Day 10 through 15 of Thailand Road Trip

05-08-09 Day 15 Thailand Road Trip - Pattaya

Today is a rest day. We are just hanging out and enjoying this crazy fun town. There is everything from Thai Boxing to a dunk tank in the fun city of Pattaya.

Today is also a big Buddhist Holiday.

To my understanding it is a full moon, marking Buddha's Birthday. This is called "Vesak". For more information just click on this link: VESAK

05-07-09 Day 14 Thailand Road Trip - Pattaya

It was a beautiful morning when we awoke. The sun was shining and the air was nice to breath. We dressed and had breakfast. We kidded about eating a lot so we would not have to eat again, today

After we ate we took a walk along the ocean. When I say Daeng was jumping for joy, you can take that literally. Yes, her feet are off the ground.

We packed and got on the boat about 11:30 AM. The boat was almost full with only places to sit on the deck.

We kidded about this being the "casino boat" as the crew was playing cards and so were some ladies at the front of the boat.

Boat trip was good and we had to only wait about 30 minutes for the mini-bus. It did start to rain on the way back to Pattaya so that cooled off the air. This is the hottest time of the year in Thailand. We are reaching over 100F even at the beach.

Although we had a lot of fun it is nice to get back to Pattaya.

05-06-09 Day 13 Thailand Road Trip - Koh Samet

We got up about 7:30 AM. The sun was already shinning. We put on some comfortable clothes and went for breakfast. It was a nice buffet breakfast.

We decided we would rent a motor bike and tour the island to see what was on it. We went back to room and put swim suites in a bag and went to the police office where the motor bikes are rented.

The police officer had on a New York City S.W.A.T. Police Uniform Shirt. After being nice and asking him if we could take his picture, he agreed.

I also asked if he needed a driver's licence. He said no, just 500 TB for an automatic motorbike for the day. Gas was free.

Well, we're off to see the island. Koh Samet is a beautiful island that is a national park. The park service has allowed resorts to build on the shores in many of the areas so that just about every alcove and bay area has at least one resort.

The resorts range from the no frills resorts to the super expensive resorts that we were not allowed to enter because we were not registered guests.

The road is a dirt road from the southern tip to the northern tip on the east side of the island. Then there are little dirt roads or driveways to each resort area. You get to all the resorts from the mainland by boat.

After spending most of the day driving around, eating and yes, we would swim and hop back on the motorbike and go to another spot. It was a fun day on this island.

There was one spot on the road that was so steep I had to get off so Daeng could make it up the road. Another spot was so steep that Daeng did not want to go down together so I rode down the hill alone.

She walked down and we went the rest of the way to a resort that no one was around.

Daeng swung on the swings and in the hammock.

It was at the southern tip of the island so we rested before making our way back to our resort.

When we got back we swam some more and then we went to our room it was getting dark.

Daeng said she did not want anything to eat so I went to the beach, had some bar-b-que and came back to a good night's sleep.

05-05-09 Day 12 Thailand Road Trip - Koh Samet

We had packed everything we didn't need for our three day road trip in the car. We locked the car and gave Sally our phone numbers just in case.

We were ready for mini-bus to pick us up at 11:30 AM but driver arrived at 11:55 AM. That is not bad considering this is Thailand. (TIT) The trip in the full mini-bus, us, driver and 8 folks from Russia, took about an hour and fifteen minutes,

When we arrived in Ban Phe we walked across the beach road and down the dock to our boat. It was easy to see and we had been shown a picture of it earlier.

The boat trip was calm and cool as we were traveling about 13 km an hour. We only had to go about 5 km to the island and then 4 km more around to the bay that Malibu Resort is on.

There was no pier so when we arrived we had to get off the big boat and onto a smaller flat boat to go the other 50 meters to shore.

I had to take off my shoes and socks and wade to the shore line in knee deep water.

Daeng is always ready so she doesn't have to worry about the shoe thing. She is also nice to travel with as she takes everything with a grain of salt. It's always: "Don't worry, be happy!"

We check into our room, changed clothes and went swimming in the crystal clear water on this pristine, white sandy beach. The water was warm, too. What a nice treat.

We had some bar-b-ques chicken and sea food fried rice. The chicken was bar-b-qued on this portable contraption that the gal just puts on her shoulder and caries it anyplace on the beach.

We stayed as long as we dared without getting sun burned and walked up the the fresh water pool. We showered, washed the sand off our bodies and swam for a few minutes in the fresh water pool. The best of both worlds.

We went to our room, actually our room was half of a little bungalow, and showered, again.

I walked down to the little mini-mart by the ocean and bought some snacks and we stayed in for the night.

05-04-09 Day 11 Thailand Road Trip - Pattaya

While we were having morning coffee, Daeng and I decided to take a little trip to Koh Samet (Samet Island) just off the coast of Thailand.

Sally from Samet-Malibu Travel Agency set us up with a mini-bus to the Ban Phe, then boat to the island and two nights with breakfast at the Malibu Resort, along with round trip boat and mini-bus back.

We are going to leave the car in Pattaya, parked in front of our guest house. Oh, total cost of trip 4,800 TB or about $137.00 for the two of us. We will have to buy lunch, dinner and any drinks or snacks that we want.

After we made those arrangements we hopped into the car and took a little trip down the coast to a little fishing village that we like to stop at when we are in this area.


We always stop to talk with a happy lady that lives there. They are making their place bigger and now have city water so they don't have to catch the rain and put it in big ceramic vats.

You can see the big vats in he background of the picture.

We talked and watched as the fishermen worked doing the nets. the tide was out so unless you were already in the ocean you were stuck here until the tide came in.

After we talked with her we drove back up the highway route. When we came to the village we came the beach road along the ocean.

We decided to stop at Tesco/Lotus Store. Well, this is the biggest store I have seen anyplace, even in America. It makes the Costco Store that we shop in look link a Mini-Mart. I think there were 50 check out lines.

We bought a few thinks like peanut butter, 6 slices of ham and six slices of cheese. The place was very busy, also. We had to wait about 45 minutes in the check out line as they only had about half of the 50 check out lines open.

The prices on some special things must be good as we saw a lot of people with a complete shopping cart full of palm cooking oil and bags of sugar. Another item we saw full carts of potato chips. One lady had three shopping carts full of bags of chips.

Daeng and I also agreed not to come there again to shop unless we wanted a lot or something special.

05-03-09 Day 10 Thailand Road Trip - Pattaya

We have just been hanging out, walking a lot to get some exercise and eating. This weekend is a three day holiday in Thailand so Pattaya is very busy.

Along the beach walk they have set up hundreds of booths selling everything you can think of from food, jewelry, painting, hotel rooms to just about everything you could think off.

Walking Street, here in Pattaya, is closed to vehicle traffic from the afternoon until the middle of the night to allow people to walk down the street to shop and visit the many bars, restaurants and dance halls.

Ask me how we took the picture of Daeng and the car.

The ice cream boy or girl liked me and wanted to hug and kiss me. It's hard to tell if it's a guy or a gal here in Thailand. I did check my pockets after we hugged and kissed.



Daeng and I walked, watched people and just had fun