After spending the summer back home, our plan was to work for a bit and save some money to go and do a working holiday in Australia, with a month away in Thailand and Cambodia. We were just going to work for some rubbish event company over the summer to earn the money but luckily enough we managed to find something we were both interested in. I managed to get a job as a Transport coordinator and Georgia worked over the summer as a domestic violence advocate so both of us managed to put our degree to use!
We started our travels in Bangkok Airport where Georgia flew from London, changing flights in India where she stated that she would never go again, but the flight was cheap so she cannot moan. I flew in from Hong Kong where I had spent a few nights with my family and was actually one of the best cities that I have visited. We also went to Dubai which wasn't as great as the busy and bright streets of Hong Kong. Our flights landed only 15 minutes apart, Georgia had endured her 18 journey and I loved my 2 hour flight from Hong Kong where I was upgraded to business class (had to include that in the blog), I am sure the check-in attendant felt sorry for me as I was the only white person on the flight! After a 2 hour bus journey from the airport we arrived in Pattaya late at night and had an early night.....
The next morning, well lunchtime by the time we woke up we had a walk down to the beach and the streets seemed pretty quiet and done nothing in particular as Georgia was jet-lagged. It was much more lively during the night though. When we have been to Thailand before there would always be a strip or a road where there would be a few bars full of Thai girls, like where we visited the ping-pong show in Bangkok, or on one of the Thai islands. But Pattaya is a huge city and there must have been hundreds, if not thousands of these bars full of local girls on the lookout for their middle-aged white men, or if they was lucky a hunk like me...Some of the bars would have Thai girls on one side of a table and westerners on the other, a bit like speed dating I should imagine, although me and Georgia didn't catch on to this until we wanted a quiet drink. It was raining so we ran into a bar and got a couple of beers and we ended up sitting opposite a 50 year old Thai woman looking for her future husband, she got us 2 instead! After sitting in awkward silence for ten minutes we decided to quickly finish our drinks and run off into the distance lol.
The rest of Pattaya was similar, full of bars or "special" massage parlors with dozens of girls outside each. Then there was Walking Street which was a lot less seedy with more bars and nightclubs alongside the go-go bars. A lot of the bars had a black curtain at the entrance which gave us flashbacks of the time we got locked in Bangkok at a ping-pong show but after a few nights we braved it and went in. It was a bar with a load of girls in their bikinis on stage all with a badge on, each having a number so if you wanted a girl you could book her by her badge number. The western men in these clubs were a lot younger unlike the men who would go to a go-go bar to find their future wife. Its not sounding good for me and Georgia right now but we only went there once out of curiosity! We ended up in the more traditional bars and clubs that you would get back home the majority of the time. There was even Russian strip clubs along the street that we may have ventured into one night.....
Pattaya was all about the nightlife and not too much too do in the day especially as it was monsoon season and it was usually raining and the cheap umbrellas that we had didn't stand a chance! Also, a lot of the excursions that was on offer such as elephant trekking and cooking schools wasn't worth paying for again as we done earlier in the year on our travels. A couple of the days we ended up going bowling and cinema because of the weather, but on the rare sunny day we took a boat to an island where we thought we would have a secluded beach to relax on. It turned out to be the busiest beach ever with about a thousand jet skis making a load of noise and a packed out beach full of large tourist groups. It was the complete opposite to a secluded beach so we only stayed for a couple of hours and took the ferry back to Pattaya and headed back to our hotel.
Our hotel was more like a guesthouse, with about 6 rooms run by a Thai family who would go out there way for you and would make you breakfast and lunch although it wasn't even included in the price.The majority of times Thai's are so much more friendly and welcoming compared to anyone else that we have been.
The food in Pattaya was very mixed as it was a huge tourist attraction so had the choice of western or local food. Georgia seemed adamant that she would keep having Thai food but I was still on holiday mode from the week before with my family and couldn't resist burger and chips! Georgia gave in to Western food at 3am one night when we passed McDonalds, to her credit she has avoided chocolate and crisp since we have arrived and to be fair nobody can say no to a double cheeseburger after a night out!
After 5 nights in Pattaya, we arrived in Koh Chang via the Thai equivalent of the Woolwich Ferry through the gloom and the rain and finally made it to the hotel. The minibus had to go along the most dangerous roads I have seen with some of them completely flooded, I decided straight away that we wouldn't be renting a moped if we wanted to get off the island alive.
Until next time.......
We started our travels in Bangkok Airport where Georgia flew from London, changing flights in India where she stated that she would never go again, but the flight was cheap so she cannot moan. I flew in from Hong Kong where I had spent a few nights with my family and was actually one of the best cities that I have visited. We also went to Dubai which wasn't as great as the busy and bright streets of Hong Kong. Our flights landed only 15 minutes apart, Georgia had endured her 18 journey and I loved my 2 hour flight from Hong Kong where I was upgraded to business class (had to include that in the blog), I am sure the check-in attendant felt sorry for me as I was the only white person on the flight! After a 2 hour bus journey from the airport we arrived in Pattaya late at night and had an early night.....
The next morning, well lunchtime by the time we woke up we had a walk down to the beach and the streets seemed pretty quiet and done nothing in particular as Georgia was jet-lagged. It was much more lively during the night though. When we have been to Thailand before there would always be a strip or a road where there would be a few bars full of Thai girls, like where we visited the ping-pong show in Bangkok, or on one of the Thai islands. But Pattaya is a huge city and there must have been hundreds, if not thousands of these bars full of local girls on the lookout for their middle-aged white men, or if they was lucky a hunk like me...Some of the bars would have Thai girls on one side of a table and westerners on the other, a bit like speed dating I should imagine, although me and Georgia didn't catch on to this until we wanted a quiet drink. It was raining so we ran into a bar and got a couple of beers and we ended up sitting opposite a 50 year old Thai woman looking for her future husband, she got us 2 instead! After sitting in awkward silence for ten minutes we decided to quickly finish our drinks and run off into the distance lol.
The rest of Pattaya was similar, full of bars or "special" massage parlors with dozens of girls outside each. Then there was Walking Street which was a lot less seedy with more bars and nightclubs alongside the go-go bars. A lot of the bars had a black curtain at the entrance which gave us flashbacks of the time we got locked in Bangkok at a ping-pong show but after a few nights we braved it and went in. It was a bar with a load of girls in their bikinis on stage all with a badge on, each having a number so if you wanted a girl you could book her by her badge number. The western men in these clubs were a lot younger unlike the men who would go to a go-go bar to find their future wife. Its not sounding good for me and Georgia right now but we only went there once out of curiosity! We ended up in the more traditional bars and clubs that you would get back home the majority of the time. There was even Russian strip clubs along the street that we may have ventured into one night.....Pattaya was all about the nightlife and not too much too do in the day especially as it was monsoon season and it was usually raining and the cheap umbrellas that we had didn't stand a chance! Also, a lot of the excursions that was on offer such as elephant trekking and cooking schools wasn't worth paying for again as we done earlier in the year on our travels. A couple of the days we ended up going bowling and cinema because of the weather, but on the rare sunny day we took a boat to an island where we thought we would have a secluded beach to relax on. It turned out to be the busiest beach ever with about a thousand jet skis making a load of noise and a packed out beach full of large tourist groups. It was the complete opposite to a secluded beach so we only stayed for a couple of hours and took the ferry back to Pattaya and headed back to our hotel.
The food in Pattaya was very mixed as it was a huge tourist attraction so had the choice of western or local food. Georgia seemed adamant that she would keep having Thai food but I was still on holiday mode from the week before with my family and couldn't resist burger and chips! Georgia gave in to Western food at 3am one night when we passed McDonalds, to her credit she has avoided chocolate and crisp since we have arrived and to be fair nobody can say no to a double cheeseburger after a night out!
Until next time.......
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