27 hour Trip to pattaya Aug. 22

Bryan and Jared's Pattaya Excursion...

A Day trip to Pattaya. It was time to get out of the city, so Jared and I decided on a mini vacation. I left after work and we packed up our gear, which fit nicely into a backpack each. We got to Eckami bus terminal with just enough time to get some kai geo and a Spy to go. We got tickets for 77b to for the 9 PM bus-and after speculating about a new business idea for 2 hours we arrived at Pattaya. We had hoped to get motorbikes that night and cruise around, but the places were closed, so we cruised around via foot. I met one guy, a seller of fine hippie attire, who had a Vespa for 45,000-tempting.

Other then that we walked around for a while, not finding any place then we were hit with a down pour. So we chewed the fat with this girl named Nung at a boring no-nonsense hotel. She had been working there for 3 days and seemed pretty nice. When the rain let up we did another 2 hours of searching and by 2 we had laid our 300b on the table of the Honey Hotel, ( of course after checking the Porn Hotel) After enjoying a 40b beer Leo we fell asleep to the pirated copy of some Steven Spielberg movie.

Getting up out at 11, we went to the 70b all you can eat western buffet breakfast, which held us to about 7pm. Then for the exciting part-getting the bikes. We were nervous of course, but we figured, if we were to be international men of mystery, we would have to be able to operate one of these bad boys in a clutch situation. So we negotiated 400b till 7pm plus 100b for gas, and we were on our way. Once I figured out the difference between 1st and 5th , I was doing ok.

About 10 minutes into our journey we were introduced to the rainy season. We had calculated that moving in a southern direction would get us away from this one looming cloud, but the cloud outsmarted us. Soaked, we reorganized at a duck restaurant, talking about memorable downpours on canoe trips to make us feel better. 20 minutes later is was seemingly ok, so we headed out down the strip of Jomteien Beach.

From there on out is was pretty smooth sailing. We had the road mostly to ourselves and experimented with 160 kph (100 mph) speeds. I have to say, these bikes were fast, no problems passing anyone and everyone. Of course we were extremely careful. We went down to Satthip for a photo shoot and then went half way to Rayong, before turning around.

On the way back to Pattaya, we stopped at this killer condo. 4 million baht, which is ½ price the original price of 8 million baht due to the bad economy. It was very beautiful with the kicker being the large Jacuzzi on the 38th floor, over looking the gulf and Jomteien Beach. Want to see more of the condo?

After a brief dinner of some gapaew gai, and a couple of beers, we took the bikes back, got the 9pm bus on which Jared couldn't hold it and were home by midnight. Not a bad way to spend 27 hours.

Bryan and Ron's bus trip.