Pattaya

Oh crazy Pattaya. If you haven't heard of this infamous "sin city" or "vegas of Thailand", then I'll tell you how it began: it is the original tourist site of Thailand, and started off as a fishing village. US GIs in the 1950s went down there for some R&R, and so began the sex tourist capital city of the world. Allie and I went there for a night, and met up with Liza from South Africa who is in our MediaKids program (she had been in Pattaya for her holiday with her teaching mate Denise), to check out the craziness of Pattaya - which no doubt, would blow anyone's mind!! It is jaw-dropping, that is, all the prostitution and maffia-run sex bars, and hotels that are really brothels, the nakedness, the complete anything goes capitol. Yes, there are also beaches and water activities (diving, kayaking, snorkelling, etc.), but at around 11 PM, the city comes alive with in your face prostitution and sex. When Allie and I first got there, we could not stop staring at all the blatant white men with Thai girlfriends. Most of the men are English and Russian. It is as if every dirty old man from all corners of the world gathers here in Pattaya. It is so unreal. One can either go to Walking Street, which is famous for its go-go bars, or to "Boyztown" which is famous for the lady-boys - which is a pretty trendy thing in Thailand - that is, boys dressing up as ladies. As soon as the sun goes down, when you walk down any street in central Pattaya - you see hundreds upon hundreds of Thai girls lined up in front of bars, calling at you, dancing, putting on shows. When you enter a bar, there are signs that tell you what the "bar fine" is - which really means how much a girl is for the night/ 24 hours. Most men buy girls for a whole 24 hrs, in which they must pay for everything, like food and shopping, and some even buy for a week. The girls walk around with numbers attached to their hip, and that is how men buy the girl, by telling the barlady which number they prefer. And so it continues, but I'll stop here and save you the uncomfortableness - if you want to know more - e-mail me!

At a certain point in the night, we could no longer take it, and so Allie and I got an open trailer at 4:30 am back to my apt. in Sriracha... which is about 20 minutes from Pattaya. Liza and Denise left the next morning to their teaching location, which is in the middle of the jungle up north... hence why they spent a week in Pattaya.