Our Journey Around The World

Hillary's view of pattaya thailand....

Hello Everybody.. welcome to our journal of us traveling through the western pacific. We recently just got the opportunity to visit Thailand, a very poverty stricken country. it has the potential of being a very beautiful place because the beaches were very nice but not well maintained. there are palm trees and forest like greenery in most areas. Instead there is trash everywhere, children walking around with no shoes on.. everyone drives a moped which got very annoying.
When we first arrived we got ready and stepped outside into the very hot and humid weather, instantly we were covered in sweat. at this point we didn't have an opinion of Thailand until we hoped onto the navy sponsored busses and headed out into the city of pattaya. the streets were filled of mopeds in which little children were riding with out shoes on and all of the people had loose fitting shabby clothes hanging half way off of their bodies just like you see on TV. There were tons of little shacks with garbage everywhere and clothes hanging from the lines outside while the families were sitting on the dirt floors inside eating.
Once we got to our destination we went and ate at the hard rock cafe / hotel which was very crowded with navy personnel- of course. we had a couple of drinks and ate and then headed off to our hotel in which we thought was going to be in a secluded area of Thailand but come to find out it was gay central, with stray dogs wondering around and Thai people riding carts with who knows what kind of meat hanging from them.
We stayed in a nice hotel on the beach where we could relax, we went swimming walked on the beach and had dinner at the hotel which was very romantic- very relaxing with candle lit and music playing we sipped away on a banana mild shake that was GREAT!
The next day we stayed at the dusit, which was AWESOME! It was very luxurious and also right on the beach with WONDERFUL views and a couple pools, one of them- the lagoon.. had a swim up bar.
After a fine day of swimming we went and got ready to go ride elephants , we already had a scheduled driver to come pick us up at the hotel. 30 minutes after the estimated arrival time of the van that was going to pick us up hadn't showed I got pissed and ranted to the from desk while jack waited for the "van to show" they don't speak very good English but I showed them ELEPHANT. so next thing we know we are in a van going to "the elephant village" we ended up at some jewelry store and they were trying to make us get out of the van and jack was trying to explain to them that all we wanted to do was ride an elephant- anyway it got way out of hand because they don't speak English and we don't speak Thai so jack was about to crack some skulls and finally we got out of there and arrived at the village. we rode an ox to get to the next destination which we got on this wood platform that the Thai cranked across the swap and onto the forest where pineapple was growing and wild fruits grew. we trekked through the forest and came to the elephant ride!! it was so awesome!! the head of an elephant is so cute! Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves in thailand.

Jack's view of pattaya in a nut shell
Ok, let me just start off by saying that if I wouldn't have spent my time in "beautiful" Pattaya with Hillary, my experience would have been total garbage. We managed to stay out of the slum-ridden streets of the inner city by escaping to our hotel sanctuaries for the majority of our stay. If you read the story above, then you've heard a little bit about how I was getting ready to "crack some skulls". I feel as if i need to clarify. We were supposed to get picked up for the elephant tour at 3:30 outside of our hotel. After I waited outside of the hotel for almost 45 minutes, sweating my nether regions off (I say I because Hillary took a number of opportunities to venture back in to the hotel, and argue with the non-english speaking receptionist in the nice air conditioned hotel...how convenient...attempting to procure a ride to the elephant village), we finally managed to find what we thought would be trouble free transportation to our destination. Were we in for a surprise...after our vampire toothed minivan driver rattled off a sleu of thai at us for a number of minutes in hopes of eliciting an understandable answer, and us shouting the word "ELEPHANTS" at him the whole time, we somehow wound up at a jewlery store. How in the f...heck does "ELEPHANT" get interpreted as "giant jewlery store"? As if this wasnt enough, some other little thai gentleman came out, and said "uh...moment please" every time we spoke, and alluded to wanting out of the mini-van. Then, he informed us that we needed to go into the gem store...to register for the ELEPHANT TOUR!!! Please tell me that I am not insane for losing my cool at this point. Anyway, our driver shut the door on us, and before my head exploded all over the grey cloth of the mediocre toyota we sat in, i bursted out of the door, uttered some choice American phrases that have been found to accomplish things in the past......long story short, we wound up at the elephant village shortly after. Oh, and "Jomtien" apparantly translates to extremely gay beach with stray dogs running around, being chased by mopeds with attatched grills, looking for some fresh meat. The banana shakes rocked our world though. The shakes almost made up for the "HIV posityf pleas help" sign, and the woman "shopping" with her daughter in the garbage can for shoes. An interesting experience overall to say the least. How was the night in our hotel you might ask? Well, I wish that I had an answer, but a male and female cannot get a permission slip signed by the USS Abraham Lincoln to stay out past curfew. I was just informed that my composition hereto has had an exceedingly negative feeling. Please don't get the wrong impression. I just wanted to shed light on the experience, and illustrate how thankful we both are to live in the blessed USA. Our experience really was unforgettable, and phenomenal. The elephant ride (where our..uh...driver?...humped the elephant's neck and mumbled hmmmmmmmmderrrrr...click click click click the whole time), swimming in the lagoon pool at the Dusit with beautiful view of pattaya beach in the background, having a drink at the swim-up bar, sipping on our banana shakes as love music played softly in the background...ok, looks like I'm done for tonight. I just got cut off. Until next time everybody....