Pattaya

This morning I woke up before the crack of dawn (5 a.m. to be exact) and got all ready to go to the beach, while Cherry slept. I was all ready by 6. During this hour of getting ready, I incountered both a gecko in my bathroom (and just prayed to Buddha that the gecko wouldn't jump on my head while I was showering), and the biggest frog I have seen in my entire life on my way to get my laundry! Meanwhile, Cherry slept. At 6 I went downstairs, all ready to go, and Cherry was still sleeping. She finally decided to wake up at about 6:15 and rushed to get ready and then we left. Cherry, P'Kla, P'Beam, P'Keng, P'Kai (P'Keng's girlfriend (the pregnant one)), and I went, all in one car, but luckily I got the passenger seat so I wasn't squished in the back.

We drove to Pattaya, the most popular tourist destination in Thailand, apparently. It honestly wasn't a very nice day out today. It was rainy, and the water was kind of mucky looking. We spent quite a bit of time driving around the city of Pattaya, trying to find a nice beach to go swimming at, and I had fun looking at all the different a-go-go clubs that were EVERYWHERE! Well not really fun, I just found it amusing that the signs ouside of the clubs were all in English, so nobody else really realized what they said or what they were advertising. And then I saw a few white men walking to and from these clubs, looking all suspicious. It was actually quite disturbingly amusing.

When we finally found a nice beach, we sat down under some umbrellas (which covered nearly the whole beach, of course, as Thais like to stay out of the sun), and ordered some lunch, which really isn't hard to do in Thailand, since food just seems to come to you. There were so many different people walking around selling all kinds of food which we bought, including someone selling some random kind of bird egg (hard boiled). I ate it, and it tasted just like a chicken egg, but I'm really not sure what kind of egg it was, and nobody knew the name of it in English. After we ate, everyone else went and got changed into their swimming attire (shorts and t-shirts), except me, since I was already wearing the ones I planned on swimming in. Beam, Kai, Cherry and I rented an inner tube and went out into the water floating on it. Everytime we tried to fit everyone onto the tube, we would end up flipping over and all falling off. At one point some random Thai men came over and apparently asked Beam for my phone number, she glared at them, and told them something in Thai, and then they left us alone. Later Beam, Cherry, Kla, Keng, and I went on a "banana boat" which was pulled behind a speed boat. It was kind of like tubing on the lake, only I didn't really like it as much because the salt water would spray into my eyes and sting, so I had to close my eyes really tight, but then I couldn't see anything, and it wasn't quite as much fun. We didn't really get to go for too long though, because I think we only payed to use it for about 15 minutes. The rest of the time at the beach we spent collecting shells, apparently to eat. At first I thought we were just collecting shells for the sake of finding pretty ones, until I realized everyone else was only collecting a certain kind. They kind of looked like oysters, but really small. We filled up about a whole water bottle full, and actually found a couple of crabs in our seach too, which we brought back with us as well.

When we were done swimming we went across the street to take a shower. We had to pay money to use the showers, which were only "bucket showers". Unfortunately my internet isn't letting me upload pictures now, so I can't show you what exactly a "bucket shower" is, but the general idea is that it's a big basin filled with water, which you use a bucket to throw over yourself.

We then drove to a nearby university to see the aquarium there. As I've mentioned before, my host brothers are obsessed with fish. My favorite thing to see there was the seahorses, I actually saw a couple of pregnant male ones. Other than that though, the aquarium wasn't too exciting. We made a quick stop at a market on the way home, and bought all kinds of weird snacks.

This morning when I was getting ready I put some sunscreen on my face, just to make sure I wouldn't get burned in case I forgot. The first thing Cherry said when she saw me this morning was, "Why didn't you wash your face?" because the sunscreen made my face look all greasy. I told her it was sunscreen, and then everyone was kind of laughing at the fact I put sunscreen on on a cloudy/rainy day. Needless to say, I didn't put anymore on when we got to the beach. However, just because my skin is difficult, I still somehow managed to get quite a bad sunburn on my arms. I deffinately proved them wrong, and now all I'm hearing is people asking me if my skin is okay. I'm like, "yes it's fine, I just have very sensitive skin which still burns even when its rainy and overcast." But I don't think any of them have had a sunburn before, so it's all new to them...

It was kind of funny when we were swimming though, because every once in a while a white tourist would come along in a bathing suit (a couple of guys were in speedos :S), and all the Thais would kind of look at them and laugh. Even though I was wearing my bikini under my clothes, it still felt kind of nice being a foreigner, yet kind of fitting in with the Thais better than most foreigners. I have a feeling I will grow to hate tourists, esepcially because of the fact that everyone who sees me will assume that I'm a tourist, even though I wont necessarily feel like one. Although, I do really think I throw people off when they see me wearing a Thai school uniform..