Speak when spoken to.

First off I'm still in Pattaya, sure I planned on leaving a week ago but the lure of bar after bar has been to great and the destruction of my liver is well under way. It's my birthday today which after 25 isn't something you like to admit but I'm hoping if I tell enough people it might result in a free beer or two. I was downing beers at my regular bar last night and 3 members of the staff had birthdays which means you're "encouraged" to buy them drinks and place 100 baht notes around there necks on a money necklace. I have a feeling that this tradition only applies to staff members but dammit I'm still going to hit that bar tonight with money necklace in place and hope for the best.

Bushy has requested that I skip the bar stories (I have plenty) and maybe focus a bit on the culture and activities that don't involve intoxication so we'll indulge in some of that. Yesterday I took a baht bus to a huge golden bhudda up in the hills, the suckers massive and he's on a nice spot that gives you a great view of Pattaya so I took a boatload of photo's of both Mr Bhudda and the view. I was encouraged to pray to Bhudda and attempted to do so but the sitting style used to pray in just wasn't made for my wimpy ankles. So there we are in this temple, about 50 or so Thai's and me the only whiteboy and we all kneel with the top of your feet on the ground and head down with an incense stick. It's totally silent until my feet start screaming in agony and I roll over clutching them and gasping whilst dropping my incense stick and annoying everyone present.

Sorry Bhudda!

After offending Bhudda, myself and my bargirl friend
Kwan decided to hit the water park with her room-mate (the crazy one) and her latest boyfriend Peter. It was good to actually have someone to chat to as normally it's the three of us and I sit there whilst they take the piss out of me in Thai heh. The water park was good fun and had slides and aqua tubes and even sported a couple of roller coasters. Swimming is so much better now with short hair, I no longer have to worry about the knot-fest that normally results in a swim and I spent ages in the water. Kwan wanted to go on the huge slide so I joined her but I hit the lip of the slide a bit to fast, got slightly airborne and smashed my elbow on the side of the slide I'm now sporting a good sized graze. Last night at the bar I was telling another guy about the slide incident and he whipped out his forearm and showed me a big scar which he said he got on the very same slide haha.

We also took a ride on the rollercoaster which looked pretty tame but once on it I realised it had some pretty big drops. Sitting in front of us was a teenage russian guy who looked at Kwan with amusement/contempt as she clutched my hand before the ride and clambered into the cart on shaking legs. So we do one revolution of the grid and come back to the start where the operator gives you the choice of doing it again (free of charge). Myself and Kwan were all for it but I looked in front of us and the Russian guy looked like a ghost and waving his arms frantically to get off. We all jumped off and they had a TV monitor where they show a picture of everyones face after the first big drop. I was laughing with hands in the air while Kwan was looking pretty scared but nothing was more funny then the Russian guys face which appeared to be a full blooded scream of fear!

Speaking of Russians, Pattaya is full of them and some of the women are absolutely stunning but I don't even give them a second look. Why you ask?...no I haven't gone queer (yet) but Russian girls are like a lost baby bear or lions cub. They're so cute and you wanna cuddle and touch them and maybe even take them home but you know that SOMEWHERE the momma bear is about and will tear you limb from limb. The momma bear for Russians is always in the form of a big boyfriend and if I've learnt anything from Steven Seagal movies it's not to fuck with Russian guys. Speaking of violence I've been watching heaps of Muai Thai Kickboxing and on the first night I was loving it. Some Thai dude whipped out a spinning backfist and knocked out his opponent and I jumped up and down screaming much to the amusment of the whole bar. After the fight the winner walks around thew ring collecting money from the crowd (typically 100 baht notes) which I happily parted with as he was risking his life/bones in there. As the night went on I started noticing that the fight weren't real, the punches and kicks were always partially blocked and the fight always ended in a spectacular fashion to dazzle the crowd like a flying elbow or spinning manfist. I guess they can't have fighters going all out each night as the injury list would be huge but I still found it dissapointing. That was until some white guys started stepping in the ring and there was no faking it here, they were obviously over to train or on a kickboxing camp and gave it there all.

The first white guy outweighed the thai by about 40kg's but still got the shit smack out of them, you can't believe how loud and strong these guys kick and punch until you see it in person. Funniest fight of the night involved a young white guy who appeared to start strong against the Thai, he nailed the Thai fighter with a few leg kicks which caused him to limp badly and reduced his mobility. It stunk of fakeness to me and I thought maybe they had paid the Thai fighter to lose, the whiteboy was getting more and more cocky and whipping out reverse kicks and smiling to the crowd. Then it got into the final round and the Thai fighter upto this point had looked shit and had done nothing, then at the start of the final round he went berserk and pummeled the shit out of his opponent. One of his kicks nearly bloody decapitated the young guy and the ref quickly called off the fight and everyone realised the Thai was just playing possum as he's used to doing and turned it on when he needed to...cheeky fucker.

As I mentioned yesterday I have shaved my head, I'd been considering it from day one in Thailand as the humidity is killer and long hair is unbearable. So I hit a salon yesterday and told the girl I wanted it all gone, she looked at me like I was crazy and went "all gone" which I nodded to and said "shave it!". So she went for a number 4 and I told her shorter then a number 3 as still to long so I settled on a number 2. Actually looks quite good and I'm now being called "handsum man" even more now. The reception girl at my hotel didn't even recognise me and asked if I had a room there heh and then nearly died of shock when I told her who I was. That was nothing compared to the reaction at my regular bar where the girls wouldn't stop going on about it and one suggested that SHE barfine ME haha. I also shoved off my poormans goatee so I looked vey different now and heaps younger and now I just wonder why the hell I didn't shave my head years ago!.

Pictures will soon be added but the computers here are very slow so it makes simple processes that much difficult. Which I find in Thailand is often the case, even things like going to the toilet at the water park are difficult when rules such as "you must buy toilet paper before using toilet" are in place, I hate to think about how many people didn't read that sign before dropping the kids off at the pool. I better bail as me and Peter are ditching the girls and hitting some bars so I'll let you know how that goes.