24-28/10/08 These days were taken up with wandering around, shopping for presents and posting them, working out where we were going to next, and once we had chosen Koh Tao (to meet up with Dave's friend Mark, who was on holiday there), buying our bus/ferry tickets to there. We did go out to the area of Patpong on the evening of the 27th - quite an 'interesting' experience! We had a look round the Night Market, which was similar to the one on Khaosan Road but with more persistant traders, but didn't buy anything. The market was lined with bars and clubs on both sides - Patpong is the red light district, so the bars were ones with topless pole dancers etc. in. When you walk down the sides of the market, you get bombarded with guys offering you pingpong shows. Some Thai girls in bikinis called out to Dave as well. We fancied a drink, so we went into a bar which didn't have doors open showing poledancers inside; but when we went inside it was obvious we had been fooled, because there were topless pole dancers there, and judging from the amount of old Western men with Thai dancing/bar girls surrounding them, and the doors on either side of the stage leading to rooms round the back, it was obvious that the bar was a very thin cover for a brothel. Unsurprisingly, we felt rather out of place! We stayed to finish our drinks, and moved swiftly on to a non-dodgy bar across the road from the market. A drink there, and then we just wandered around the area. Some of the bars we passed by had lines of prostitutes outside, and the entrance to one street we didn't go down was filled with signs advertising gay massage, bars etc. We didn't get any more drinks, apart from tea and a chocolate shake at a cafe.