So, it's time for us to share another instalment of our travel blog, which is now becoming really problematic as the laptop keeps going wrong. I am surprised that Mark hasn't thrown the computer out of the window yet as he gets more and more frustrated with the laptop each day!!

So moving on to the more interesting part of this write-up.......

After five different modes of transport and 12 hours of travelling, we finally reached Pattaya Beach, Thailand at 7:15pm to be greeted by rain, rain and more rain. Not what you need after a long journey. The frustrating thing is that we would have arrived in daylight but for the 2 hours wasted after we did the road border crossing between Cambodia (near Koh Khong) and Thailand. We crossed the border in about 1 hour only to get in and out of the minivan a handful of times as we had a number of false hopes of departing. It turned out that our delay was due to the driver of the minivan wanting to fill all the seats.......it's just a shame that we were one of the first to arrive as a French couple that were the last to jump onboard only had to wait 20 seconds before we were off.....we however had the joys of an hour's wait in the hot/ humid conditions. Aside from the usual bureaucracy, the crossing was pretty painless although as slow as we have come to expect. The good thing was that the US$25 exit payment (each) from Cambodia only seemed to be applicable if you fly out of the country. Cool.....more money in our pockets J. Anyway, enough of that.

After arriving at the Pattaya bus station, we soon found the tourist information that was just around the corner. We grabbed a map, asked a couple of questions and then headed back to the bus station to get a tuk-tuk come taxi contraption into town. Any thoughts of walking had soon been extinguished when we found out that the beach, where all the guest houses and hotels are located, was 3km away!!! As Mark was talking to the taxi coordinator, Lisa boarded the vehicle and unfortunately misjudged the size of her backpack, banged it against the roof, tripped up and then fell on the floor. As she was laden down like a pack-horse she couldn't get up. It was all a little embarrassing as there was already another couple on the back of the vehicle who seemed to be having a break-up conversation which had left the girl in tears. All this was unbeknown to Mark who, despite being 3 feet away, was deep in discussion with the taxi coordinator about the taxi route!!! It was therefore left to the guy (having the heart to heart discussion) to get Lisa off the floor a little bruised and battered or was that just her pride damaged?.

The journey into town was an uncomfortable affair not because of the roads, which were fine, but because of the heart-to-heart discussion next to us. To summarise, it sounded like the guy had spent the prior night with the Thai girl and was dumping her. She in turn wanted to know why he didn't tell her the night before.....all exciting stuff!!! At times, we did find ourselves leaning a little too far to hear all the juicy gossip although they were too engrossed to notice.

So, after handing over THB20 each (about 45p) for the journey we arrived at the start of the beach, where the hotel strip commences. We walked for a bit and decided to stay at the Baboona Hotel. It turned out to be a good choice as the location was excellent however the woman at reception was so unhelpful and rude that we almost went elsewhere. That evening, we went for an Italian meal and grabbed a couple of drinks. It soon became clear that it was low season, as the "pros" in the bars were outnumbering the tourists!!! We don't think they were that interested in us as they were more intent in grabbing hold of greying pensioners with large bellies and bulging wallets (amongst other things !!)

The following morning, the sun was out so we walked the full length of Pattaya beach, stopping a couple of times for some refreshments. There were plenty of boats and jet skis although the beaches were not that busy. We almost went hoarse declining the plethora of offers for fake sunglasses (even though it did not seem to occur to the vendors that the fact that we were both wearing sunglasses already probably meant that we were not looking for sunglasses), bangles, food, massages, island trips and jet-ski rentals.

We grabbed lunch by a lighthouse between Pattaya beach and Dong Tarn beach. It was nothing to write home about except for the explosive Papaya salad, that seemed to have more chillies than Papaya, and Mark getting bitten by insects (this has become a common theme on the travels). During the day, we ventured through "Walking Street", which seemed to be the Pattaya equivalent of Soho, went to a good shopping centre called Central Festival near street 9 where we had chocolate cake and hot chocolate from "Chocolate 100%" (rather calorific) and trotted through a local market. To be honest, we were pretty knackered with all of the walking especially as we got lost at one point. Somehow we ended up going through a park arriving at the top of a hill at a dead end with a helicopter landing pad (!!). Someone appeared to have left the security gates open. I don't think we should have been there.

We headed back looking forward to an annual festival in Pattaya that was starting today (5th August), with loads of events and a stage set up almost smack bang outside our hotel. Before getting ready to go out, we went for a foot/ leg massage which was divine. The timing turned out to be perfect as the heaven's opened and everyone outside got soaked. Our massage also included a cucumber and herb face pack that was lovely and refreshing as we were a little hot. When the face mask came off about an hour later, the massage parlour had filled up with tourists covered in the same cucumber face mask.....too probably came it to escape the torrential rain too that seemed to have got worse. It was amusing to see a couple of huge black dudes with face packs.......we suspect that they won't be telling their mates back home!!! The festival turned out to be a disaster due to some of the stalls being blown over as a result of the strong winds and rain.

After getting showered and changed in the hotel, we went outside to see a band on the stage with two women in short dresses trying to whip the crowd up into a frenzy. Unfortunately, the crowd consisted of about 40 people wearing coats looking drenched and really fed up. We decided not to stop and went for a beer instead. The first bar did quite well out of our arrival as two beers, a Mai Tai (which was suppose to be a Mojito) and three Jagermeister bombs were sunk in close succession. Five of the drinks were had by Mark!!! The next bar was at the end of a small strip off the main road and was full of "hostesses" trying to snare any guy who walked by. We sat down for a quick beer and ended up staying all night. There was a band playing that was a little comical as the male singers clearly couldn't speak English but were trying to sing English songs....only the occasional English word was audible. Fortunately, two female singers joined them during the night and it turned out to be quite good. However, the surprise highlight of the night was when four young guys started break dancing behind the bar. They were quite simply sublime, doing one-handstand spins, back-flips, head-spins, spinning around the poles and body-popping. The photos we took do not do them justice but believe us they were really good. Hour and hour went by and at 3am we left realising that we had not had dinner. Fortunately, KFC is open 24 hours so we were sitting there munching on chicken burgers and chips.....classy!!!! We slept well that night.

The next morning, we left our room closer to lunchtime than breakfast time so grabbed some food at a bar called Gulliver's (it's a bit like a TGI Friday's; definitely worth a visit) having completely missed our inclusive breakfast. The weather was still suspect however we took a chance and walked about 4.5km to "The Sanctuary of Truth". This temple is still being built (29 years after being started) and was the brainchild of an Asian billionaire. He died a few years ago but provided funding for the project to be completed. It is a temple made from wood which has been painstakingly hand-carved by local craftsmen. It is a fantastic building. Had we known the walk would take 1 ½ hours, we would have opted for a taxi. Unfortunately for us, the map we were using was not to scale so the walk was >3x than we had expected!! We were shattered when we got there but were really lucky to miss the rain that started about 15 minutes after we arrived.

During the lengthy walk, we stopped for Lisa to buy a bikini. She finally found one that she liked but came out the changing room a little disappointed. As the bikini was made for the Thai ladies, Lisa was only able to get one cheek in the knickers!!! We continued on our travels to the temple where we paid the 720 bahts (about £16) entry fee each which included a horse drawn carriage trip, a Thai dancing and sword fighting show and a 30 minute foot massage. The horse trip would have been better if we could have sat on the same seat but alas it was too narrow (or Mark was too wide!!). We did feel sorry for the horse as it looked more like a Shetland pony than an animal capable of pulling a cart with three people onboard. Nevertheless, it was good fun; probably not for the horse though, which we suspect is still recovering.

While we were in the temple, it started to bucket down with rain but fortunately we were able to get a minivan the short distance to the dancing and sword fighting show. Afterwards, we had a foot massage in an open bamboo style structure. Sitting there would have been better had we not got wet from the rain and if it didn't feel like the building was going to blow away, at any moment, in the heavy winds that had started. The staff looked a little worried, which didn't help us feel that comfortable. With the massage finished, we were able to get a taxi back to our hotel. Well, we say taxi but there was no taxi signage and no meter on the car!! Actually, it soon became clear that it was the husband of one of the staff that was picking her up from work. We didn't mind paying the 150 baht as the temple is not exactly in the centre of town so getting a taxi would have been a bit of a 'mare.

We had a quiet evening as we needed to pack for our trip to Bangkok and then on to Kanchanaburi the same day. The latter is best known for being the location of the Bridge over the River Kwai. Not much more to report at this stage but we are sure there will be a few adventures on the next stage of the trip.