, and just enjoyed one another’s company. After all the crazy little adventures our recent choices had led us on, it was nice to calm down for a moment.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel and sat on our little balcony and watched the sun set over the ocean. The heat and humidity make for brilliant sunsets, even if they are rather brief. As the sky darkened and the street lights came on, we saw a man walking his baby elephant on the street below. We felt good. We called Suthep to let him know that we would be heading home tomorrow instead of on Saturday. We divulged that our trip had been more excitement than we had hoped for and were excited to see him and his family back in Bang Na.
We stayed up for a few more hours chatting and laughing at our little misadventures. As the conversation dried up, Michelle headed back to her room and we headed to bed. Emily dozed off and I stayed up for a little bit writing about our motorcycle trip of the damned. Then I turned off the lights and sat there listening to the gentle hum of the air conditioner until I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning we awoke early and headed off for some breakfast. We went to invite Michelle but she was not in her room, so we figured she had likely gone off on her own to get a bite. We sat down at a little restaurant across the street from our hotel and had a nice little breakfast of chicken curry, rice, and a Thai omelet. Moments after we ordered Michelle came back from her morning outing. She declined our offer to join us in favor of heading back to the room to call Chris, as she had just purchased a phone card. So we slowly ate our breakfast and watched the children playing on the beach.
After breakfast and a shower we called Rhys to come pick us up and take us to the train station. He was kind enough to extend the offer while dropping us at our hotel the night before. He showed up about 20 minutes later in his yellow van and we all headed to the bus station. I was glad that we were getting a ride rather than trying to take a bus or taxi, as the station was extremely far away from our hotel. We thanked Rhys for all of his help and then headed into the station to get our tickets for our ride back to Bangkok.
Our ride back to Bangkok was uneventful. 2 hours on a bus seems to be about the same anywhere you go. The nice thing about Thai public transport is that you can ask them to drop you off at some point along the route other than the station. We got off near the Central mall in Bang Na, which is about 4 miles closer than the Eckamai station which is in the heart of Bangkok. From the mall we hopped a cab back to Suthep’s house.
It felt so nice to be home. That evening Suthep took us out to celebrate Chudathorn’s (his wife) birthday. The restaurant was very nice and the food was delicious. It was great to be back with Suthep’s family. Its amazing how much a little bit of traveling can help you appreciate what you have.
So we have spent the last few days staying at Suthep’s house here in Bang Na. We spend our days relaxing or heading into Bangkok to explore and our evenings having dinner with the family and teaching each other our respective languages. After dinner we are usually treated to tremendous storms, with buckets of rain and incredible lightening, while the days are generally partly cloudy and warm. Except for a lousy cold, things have been quite good.
Tonight, we head to Chiang Mai for a week. We have one friend up there, Neng, who I met while working in the Low Vision Labs. She has been kind enough to offer to show us around Chiang Mai a bit. I likely will not have access to a computer so it may be over a week before our next post. Let’s hope this trip is a little less eventful than the last couple have been.

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Photos

Balcony
Umm...Excuse me, but, I actually ordered the room with the hot pink zebra stripes.

happy fun time
My jokes are ALWAYS funny! Here's proof.

Gold Mining
In Thailand there seems to be no cultural taboo against digging your boogers in public. It is not uncommon for someone to be spelunking the depths of their nostrils while you are talking to them. Em and Michelle are adapting to the culture quickly.

Dumbo
Elephants need exercise too.

Bangkok Temple
One of the many temples in Bangkok. Its amazing how quiet and peaceful the temples are when just outside their walls Bangkok carries on at a manic pace.

Comments

[Barb Killen]

Shall I ship you some tomato sauce?
sounds like you two are dining regularly if not always well. Enjoyed Bankok when we were there. The hotel where Wendy booked us was the most elegant we'd ever seen. As your great grandfather said, Be good and if you can't be good, be careful!