Pattaya and Ko Lan

This past weekend, Sarah, Beth, Alida, Calan and I visited Pattaya and a small island off the coast called Ko Lan. Since Pattaya is the sex tourism capital, I fully expected to not enjoy this trip but wanted to see it for myself. I am glad because we were pleasantly surprised! We stayed on the quieter beach, Hat Jomtien and it was actually quite nice. On Friday night we wanted to see a ladyboy show but arrived too late to catch it so we just ate a nice dinner of curries and Western pizza! We went to a bar near our hotel but quickly got depressed because of all the disgusting, old white men with young girls. The next morning, we took a ferry to Ko Lan and sat on this gorgeous beach all day. The beach was pretty windy but it was perfect weather - for once in Thailand, it was not too hot! We shopped a bit on the beach and treated ourselves to some smoothies and ice cream. We took the ferry back late in the afternoon, showered and took a taxi to the downtown area. It took us forever to find the ladyboy show (Tiffany's is the most famous) and in the process my flip flop broke. We were running all over town lost and finally decided to take some taxi motorbikes. My driver thought it was really safe to drive 180 km/ hour and weave in and out of the tiniest spots but eventually we arrived at Tiffany's safe and sound. Thankfully it's polite in Thailand to remove shoes when you enter places because in the states, a theatre would not let me in without a shoe! The theatre was absolutely gorgeous (reminiscent of the Fox) and was only about $15 for a show. The show was amazing! Ladyboys are men that have become women (apparently the term is polite in Thailand and preferred) and they were beautiful!!!! You would not even know they had been men at one point. The show was put together amazingly, the set and costumes were fantastic and there were some great Tina Turner, Marilyn and Arethra imitations. Afterwards, we found this great restaurant that was super fancy but affordable and had one of the best meals of our lives. We discovered some fudge cake at a cafe afterwards that just completed the night! We decided to walk down the main strip called Walking Street for a bit just to see and boy was that a big mistake. We found a Thai boxing bar that we stayed at and that was entertaining but every other bar around was a literal strip club/brothel. The street was packed with disgusting, fat, old dudes buying prostitutes left and right and it was just depressing and horrible. We left pretty quickly - the only positive? Most of the prostitutes are actually ladyboys so all those disgusting guys are actually hooking up with men hahahahhaa well deserved! The next morning we relaxed on the beach for a bit and went to one of the main malls to look around. calan, Alida and I ate at a cafe that had REAL sandwiches. I had avocado with chicken, onions and tomato and let me tell you, this was the most delicious thing I have eaten EVER! We took a 3 hour bus back and that was the end of our mostly great weekend! Now back to counting down the days until teaching ends. We have 3 more trips planned, then Sarah comes to visit me! I miss everyone tons!