Our Hotel

We are so lucky to be staying at the Marriott here in Pattaya. It's definitely one of the nicest hotels in the city, and it is truly gorgeous. I know we wrote a bit about the hotel, but we never posted any pictures, so here you go!

This is the hotel entrance from Beach Road.

Here are two pictures of our room taken on one of our poker/Wii nights.

This is the pool (where I try to spend as much time as possible) and the pool bar. That's Angela (another road wife) and I enjoying the daily happy hour.

There are two different parrots that hang out by the pool. The white one was here the first month and a half we were here, but he has mysteriously disappeared and been replaced by the blue parrot.

Here's the water slide on the side of the pool for the kiddies.

The pool area by day and by night from the balcony in our room.

The sunset over Pattaya Beach, taken from the balcony in our room.

Snapshot of Pattaya

Jeff had two days off recently, and we took some time to explore more of Pattaya. We thought we'd share some of our pictures so you can get a better feel for the city. First up, Pattaya Beach. We haven't spent much time here since our hotel has such a great pool and since the beach isn't too large, but we have taken a few pictures.

We hiked up to the Buddha Hill Lookout and got this great picture of the beach and the rest of the city.

At the far south end of the beach is the famous Hollywood style Pattaya City sign. It looks cool from far away, but even better up close.There is a sidewalk the entire length of the beach that separates the beach from Beach Road (its real name is Th Hat Pattaya, but everyone knows it as Beach). Scattered throughout the sidewalk are tons of small statues like this one. They are really cute and they distract attention from the prostitutes along the side of the road :) The light poles along the sidewalk also have cute statues on them. We love this one of a child riding a chicken.
Beach Road is full of shops and restaurants and is always crowded. There's always an interesting variety of vehicles on the road, but this one definitely sums up Pattaya.In addition to the shops and restaurants, there are tons of food stalls on Beach Road, and pretty much every other street in Pattaya. You can get just about anything at these stalls (noodles, fruit, seafood, etc.). Some (like this fruit stand) are more appealing than others (like this pork stand with a pig's head on it). Its hard to go down any street in the city without coming across a tailor shop. They can custom make just about anything for you. We haven't had time to get anything made quite yet, but other co-workers here have had suits and jeans made and they were awesome. We definitely are looking to get ourselves some custom goodies before we leave. We just have to find the right shop. Hmmmm, if only we could find a shop that copied Versace suits . . .

These are just a few of our pictures of the G-Rated side of town, but hopefully it gives you a better insight on Pattaya as a whole :)

Buddhist Lent

Last week marked the beginning of Buddhist Lent, also known as Vassa or Phansa in Thailand. 95% of Thais are Buddhist, so it was basically a national, not a religious, holiday. In case you haven't noticed, Jeff and I are not Buddhist, so we didn't have a clue what Phansa was all about. We read a few articles, and learned a little bit more about it. We don't pretend to be experts, but the following is our best understanding :)

Phansa lasts the throughout the rainy season (usually about three months). On the first day of Phansa, also called Khao Pansa, Bhikkhu (Buddhist monks) move inside their temple, where they will pray and meditate until the end of Phansa. Traditionally holy men did not travel during the rainy season for fear of damaging the crops. Gautama Buddha (Buddha himself) continued this tradition and it was incorporated into the practice of Buddhism.

Monks are not the only ones to observe Phansa. On Asalha Puja, the day before the monks retreat to the temple for prayer and reflection, lay Buddhists give candles and offerings to the temples. During Phansa most lay Buddhists abstain from drinking leading an "inappropriate" lifestyle in order to intensify their spiritual connections. In Thailand it is common for the laity (usually young males) to take monastic vows at the beginning of Phansa and remain in a temple until Ork Pansa (the end of Phansa).

Before we learned a little more about Phansa, we just knew there was some big holiday coming up, but we weren't sure how it was celebrated and what effect it would have on us (i.e. stores closing, big parades, etc.). Since our hotel is not near any major temples, we didn't notice much in terms of celebration or effects, with two exception. On Wednesday Jeff and I were returning from a mini-vacation to Phuket. We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel (about 18 miles). Things were moving along until we hit town and ended up in a dead stop. We were on a main road with no shortcuts, so we were stuck in traffic like this for about an hour. It turns out there was a procession of school children on the road making offerings to a temple. Normally every Friday night Shenanigans, a local Irish restaurant, serves all you can eat ribs for about $10. A group of us were very excited for the ribs last week so we headed over to the mall where Shenanigans is located. As we approached the restaurant we noticed that the specials board on the first floor hadn't been changed since Wednesday. That should have been our first clue, but we still went upstairs only to notice there was no one sitting outside and the lights were off. The sign on the door confirmed our suspicions and informed us that the restaurant was closed on Thursday and Friday because of the holiday. While we were very disappointed (we REALLY wanted ribs) someone remembered that a British pub which had been closed for renovations just reopened. We headed over there and happily found ribs on the menu, thus saving us from a rib-free night :)

Ko Samet

A few weeks ago a me, Jeff, and several other employees from his company all headed to Ko Samet, a small island not too far from Rayong. The island is technically a national park, but they have allowed some hotels and restaurants to develop along the coast, while still preserving the trees and wildlife inland. We met up at the pier and caught a boat to Ao Prao Resort on the island's remote west side.

The island is known for its beautiful beaches, so we were definitely excited to spend some time swimming and playing frisbee.

Well, some time turned into 4 hours or so, and we ended up with some pretty rocking sunburn by the end of the day. But we had fun, so that's all that counts, right :) After showering and cleaning ourselves up we took some great pictures of the sunset.

After a relaxing dinner we all headed to the other side of the island to the Silver Sands bar. We had a feeling it was going to be a great night as soon as one of Jeff's co-workers informed us that drinks were served by the bucket! We sat on pillows and rugs on the floor and were treated to a great fire show.

Later the early 90's music started and we all showed off our skills on the dance floor.

This area of Thailand has many "ladyboys" and we had fun dancing with this particular one.

At the end of the night Jeff, Zudtky and I decided to walk back to the hotel on the other side of the island, which probably wasn't the greatest idea since we didn't really know the way and since it was PITCH black outside (remember, we were walking through the national park, so there were no lights). We thought there was just one road across the island, but when that road took us to a youth camp we knew we were in trouble. We resorted to taking pictures of the signs (like I said, PITCH black) to try and figure out where to go.

Luckily we were saved when a taxi came by and took us home. It turns out there was a slight turn to the left we missed that would have taken us straight to our hotel. Lesson learned!

The next day all of Jeff's co-workers were heading back to Rayong, but we stayed an extra night on the island. We decided to stay on the east (and more popular) side of the island for the second night, so everyone came over with us to spend they day at the beach before heading back to the mainland. Unfortunately because we got so sunburned the day before we spent the majority of the day in the shade. However we did have fun walking on the rocks from our hotel to the beach.

After everyone departed Jeff and I spent the evening relaxing at our hotel and the night strolling the many kilometers of beaches. The next morning we packed up and headed back to land. It was a short trip, but we had lots of fun and even found some time to relax!

Fourth of July . . . Thai Style

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Even though we're 10,000 miles away in a foreign country that could care less about the 4th, we weren't about to miss out on a chance to celebrate. Almost everyone had to work on Friday, so we moved the celebration to Saturday the 5th. About 30 people from Jeff's company are in the area, so we all met up at the beach in Rayong for a good old American barbecue. There were Frisbees, volleyballs, and badminton sets, though the crazy wind made it hard to get a good game going.

We set up camp on the beach between two bays, so there was ample swimming and water sports to keep us happy! Of course no barbecue would be complete without brats and burgers on the grill. Chad was our grill master and did a phenomenal job!
And what Fourth of July would be complete without an elephant on the beach!

As the sun set we lit a bonfire and roasted marshmallows for S'mores. And of course there were fireworks (which were not easy to find out here . . . Thanks Mike).

While I had a great day, poor Jeff had to work both Saturday and Sunday from 8 am to 8 pm. He hightailed it out of there on Saturday and made it to the barbecue in time for fireworks and food. Sunday the 6th was Jeff's birthday, so I surprised him with a cake at the barbecue so he could have some semblance of a celebration.

Afterwards we went out dancing for a bit with those who were spending the night in Rayong. Jeff had a great time celebrating the big 2-6.

I don't think we could have asked for more, even in we were in the US (okay, well maybe Jeff not working would have helped, but life goes on :))!