November 28, 2006 Pattaya – Bangkok, Thailand

November 28, 2006
Pattaya – Bangkok, Thailand

We both woke up at about 8:30 this morning. After lounging around for a while we got up and packed our things. Spizz made a run to 7-11 for some breakfast items while I loaded some pictures.

We left our room just after 9:15 and made our way to the hotel lobby. Once we checked the internet and took care of some business we headed toward the bus station. Our map said that it was one street over so we decided to walk. After walking for almost 20 minutes (and sweating profusely) we stopped and asked for directions.

The lady we asked said she did not think that there was a bus station near by and pointed us to the Tourist Information Center at the beginning of the street. We backtracked and then asked them for directions. We were both quite surprised when they informed us that the bus station was all the way on the other side of town!

We jumped on the back of a truck and set out on the journey. We rode the cab all the way to the end of the drivers route (the dolphin statue). From there, we hopped on a different taxi that took us to the bus station.

We were relieved to find that a bus runs to Bangkok every 30-minutes. We quickly paid the fee (121 baht each), used the restroom, and jumped on the bus. After some confusion about what seats were ours (the numbers are on the back of the chairs) we settled in for the 2.5-hour journey.

Incredibly, the ride only took 1.5 hours! When we got off the bus we met by a throng of cab drivers wanting to take us to our destination. We ignored these drivers and made our way to the street. We walked about a block before talking to a driver. Eventually we found a taxi that would take us to our hotel for 100 baht each.

The ride took quite a while because of the bad traffic (which is all the time) and because our driver got lost. We had to ask numerous people for directions and wound up seeing more of the city than we were prepared too. To make matters worse, Spizz had to pee the entire time and was feeling quite uncomfortable. Still, it was a fun journey because our driver was hilarious. He kept trying to get us to go to a go-go bar. He also told us about the lady-boy’s in town (transvestites). It was weird but very funny.

Eventually we made it to our hostel. I took care of the check-in while Spizz relieved himself. It is a nice place off of the main street with lots of plants and geckos. Our rooms were also better than expected and seemed quite comfortable.

At about 2:30 we headed down to the attached restaurant for a late lunch. After eating we decided to explore part of the city. We headed for the SkyTrain. The walk to the public transportation service was longer than expected. Once there we purchased tickets to Victory Monument Station.

Victory Monument was a huge letdown. It is a medium sized obelisk surrounded by several statues. It is basically a large roundabout in a non-touristy part of town. We explored for a while but couldn’t find anything very fun to do. Instead, we got back on the sky train and headed for the hotel.

On the way we stopped and used the internet for a bit. We had to take care of some planning issues and ran into a few problems (not being able to book certain hostels online). Eventually, we worked it out and got home.

Once we were back at the hotel we used the phone to make some calls. Spizz phoned our bungalow in Ko Chang (they found his camera!) and worked out a way to get his camera back.

After taking care of so many things we were ready to chill out and relax. Luckily, our hotel has a common room with a DVD player! We plugged in Spizz’s pirated copy of BeerFest. Although they left out a few key scenes, the movie was hilarious. It was made even more so by the fact that a German watched part of the movie with us (while at Oktoberfest B and I were told that they had forbid the movie from being shown in Munich because it was offensive to Germans).

It is currently 21:00 and we are chilling out in Spizz’s room. We plan on getting dinner and the cleaning up.

At 22:00 I will head to the airport to try to pickup on some girls…Im hoping to find a 5’9’’ blond that will want to travel around Thailand with us for the next 3 weeks.