Drunk & Disorderly

I've safely landed in the Philippines and will be spending the next fortnight here before moving on to trusty Singapore. The flight was pretty uneventfull and I slept on and off (e.g head snapping back to attention every 5 seconds, god I hate that!) as I was pretty tired as had to catch a 5am taxi from Pattaya to the airport which took around two hours. The taxi driver tried to scam me by insisting I pay the road tolls which I then counter-insisted that I had already paid these to his company and it was up to him to settle. He relented and paid but I'm not sure if I've touched on the subject before but Thai's are terrible at dealing with conflict. If you have a problem with a matter such as a meal or incorrect charging then it's a nightmare as Thai's hate dealing with conflict and prefer to ignore the matter completly then resolve it. This pisses off the foreigners who usually indulge in a great deal of swearing and vow never to return to the establishment.

The problems all arise from the Thai's dislike of "losing face" which I think is best described using the example;

"You ask a thai for directions, the thai person does not know so he gives you wrong directions rather than admitting he doesn't know which would cause him to lose face"

It's kinda crazy and I think often costs them alot of business as admitting a mistake loses them face so the problem gets ignored.

Anyway my last night in Pattaya was pretty bland as I wimped off to bed at 9pm which was futile as the music and noise of Pattaya kept me awake until about 3am. The night before on the other hand was one of the most bizarre nights of my life and involved myself, a married lady, her thai lesbian friend and a bottle of Johnny Walker but I think it's probably not fit for the blog so I'll tell the tale when I get home.

I arrived in Manila at about 4pm and caught a taxi to a guesthouse that I'd spotted online, the taxi from the airports are an utter rip-off and I won't let them rape my wallet again. The guesthouse had 1 room available which was a small room with a fan and a shared bath-room which came in at about $11 which isn't to shabby. Without my girly long hair I don't have many problems with the heat and the fan is sufficient. The shared bath-room can be annoying as I was dying to drop the kids off at the pool this morning but some bastard was having a lazy 20 minute shower so I hope I didn't rupture anything heh. I might actually upgrade to somethin' a bit better but I slept past the 12pm check-out time so looks like I'm here for another night.

After signing up for the room yesterday I took a nick nanna-nap and decided to appease my growling stomach with some overdue food (the plane food was horrible so I hadn't eaten in a day). I wandered about not knowing where I was and chose some fried chicken place to eat at and there were a few other cracka's in there. The chicken burger was nice but I ordered some odd-named fries and when they came out they were green and were served with sugar...what the hell?! (oh and they tasted crap!). Following that I checked out Roxas Blvd which is a stretch of bars and restaurants along the water, was really nice with heaps of people and live music. Now I had vowed to avoid alcohol for this portion of the trip but really I couldn't come to a country and not sample there local beer as I think that's actually illegal and punishable by castration. So I found myself a bar and ordered some of the local bew Sam Miguel, it was horrible out of a can but the next bar served it in bottles which was much nicer. Even better was Sam Miguel Lite which despite the name is a full strength beer but has less calories or some shit so I knocked back a few of them.

Hip Hop and the fashion associated with it is really big over here so you see plenty of twisted caps and baggy jeans but sadly not a single pimp-coat. The second bar I went into had two whiteboys that were wiggin' it up something laughable with huge bball jerseys, twisted caps and mad bling. You couldn't help but notice these two as they were constantly shouting things like;

"Wassup Cuz!"

"Whats crackin' ya'll!"

"She frontin' me dawg she frontin' me!!!"

It was really getting on my nerves but I watched with great amusement as our two loud white crips downed a large gulp of shut the fuck up as 4 big mean looking black guys entered the bar. For the rest of the night I didn't hear a peep out of them!

The black guys sat next to me and one of them wandered over to chat to me about the Philippines and upon hearing I was Australian this took place;

"Yer I hear Australia's nice but dunno how my trade be there"

"What trade is that?"

"The Opium trade"

"Oh...that trade...yes...well...geez look at the time!"

I didn't actually bolt but steadied my nerves with another SM Light and watched as a big steroid lookin' italian dude wandered over to my opium friends and banged fists with them and tried to befriend them which I overheard.

Italian Stallion: "Yo guys where ya from?"

Opium Dealer: "New York"

Italian Stallion: "Oh America, I lived in LA for 2 years"

Opium Dealer: "That right?...what part"

Italian Stallion: "San Pedro"

Opium Dealer: "Never heard of it"

Italian Stallion: *sounding nervous now* "Yes well I lived there"

Opium Dealer: "Sure you did"

Italian Stallion: *trying to salvage situation "so where in Africa are you guys from?"

*Opium dealers suddenly surround Italian Stallion*

Opium Dealer: "I said I was from fuckin' america, not Africa and boy I got a good mind to beat you for that"

Italian Stallion: *pale and looking like he's going to throw up but still not knowing to shut up* "Well at some point you musta come from Africa right?"

It was hilarious and they didn't perform any beat-downs but let him wander away to a corner where he shot nervous looks there way all night, heh normally I'm the one who finds myself in those situations. I'm off to do some sight seeing and will include more photo's next time but Danny knocked together a pimp photoshop of me so here it is heh;

My days are numbered, well in Thailand they are anyway as I scuttle off to the Phillipines as of Monday and I plan to spend 2 weeks there island jumping and taking in the sights. I have officially decided to swear off booze for this portion of the trip and hopefully avoid the lingering hangover effects and the late sleep-in's. I haven't updated in a fair while so I have plenty to talk about and was even organised/nerdish enough to knock together some notes so I could share with you folks. Now I must issue a strong Bushy warning that this update includes a number of bar-related stories and we may even encounter a ladyboy or two.

I did manage to get over to Cambodia but didn't spend as much time as I anticpated and took even less photo's so I'll have to show Cambodia some love on a future trip. The place was pretty crazy and was reminiscent of the wild-west with it's dusty roads, rickety wooden buildings and I even saw a tense stand-off (ok so it was between two dogs but it still counts). I'm sorry to say I didn't get to fire an AK47, throw a grenade or fire a rocket at a cow but I did hit someone in the mouth with a frisbee. The sheer number of touts and beggars was amazing with most of them being small children who fight for your attention and fight even harder between themselves once you fork over some money. A number of people from Thailand I had spoken to told me that they kissed the ground upon there return to Thailand and while my reaction wasn't that strong I was happy to be back. I will go back but the poverty and the crazy roads take some getting used to but the people were friendly and it was relatively cheap.

I caught a mini-bus back from the Cambodian border to Pattaya yesterday and am going to spend the next day or two here before heading to the airport on Monday morning. The bus ride got off to an amusing start, it picked me up from my hotel and then went about town picking up other travellers until we had packed it out with 9-10 people. The bus left at 6am so I had crashed out early the night before so I could wake up in time which I barely did. Another traveller decided to take a different approach and drunkenly staggered onto the bus from a bar where he had no doubt spent the entire night drinking. Captain drunkard obviously thought this was a cool idea but it ended predicatbly with him on all fours puking his guts up beside the road an hour into the trip, heh not so cool now are we spewboy!. An old man was seated next to me and spent the whole trip swearing under his breath to himself and I'd often lean close just to hear him mutter "fucking-fuckers, fuckfuckfuck, fucksicle" and I wasn't sure what he was upset about but the guy was a regular fuck-factory. The trip took a good few hours over some rough roads and my ass was killing me and after stopping at a petrol station and stretching our legs I had this horrible incident with another passenger.

Fellow Traveller: "Boy my ass is sore"

Darren: "Mine to, feels like I've been in jail!"

Fellow Traveller: "Jail?...whatever do you mean?"

Darren: "Errr...well...errr"

!@#$%^&

I mean what the hell could I say, if he didn't get the original joke then I very well couldn't explain it and say "you know sore ass like in jail where another inmate forcibly sodomises you against your will!". Speaking of jail I saw a big brawl the other night that ended in some drunken pom getting stabbed with a steak-knife so have fun in prison where your the steak buddy. When in Cambodia I was drinkin' with a crew of mixed nationalities with a couple of poms,scots and an irish fella comprising the group. Had a good time and they were a good laugh and could all drink me under the table but the Irish dude had a raging boner for Australian sport and woulkdn't shut up about it. We had just met at a bar and were sinkin' some beers when he said;

"Sorry to Interrupt Darren but wasn't Steve Waugh a great ambassdor for the game of Cricket?"

"He sure was buddy"

Not more then 15 minutes pass and he leans over and whispers;

"Darren, isn't Michael Clarke a fabulous young talent and a superb batter"

"He sure is"

This went on all fucking night with him giving props to player after bloody player until thankfully he said some words that cheered me up and then nearly made me weep.

"Darren, I think I'll stop rabbiting on about Cricket as I'm probably boring you....but isn't Australian Rugby a great game and isn't George Gregan an intelligent quick-witted captain"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Now that I'm back in Pattaya I'm once again exploring bars but being much more of a tightass as my budget is thinning. I've changed hotels at least 6 bloody times which 85% of the time is due to me forgetting that I'm supposed to tell them that I need more time and someone else books my room. One night was particularly memorable with a drunken buffoon hammering on my door at 2am convinced it was his room, then the fire alarm went off at 6am and at 8am I was told I had to check-out...FUN!. Speaking of thinning budgets I've still been kicking it with Kwan and I wanted to head over to the island of Ko (insert name here as I've had a mind blank) and she wanted to come along. So she smsed me and requested that I pay her barfine for 2 days so she can goto bed early then spend all day on the island, which I responded by saying that I couldn't afford to do this. This of course led to her labelling me as "Miserly" which is defined as;

adj : used of persons or behavior; characterized by or indicative of lack of generosity; "a mean person"; "he left a miserly tip"

The sms hysterics that followed has now led to Kwan going home for a week to cook god-knows-what for Chinese New Years so I guess all's well that barfines well (that sounded good in my head I swear)

Despite the strong anti-drug message that Se-Asia sends with it's death penalties and jails so bad that our's seem like daycare centres you still bump into retards dabbling in them. I was a pub the other night and I guy leaned over me and offered me a joint before whispering that he'd lost his bag of weed and could I keep my eyes out for it. Another traveller told me he took some Thai ecstacy and for the next four days had an erection everytime someone touched him...thanks for sharing bonerman. Clearly the anti-drug message isn't sinking in so I personally believe SE Asia should now concentrate on punishing bad fashion especially amongst toursists. It seems that tourists arrive in Asia and believe they can wear whatever they like as they don't know anybody and there fat beer gut protruding through that tight muscle shirt is acceptable. The Japanese are particularly funny with there tour groups all decked out in bright Hawaiin geer but the germans take the cake with fat dudes wearing bike shorts or tight small denim shorts (shudders). Japanese never seem to travel solo and are always part of a loud camera clicking tour group and they really dig the kick boxing and go go bars. I was in a go-go the other week (I was lost...honest) and a tour bus pulls up and the japanese streamed in, picked a girl each, grabbed them and all filtered back onto the bus with there harem. Not a beer was drunk, a cigarette smoked or an erection formed as the whole deal was done in minutes!

Having arrived back in Pattaya late yeste4rday afternoon I decided that I'd get some drinking done and hooked up with my mate Peter and hit some beer bars. At the first one I soundly whipped the girl at connect four 25 games to 6 and after about 12 straight losses she started pointing at her throat. I asked if she had a sore throat and she shook her head and we kept playing but after every game she'd clutch her throat and I'd just assume she was sick and kept playing. She finally won a game and the mamasam of the joint came up and demanded;

"Well are you going to buy her a drink or not!"

"Why didn't she ask...*recalls throat gestures*...Oh!...no sorry we gotta get going"

Take that!

The next bar we drank at was pretty quiet and I went through the same boring routine with the girl;

Where are you from, how old are you, how many times in Thailand but when I asked her age she said something that scared the shit out of me...

"17"

I checked her ID and sure enough she was 17 and so was every other girl in the bar, strange how the bars are allowed to let underage girls serve alcohol but I quickly left already hearing sirens in my head. Peter decided to head off with one of his regular girls so I caught a motorbike to Walking Street and started drinking at a bar I frequent occasionly. There was a bit of drama there after a tourist decided he'd stick his tounge in the mamasams ear and she punched him in the mouth which I found very funny but he didn't. When you drink in Thailand you get a small container called a bin where all the receipts for your drinks are put and when your ready to leave they calculate them all and you settle the amount. It has it's good and bad sides, the good is that you don't have to fork out money after every drink but the downside is that you forget how much your spending and often a receipt for a drink you never got finds it's way into your bin. Anyways I was sitting at the bar drinking and a guy next to me offers to buy me a drink which I happily accept and then notice that his bin is fucking packed full of receipts. I asked him what the hell he was doing and he said he'd been drinking since 2pm and shouting drinks alround and suepected his bin was already at around 4000 baht which is plain crazy. We chatted for much of the night and he bought all my drinks and I had to tell him to stop as ?I was absoultely hammered and offered various excuses for being a wimp and stumbled off. Now this is where things got a bit crazy as I was very drunk, running on 2 hours sleep and in a very odd mood so thought I'd walk along the beach to sober up. While heading to the beach I found a single black sandal on the road and picked it up and put it in my pocket. I then proceeded to approach all manner of people and would walk right up to them before suddenly stopping in front of them and whipping the sandal out of my pocket and demanded;

"I found this, does it belong to you?...I'm looking for it's rightful owner"

Most people would crack up laughing and just to be sure it wasn't there's I'd measure it against there feet and invite them to try it on. I'd tell the particularly hot one's that it was like Cinderellas glass slipper and one girl decided to tag along and help explain to people in Thai what my mission was. One toursit got all freaked out though and ran away so I chased him for a bit waving the sandal and shouting "it needs a homeeeeee". Not long after I came upon a ladyboy who refused to try on the sandal because;

"That's a man's shoe"

"heh aren't you a man?"

He got a bit upset about this and muttered plenty of things in thai which I'm sure weren't very nice so I decided to leave "it" alone and walked off. I'd walked a couple of metres when I felt my pocket and realised my precious sandal was no longer there, I spun around and saw it lying in the middle of the footpath where I'd spoken to the ladyboy. The ladyboy had wandered slightly away but had now turned around and spotted the sandal and we both looked from the sandal to one another. At the very same time we both ran for the sandal and being a rogue I hit sprint and got to the sandal first but as I picked it up the ladyboy arrived on the scene and grabbed the other half. We wrestled with the sandal for a good 30 seconds before my mighty biceps won over and I ripped it from the ladydudes grasp and ran. The ladyboy gave chase and was shockingly fast for a guy in high heels and we were both laughing but I wasn't parting with my sandal and escaped.

I fucking swear that is true and here is a picture of said sandal (taken in the toilets of a Maccas store, where I bumped into an Indian dude who wanted to talk about Adam Gilcrist rather than my Sandal..fucking cricket again!)

I have at last escaped the deadly alcoholic embrace of Pattaya but my escape plans have not exactly gone to plan. Anxious to get away from my barhopping antics I pulled out a map and decided that I'd visit Ko Chang Island and would move on from there. After pigging down yet another artery-throttling english breakfast I took a scooter down to the bus terminal. To reach the island of Ko Chang I knew I had to get to Trat and then catch a ferry across but the fella at the terminal informed me that I'd have to take a bus to Rayong and then another to Chantuburri before the final bus to Trat. For someone as disorganised as me this was bad news as I'm prone to getting lost but my liver needed a rest so I jumped on the bus and I was away!

The trip to Rayong took about an hour and was pleasent but boring and I was able to jump straight onto a waiting bus for Chantuburri which took another hour. Arriving at Chantuburri I was told the next bus to Trat wasn't for an hour and the whole setup was pretty crappy as there were very few signs and the information staff didn't seem to keen on actually givin' out any info. I waited it out and jumped on the final bus, a tall english guy jumped on and asked me if it was headin' for Trat which I told him it was. He explained that he badly needed to piss but was worried the bus would leave without him so I promised to full-nelson the driver if he attempted to leave without him. He made it back in time and he sat next to me, his name was Tony and he was a plumber from Liverpool who was also fleeing the Pattaya scene and planned on spending 10 days in Ko Chang. Having someone to talk to helped kill yet another long bus ride and we finally arrived at the pier after securing a taxi. The taxi driver had told us that the last ferry was 7pm but the sly bastard took us to the pier where the last ferry is 6pm so we had to go via speedboat which was double the price but we had little option. I chatted to a couple of Thai girls while waiting who were also going to the island for a holiday and they offered us a lift on the other side which we accepted.

The speed boat turned up and I reached into my pocket for the tickets and they were gone, after empptying all pockets & orifices I decided they were gone. Dammit so far on the holiday I had lost nothing which is unbelievable considering how often I lose items on holidays. I told Tony and he didn't seem phased and we told the speedboat driver to call the office and confirm that we had paid which luckily they did. Tony can be pretty frustrating at times as he LOVES to ask questions and he pretty much interogates people they often snap. This helped us for once as the ticket girl remembered Tony as he'd asked so many questions that it turned into this;

Tony: So we have to pay double for the speedboat because the taxi driver lied to us?

Ticket-Girl: Yes

Tony: What a joke

Ticket-Girl: Then take money back and not goto Ko Chang!

Tony: Ok Chill Out

Ticket-Girl: No

Tony: Chill out

Ticket-Girl: No

Tony: CHILL OUT

Ticket-Girl: NO NO NO

Darren: Tony, I Don't think she's going to chill out!

It was dark when we hit the island and our plans of scamming a free ride with the Thai girls was foiled when there friend said he couldn't as the local taxi drivers would get angry at him. So we piled into a baht bus and took a ride to Whitesand beach and set out looking for some accomodation. The joints on the beach were all asking ridicukous prices so we stumbled down a dirt trail off the road and found some dodgy looking Bungalows. The place was managed by a fat ladyboy which I found very funny and she told us they had some dirt cheap 200B a night bungalows. We asked to look at them and when we arrived at the bungalows I expected sheep or pigs to run out as it was a matress on the floor of a squalid tiny box, heh we quickly said hell no. The fat ladyboy said she had one 800 baht a night bungalow but if we wanted to share it she could do it for 600 bhat which didn't make much sense but we asked to look at it anyway. The bungalow was quite nice but only had the one bed so the question that faced me was;

Was I willing to sleep in the same bed as a strange man and does this make me gay.

Tony was all for it as he's a royal tightass and 300baht a night on an island is not to shabby at all so I agreed and we went to check out the nightlife. It's safe to say the nightlife was pretty non existant which I expected as it's more a honey-moon/couples destination but Tony was annoyed as I think he expected a mini Pattaya. Knocked back few beers at one of the local bars and I chatted up some small chick (she wasn't a dwarf but she was pretty damn small!) and convinced her that giving me her mobile number was a good idea. We then crashed out at about 1am and I'd just like to point out that no homo-erotic activities took place so I'm sorry to dissapoint. The next morning I got up at the earliest time so far on the trip (6:30am!) and checked out the beaches that everybody recommended. I'm not sure if it's because I'm from Australia and we have some pretty pimp beaches but I didn't think to much of the beach with it's brown sand and abundance of rubbish but it was definetly a step up from Pattaya's beaches. Having seen the beaches and chatting with Tony we decided that he'd head back to Pattaya and I would jump on a bus to Cambodia.

I was told the bus ride would take 12 hours (oh god no!) and I had to catch it from the Trat pier at 10:30am but it actually left at 11am and being only nine I figured I had plenty of time. Having paid for the trip I went down and got some passport photo's for the Cambodian border as the guards are notorious for ripping off tourists for even small items like photo's. Grabbed my bags and sat outside and waited for a taxi...and waited...and waited. A scooter pulled up behind me and it was the smiling dwarf girl from the night before and she told me that taxi's don't start running on the island until 10. This posed a problem as the trip was about 10-15 minutes but I wasn't willing to pay someone to drive me down solo as it'd cost me an arm & a testicle. I thanked her for the info and said I'd call her in Bangkok as she also didn't think to much of the island and was bailing.

The first few taxi's were full so I scammed one at 10:15 and reached the pier at 10:40 where a smiling boat operator told me that the next speedboat was at 11:30. I attempted to smile back and reminded him that I had to catch a bus and after a phonecall the operator said the bus would wait and he had confirmed this twice which was a relief. At 11:30 the speedboat rocked up and I caught it across and ran to the tourist office and said to the girl;

I'm here for the Siam Reap trip, I'm running late but I believe the bus is waiting for me.

No sir that bus left an hour ago.

Ummm I was told twice it was waiting for me?

Sir do you expect 11 people to wait for you?

No I don't, but when I'm told they are waiting for me then yes I do expect them to be waiting.

Sorry sir you can leave tomorrow.

haha no use getting upset about it as only the one bus leaves each day so I'm currently stuck in Trat where the highlight seems to be a naval show. One funny incident did happen, on the way back to Trat our taxi driver was addicted to honking the horn and would do it at every opportunity. He would smile at me and hold it down for a good 5 seconds, the only actibity her seemed to enjoy more was flashing his lights at motorists warning them of police up ahead. The activity he didn't enjoy was the taxi breaking down, I knew something was wrong as at the lights some young thai guys were looking at the taxi and making blowing up gestures to me heh.

Well I'll fill you in on what happens after Trat but I'm hoping to be in Cambodia.

Also I've let it slide to this point but some of the retarded comments left at the end of my posts aren't even amusing so let's drop it and keep it above the IQ-10 level (which I prolly won't understand!)

YES I'm still in Thailand and am doing my utmost to convince myself that it's time to move on, I plan on grabbing a bus to Ko Chang tomorrow but I've made many such plans and they all seem to lead back to bars. The last few days have been a cocktail of laziness with my daily itinerary consiting of waking up well after lunch, eating a massive english breakfast and then stumbling down to the beach. I had to move hotels as the one I was staying in was all booked out so I left my bag behind the counter (god damn that bag weighs alot) and set out to find a new pad. Scored a room above an English pub which isn't the best situation as beer is my kryptonite and every drop weakens my resolve to ship out of Thailand. Thankfully the pub has that close-knit no outsider sort of feel to it which many small pubs have so I haven't even drank there as the regulars don't exactly seem very friendly. The room is kickass though and I'm annoyed I wasted a week at the old place as it's the same price but is much more pimped out. One downside to the place is the pub shuts up at midnight and the front door gets locked up so if I wanna get in after midnight (which is every night) then I have to climb the dire-escape which is great fun when you're on the top story and drunk. I haven't managed to tumble down and break any limbs yet but I'm happy to sport btess on how soon it will be and what bones I'll snap.

I'm right down the street from the beach so I head there at about 2pm most days, pull up a deck-chair and spend the afternoon reading and eating club sandwiches...heh not a bad life really. The water is clear most days but has plenty of rubbish in it and I don't really swim there. I'm glad I didn't do any swimming as yesterday I saw an old white dude limp up to the water, drop his pants and urinate in the ocean in broad daylight...fuck that!. The beach strip is plain scary at night as it's populated by lady-boys and other women/beats of the night that try to accompany you home. Many of the ladyboys are mentally fucked up which is probably due to a mixture of hormones and not knowing whether to sit or stand when pissing. They're often quite aggressive but you gotta just let it slide as they're probably muai thai trained and there'd be nothing worse then getting your ass kicked by a ladyboy.

Before I forget I'd like to thank my colon of steel which despite ingesting some poor excuses for food has held up remarkable well and my stool samples are as solid as Portugals defence. Due to hanging out with Thai's most of the time I've been eating some pretty odd food and the majority of it is pretty fuckin' spicy. Last night at about 3am we headed to a Thai joint where your table has a hot plate and you cook up vegetables and all kinds of meat and it was really good. One of the girls with us had tried to go drink for drink with me and we'd gone through about 3-4 jugs and I "thought" she had done pretty well. That was until the uncooked meat arrived and her face went this horrible colour and she raced for the toilet and worshipped the porcellin god. Also been eating plenty of Tom Yum but they like it really spicy here but I'm actually pretty good with the hot stuff so I've been enjoying it. My fave place to eat is a joint called Greg's Diner and they do this all day breakfast that is perfect for a hangover. It consists of 2 eggs, bacon, sausages,roast potatoes, tomatoes, baked beans, toast, coffee and a glass of orange juice and is $5 aussie dollars...hell yeah!

The last few days I've been hangin' with a dude called Peter that I mentioned in my last update, he's been to Pattaya a number of times and showed me a few clubs that were pretty eye opening and proabably not blog safe to talk about heh. It's so easy to strike up conversation with girls over here and after chatting to a few at a cafe I was told that they lived at there bar. The bar closed at 1am and they had missed the curfew so could now not get back into the club until the morning. This meant they had no place to stay so being the kind hearted gentleman I am I offered to let all 3 ladies crash in my room which they accepted. The security guard at the fire escape stopped us and checked all the girls ID's then gave me a look that was either "you bloody pervert" or "you lucky bastard".

I actually said to my friends prior to leaving that my biggest fear was landing in thailand, finding some nice bars and then wasting the entire month drunk somewhere. Well so far my fears have been confirmed and I'm determined to leave over the weekend and explore the coast a bit before crossing into Cambodia so the next update "should" be free of bar hopping stories and devoid of beer and lesbanism. I'm pretty badly sunburnt at the moment and am pissed off that my Ipod so far has been useless, it holds a charge for less then 30 minutes and often takes a few minutes for a song to play so the 4 hour bus ride to Ko Chang should be fun. Tomorrow I'm going to a fund raiser for orphans organised by a bar I goto which is a day out at the beach for kids who have lost both parents so should be good fun and I can dazzle them with my old school frisbee skills!

Just on the subject of me looking different, a guy at the bar took me aside and told me that he wasn't sure to say anything or not but that he'd seen the girl I hang with (Kwan) out with another guy last week. I asked him what the guy looked like and he said he had glasses like me but had long hair and a goatee hahah.

Hope everyone is doing well back home, I got a call from ol' Jackal posing as Carl from Ctech asking me if I wanted a cup of tea which made me laugh. Have you boys booked your flights yet for Bali?

Photo's still to come, I lent my camera to Kwan as she was going to the pools with her mum so I just hope she doesn't take it down the aqua tubes etc!

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.