27th-30th Sept

Since the last time I blogged we have taken a 2 hour bus journey from Bangkok to Pattaya. The bus was about £3 each and even had air con. I had imagined the bus to be the size and design of a coach but in fact it was a mini van and there was only 11 passengers including us 4! When we arrived in Pattaya we were greeted by Mickey, Nathan's family friend who moved out here 8 years ago, and were driven to his amazing house where he lives with his partner and her daughter. His house is beautiful, built from scratch 5 years ago, with a spacious lounge with a sofa so comfortable that I accidentally fell asleep on it last night, 3 huge bedrooms with en suites, and his own pool. Us 4 are sharing a bedroom that doesn't have air con but has 2 fans in it to keep us cool. On our first night here Mickey took us to his local where his partner works and where a lot of his friends were drinking. We've discovered our favourite beer called Singha and we drank quite a bit of it that night! Mickey and his partner took us to a lovely Thai restaurant where I had the nicest noodles I've had so far. Me, Nathan and Matt always seem to order the same meal which I think makes us look very English but at least it's easy to work out the bill! We saw the most obvious lady boy that we had seen so far working at that pub. It was his masculine shoulders that gave it away and Mickey was more than happy to keep making funny remarks to us about what a "lump" the waitress was. After a swim in the pool and staying upup until the early hours of the morning with Mickey and Daa we had a lovely night's sleep.
Yesterday we went into Pattaya with Mickey and sat in a pub watching the world go by. He says that he loves people watching out here because it's all so different. After a walk through the dirtiest street in Pattaya, according to Mickey, where a ladyboy latched onto Matt and escorted him to the end of the road, we were welcomed back to Mickey's with Daa's amazing cooking. She cooked us prawn omelettes which were amazing, with fish curry and rice. She didn't eat any though because she said she gets sick of looking at her own food and never fancies it once she's cooked it. Afterwards we played cards and went for a swim as well as discovering our new favourite hobby - watching Thai music videos and guessing what the songs are about! Some of them are so catchy and we've been walking around singing gibberish to the tune of the new Thai pop hits!
Today we went back into Pattaya and visited a very posh hotel/restaurant ironically called cabbages and condoms. The transport system is different here as the baht buses travel in a loop and you get on at off at whatever destination you want along that route for a fixed fee. In Bangkok the Tuk Tuk driver would charge depending on the destination and would take us anywhere. The baht buses here are also much bigger. You can see the view from the bus on the photo, it's like an open van. We are currently sitting on the beach enjoying the sun and listening to the sound of the waves. Loving Thailand!