Saturday 12th April 2008

Me and Nikki slept in until almost 12pm today and when we were finally up and about, went out for some exploring. First we stopped in a posh café at the end of our street and had bagels with cream cheese for our breakfast. Whatever we thought of Pattaya at night, was just as bad in the daylight. This place is crazy! We came back to our guest house later on and were sat in the 'bar area' having a drink when something dawned on us... First, we noticed that the bar had no pumps - in fact, it didn't have many drinks at all - just a few bottles of spirits on a shelf. Next, we noticed that all the lights in the entire downstairs had red light bulbs. Finally, we were sat minding our own business, when this giant, sweaty English man came down from upstairs... closely followed by one of the staff. 'Innocent enough' we thought - until he handed her money, some of which she handed to the manager. OH! MY! GOD! We are staying in a brothel!

There are loads of markets here, both indoor and out, so we spent the first part of our afternoon looking around those - anything to stay away from the guesthouse until WE HAD to go back. From then on, everything in Pattaya looked quite sleazy. Something else we noticed was that there are hardly any Western women here - but THOUSANDS of Western men... most of whom are with a Thai girl.

This evening, we were out walking around when we came to one end of town called 'Walking Street'. This was stag-do heaven. It was just bar after bar, strip club after strip club. We walked from one end to the other and went into a couple of bars, but nothing too rude - preferring to come and drink by our 'guest house' instead. One of the local bars had a really loud live show going on, featuring both regular women and lady boys. We went in to watch and were seated right at the front. We'll be ok we thought, we're not embarrassed... until the lady boys started vying for my attention and the women for Nikki's... d'oh!

Well, well... we've seen Pattaya in a different light now... and it's RED!