Confessions of a Dangerous Blogger:

Well here I sit in KL again. I was all decided to stay in Jakarta and wait out my new card. Then I did the math. It was going to be essentially 3 days of waiting, during which I would have no money. Then, I would have to reorganize my flight to Melbourne, buy another flight to KL and pay for the extra hotel days. I called Malaysian Airlines and they confirmed some spare seats on a Melbourne flight the next day. Which meant that all I needed to do was follow my original plan and survive one night in KL. So in a matter of minutes, I threw all of my posessions into my backpack and made a beeline for the airport to catch my flight. Luckily I have been carrying around various amounts of foreign currency as a souvenir and this currency can lend a hand for a meal or two. I’m hoping that I’ll have enough for my bus from Melbourne airport and train to Frankston when I return.

I never mentioned this before, but I bought my first backpack. I am making the transition from traveller to backpacker and I have to say, I like it more. Mind you, I’m not really fitting the stereotypical mold of the backpacker quite yet. After all, I’m typing this on my laptop which has been in my backpack this whole time. My iPod is charging as I’m typing. I have a little ways to go before I have one pair of clothes, mosquito coils and spare rope for a washing line and go about telling people how I bought everything I own for 25 cents from a guy in an Indonesian jungle. To which the response would be, “man you payed too much”.

I had an idea for a comedy sketch. These guys are chatting on a plane about where they are going. “Me? Oh I’m going to Jakarta then I’m off to Bali. How about you?” then the other will reply “Oh I have some business here, but then I’m travelling to Medan.” But then the plane crashes in the sea and they are all swimming around in their lifejackets. So they swim up to each other and continue the conversation. “So where do you think you’re going now?” then the other one replies “Oh I’m just going to paddle over this way to those islands, how about you?” then the reply “Oh well I’m just going to follow the current along here and hopefully float into the Gulf of Melaca where I’ll be picked up by a rescue boat.” But then a shark comes and starts to nibble on his leg and he says “Oh, no I guess I have to change my plans. I’ll be eaten by this shark now and spend the next few days inside his belly.” And that’s where I abandoned the idea. For the best I guess.

The train journey is half over now. It takes 28 minutes from the airport to KL central and it costs 35 Ringitt which works out to about 13 Aussie dollars. They advertise the 28 minutes a lot and I guess they can guarantee their service. Not like anyone is going to be out with a stopwatch though, checking to make sure they are exactly on time. If I see someone doing just that I’ll punch him because sticklers are ruining society. Letigious, by-the-book, I must have what it says and nothing more or less kind of people. Just try to talk to an operator these days and you’ll see what I mean. I was on the phone to the Visa card people and asked him roughly how long would it take.
He said, “I really can’t give you and answer on that because it depends on how fast your bank responds and until I get an answer from them I….”
“Really, really, really roughly just give me a ballpark figure” said I.
“As I said sir, it depends on your bank and until….”
“One day, two days, one hundred million years..?”
This stopped him for a second.
“I really can’t say.”
I was getting impatient. “I really promise I won’t sue you if you’re out by a few days. Let’s assume that my bank is a normal bank which responds in a normal way and they haven’t been taken over by a pack of monkeys weilding sharp objects. How long would it take?”
“About 3 days but I can’t promise…”
“Fine with me.”

And that’s the reason we have to stop these people. Because someone at some time sued someone else for saying 2 days when it turned out to be 3 days and the company lost 100 million trillion dollars and won’t take that risk again. So yes, I will punch you too if I see you timing the 28 minute train because why are you in such a rush anyway? Personally I hope it takes longer because my iPod really needs the charge and I am not sure that I’ve completely finished ranting yet. Oh damn, I have to. We’re here.

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I woke up the next day in my hotel, only a few hours after sleeping. I wanted to catch the buffet breakfast, as this is always my main stumbling block when it comes to hotel sleepovers. Ambitiously, I awoke at 7:30am, an ungodly hour normally, but especially as this was the first morning of my relaxing Thai getaway. Nevertheless, I assaulted the buffet and left my hotel satisfied.

I had roughly 3 hours to have a look at the neighbourhood, but really there was little that was photogenic about the place. It’s a messy, dirty place, but the atmosphere is really different and that’s what I like I guess. I spent my three hours exploring, walking around, talking to random people and generally absorbing the feeling of Bangkok. I spoke to a man from Ghana who quizzed me on the pros and cons of illegally shipping people into Australia. I said to him, in my frank opinion, that he had slim chances. He wondered about the corruption level over in my homeland. I proudly told him that corruption was almost zero. He looked dismayed. But it made me feel good about my country. Whether or not it is really true or not is beyond my knowledge, but we sure do breed that feeling in our population. The difference is, that if corruption exists it is very well hidden. See, in poor countries, like the one I’m in right now, everyone knows that people can be bought. It’s common, almost expected. But back home, it still happens, it’s just that everyone has a it-couldn’t-possibly-happen-because-we’re-a-civilized-nation-don’t-you-know kind of attitude. It’s like steroids among professional athletes. Oh, you didn’t know?

Most athletes take steriods. Not, oh there’s Ben Johnson or that cyclist guy they’re the bad steriod takers. No, most athletes you see on TV or in the Olympics use performance enhancing drugs. Of course we made a big fuss of that Johnson guy. His trainer felt that he was an amazingly gifted athlete even without the drugs. He just got unlucky with a mixed sample. But since then his records have been broken on 3 seperate occasions by three different people. Are we to assume that 3 even more gifted athletes came along? No, it’s just that there are many ways to hide traces of drugs in your system. And how do you test for air up a swimmer’s butt anyway? Ask them to fart before a race? Maybe now you can see the benefits of those special skin-tight suits that they have…

Where am I? Oh that’s right, Thailand. So anyway, after my little wander, it was time to go and check out, head to Pattaya and get some beach and sun. The bus leaves from Ettamai station, which is on the Sky Train line. It cost me 200 baht and the ride there took 3.5 hours, longer than expected, I guess due to traffic. I booked my hotel which I was staying in for about 660 baht per night. On arrival, I was dropped on the side of a busy road with no beach in sight. Someone told me to grab a taxi, well actually it was a small truck with seats at the back. It was a short trip and I gave the guy 100 baht for that. He dropped me off at my street and I walked past a number of bars with girls screaming out at me, “ooooh hey!” and a few food stalls that had me a little curious after my long drive. I found my hotel, Sunshine Residences, to be quite pleasant and well situated in the center of town. Having to lug my suitcase around everywhere is becoming a drag, but that’s life without an apartment to store stuff. I dumped it in my room and went to check out the beach. Definitely not what I had in mind. Quite dirty in fact. Later that night, when I went down to take a picture of the beach I crouched down to take the shot, with my knees, elbows and hands touching the sand. The next day, I woke to find some kind of rash or bites on the exact spots that touched the sand. This isn’t a beach that I’m going to be spending any great deal of time.

The first day in Pattaya was essentially a night here, due to my long bus ride. Apart from the aforementioned beach bug crawl, I spent my other hours walking around as much as I could, looking for interesting places to visit. I can pretty much say that there is quite a lot of nothing to do here. There is a little bit of shopping here, plus lots of massage, hair shops and other things like it where you can get a cheap cut or thai style above board massage for under $10. I’m not really that stressed, so I decided I’d leave them open to serve people who have real jobs with stress.

Now, here’s my recommendation. Don’t bring your family here. I can’t figure out whethere this is a brothel built around a city or a city around a brothel. My best recommendation is to choose North Pattaya, where you can stay at the Tropicana Hotel or at the A-One Hotel for about $40-50 per night and enjoy a nice location and good quality hotel away from most of the Go-go bars. I understand that the northern part of the beach is better too. I took a walk there last night and found a few nice street cafes and most of the couples and families were around this area. Although I’m still not sure what Pattaya has to offer them. I must try to answer that question today. I’m off to visit a travel agent to secure a trip to Phuket or Koh Samui and some finer beach action. [ed: see next post for better advice!]

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