On Tuesday we spent the day relaxing on the beaches of Koh Chang again. The whole place was gearing up for a full moon beach party that was taking place the next night so we were a little sad to be leaving the next day for Pattaya. We consoled ourselves with the knowledge that, whilst undeniably tacky, Pattaya is supposed to be THE place to party. In fact, we decided to stay two nights there - one to get very, very drunk and one to recover. That was the plan anyway. It was only as we were strolling down Walking Street on our first night in Pattaya that we noticed that it seemed surprisingly quiet, and that most of the neon signs were turned off and the bars shut up. It turned out that our visit coincided with a Buddhist holiday called Makha Puja - one of the only days of the year in which it is impossible to buy alcohol in Pattaya. What are the chances?! We had a Macdonalds (our first one in weeks; it tasted of fat and salt, not at all how we remembered them when we were craving fast food in Macdonalds-free Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia) and went back to our guesthouse to watch crappy movies along the lines of the 'John Tucker must die' and other cinematic triumphs.

Yesterday we skipped down to Pattaya's beach, aka the 10 metre-wide strip of yellowish sand that snakes along the roadside for a few kilometres. We were rained off within the hour and found ourselves wandering through shopping malls that could have been anywhere, bemoaning the lack of soul in Pattaya. We did find it amusing for a while to spot the middle-aged sex tourists with young nubile Thai girls on their arms, but when we realised that, in fact, collectively they made up 80 percent of the people traffic, the game kind of lost its shine. Apparently Pattaya is where heavy-bellied and post-divorce Western men on the wrong sideof 50 like to come to relive their youth. For the princely sum of 20 pounds you can get a girl for the entire night. That's depressing. We were speaking to a Thai lady today who told us that most of the girls come from the poor rural areas in North Thailand, and that the rates of HIV are scarily high :-(

Anyway I'm going to climb down from my moral high-ground now. I really have no place there as, last night, after repeatedly being stopped by ticket touts on Walking Street, we caved in and went to a real live ping pong show. Thankfully, it wasn't sleazy at all; it was full of couples and tour groups, all looking slightly awkward but also very curious. A group of lads came in, stayed 5 minutes and left, so I think there are more hardcore places aimed at guys. I won't elaborate on the ins and outs of what went on in the show but I will say this: we saw things we didn't think were possible. I may need counselling for the razor blade act.

Today we are heading back to Bangkok where we will be spending our final few nights before flying back to sunny England. Our minibus was meant to be picking us up at 11.30 but it's almost 1pm and still no sign of it...