Here we are in Pattaya having a great time. It was a long ride (about 8 hours) to get here but Noon and I had some good conversation. Yesterday I accidentally took a bus uptown. What I mean is, I was standing on the street outside the hotel waitng for the songtaew when a bus pulls up, says where are you going? and get on! So I did. This may be a conflict of business interest - does the bus come along and scoop up all the potential songtaew customers before he gets there? Anyway, I made it to the big Buddah which was awesome and I will post pictures when I get home. I had to take a motorcycle taxi the last bit of the trip and the road was under construction so we were spinning through wet muddy slurry the whole time. Then he goes between two lanes of traffic so you have to squeeze your kneees against his body to avoid losing them - this is always a bit awkward but you do what you have to do.

After the big Buddah, I went into town on beach road . I bought some DVDs (6 for 15$) a very funny English book on the order of The Onion (this is the first English book store I've seen in months) and I go real fake nails. Acrylics. Since we are down further south and this is a tourist area (sex industry and others) everyone speaks English and it's a lot more civilized. Many tailors begging to make me some proper teaching clothes, as "your pants are too big."  Thank you very much.

There are so many Russians here! I had not idea! Signs are in Thai, English, and Russian, even in the elevator and inside your room. The hotel has a travel agency that only caters to Russians and Russian is heard all over the streets. Someone once told me that the Russian mafia is big in Pattaya and now I believe it. We spent Saturday on the beach and there were virtually no Thais, one or two Americans and the rest huge Russians. The men all have big bellies hanging over their tiny revealing speedos, and the women are postitively gragantuan . I thought I was fat until I saw them.

The ocean is right outside our building with a great beach, parasailing, kite surfing, wind surfing, jet skis, banana boats, and three huge pools. We bought these honkin' big shrimp the size of small lobsters from a lady on the beach and lived the good life.

Friday, Steve , Kelly and I walked around up town. Kelly and I got a massage (7.50/hr, a tad high) while Steve sat in a bar on the walking street. When we found him, he had made friends with several lovely bar girls. (See picture)


In the evening, we went to see the ladyboy show at Tiffany's, which I thought was very entertaining. The costumes and sets were superb. I was pleased that I was able to find a taxi outside to take me back to the Ambassador, as it was 10:30 at night and 1- the songtaeaws often don't run that late, and 2- my hotel is skewed off from beach road so I would have to find my way to Sukumvit Road and then get a songtaew south from there, something I'm not thrilled about doing by myself after dark. So all's well that ends well...