After a comfortable 2 hour journey on the bus from Bangkok, we arrived at Pattaya bus station where we were met by Iona, the daughter of Lucy's cousin John whose apartment we were going to be staying at for a few days.

Iona drove us from the bus station to the condominium on the beachfront where the apartment was and after showing us to the apartment and telling us a bit about the town, left us to relax with a plan to meet up for lunch the following day. John was away at work but had left us a fridge full of beer and a Thai mobile phone as well as the use of his apartment. The apartment was on the 16th floor of the building with a great view over the town of Pattaya and its tourist-filled beach, surrounding a jet-ski and motorboat-filled bay.

We were happy to dump our bags and sit watching movies on the TV and getting our blog and photos up to date, which is what we spent most of the next few days doing. In the late afternoon the first day, we took a walk down the main beachfront road past endless touts trying to sell me suits, and bars full of Thai girls and European men as well as a few families on holiday. We eventually found ourselves at a large shopping mall set back from the beach, which we had a look around before buying some food for breakfast, then, in the mood for some 'western' food, had a McDonalds for dinner. We walked back along the beachfront road, past the now busy bars and spent the rest of the evening in the apartment watching movies and relaxing.

The next day we had a long lie then met Iona downstairs to go for lunch. She picked us up with her younger brother James and we headed down the coast from Pattaya to a small village with a few seafood restaurants along the waterfront. We had a really delicious lunch at one of these restaurants, with a view back to Pattaya and out over the sea.

Thoroughly stuffed, we were driven back to the apartment where we had a quiet afternoon, then a quick swim in the building's outdoor swimming pool just before it got dark. The evening was once again spent watching movies on cable TV and browsing the internet. It was nice to have some home comforts and to slow down after so long on the go, so we took full advantage of the facilities, not to mention the beer left in the fridge for us!

The next day we spent mostly in the apartment watching movies and uploading photos, though we ventured out to another shopping mall to get a tasty and cheap lunch. That evening we met Iona again to have dinner at a bar near the condominium before she had to go and pick up James.

The following day was a repeat of the day before, but in the evening Iona took us to another nice restaurant on the opposite side of Pattaya where we had some more fantastic seafood. On the way back into town, Iona drove us around some of the streets of town which were filled with merry-makers, before dropping us at the big mall by the beach again. We picked up a few bits and pieces here including some Japanese mochi ice cream for dessert, before walking back to John's apartment, trying to avoid being groped by ladyboys leaning out from bars along the streets.

Our last evening in Pattaya was a repeat of the last few with more movies on cable before another comfortable sleep ahead of travelling again the next day. In the morning Iona picked us up and drove us to the bus station where, after thanking her for her help and looking after us over the last few days, we caught the bus back to Bangkok.

After arriving in Bangkok, we caught the skytrain then metro line to the main train station where we dumped our bags at a storage place, having booked a sleeper train for that evening to Chiang Mai. Our next task was to try and get back to the Vietnam embassy where we were going to pick up our passports, having left them 5 days earlier. Avoiding the taxis parked outside the train station as none of them wanted to use their meters, and the incredibly irritating calls of 'Tuk tuk!', we tried to flag a taxi down on the main road near the station, heading in our direction. After stopping 4 taxis whose drivers refused point blank to use their meters, looking at us like we were crazy when we asked them to, we were getting pretty frustrated but eventually got a taxi with a decent driver who got us to the embassy, using his meter, for far less than the other drivers wanted to charge us.

Our plan was to pick up the passports then head to the old side of the city again to see some of the sights we hadn't had a chance to see on our last visit. However, this plan was soon utterly destroyed when we got into the embassy, and after waiting for the staff to set up after their lunch break,eventually got our passports to find we had been given a 1 month visa instead of the 3 months we had requested. The visa we had been granted started in a few days which was useless to us as we had planned to go to the north of Thailand, then into Laos before going to Vietnam.

After trying for ages to point out to the staff that they had given us the wrong visa, getting them to retrieve our original forms so we could show them the dates we had written, they told us we had only paid for a 1 month visa. Our question as to why they had gotten us to write down our dates for entering and leaving the country if they were just going to give us a 1 month visa without explaining that's what we were paying for, were met with complete indifference. We were informed we could either pay the equivalent of another £40 each (on top of what we already thought was an expensive fee) to get the visa changed to a 3 month one or pay another £8 each to get them to change the dates of the 1 month visa.

Furious that they had completely ignored the dates we had written and hadn't explained anything about the prices or what we were buying when we originally paid for the visa, we sat for a while going through our options before deciding to change the dates of our 1 month visa to give us another week in Thailand and 2 weeks in Laos, though we didn't know how long we would want or need in either place. With our further financial sacrifice made to appease the gods of bureaucracy, we handed over our passports to the self important little twerp behind the desk and finally got our passports back with the dates scored out and changed (Obviously £16 worth of work).

With most of the afternoon now wasted in the sweaty box of the embassy, we didn't have enough time to go and see the sights we wanted to before our train, so we got back on the skytrain and went to the Siam Centre (again) and wandered through the shops. We found a coffee shop and sat enjoying an ice coffee and the air conditioning to kill some time, before catching the skytrain then metro again back to Bangkok train station.

We picked up our bags and sat with the throngs of other people on the floor of the train station until our train was called for boarding, then made our way to the train to leave Bangkok again.