Back to Bangkok

My hotel is one 1 km from the airport but it is nice and very reasonable.
A very tempting pool directly outside me door.

Last day in Rayong

Strange how fast time has gone past. Today is my last day here in Rayong. Tomorrow I will be travelling back to Bangkok where I have a hotel room near the airport. Monday I will fly back to Zurich and onwards to London. There are no organised taxi service here, basically anyone with a car can call themselves a taxi driver and offer to drive. They usually don't speak a word of English so it snot so easy but I met a German who was interested in driving me and I hope he will show up tomorrow morning.

A Splash of Colour

To mark the end of another year of my life, and what a great life ! I have and so much to be thankful for. ...I have a the best most loving family anyone could wish for and many loyal friends. I have had the opportunity to travel and explore and I enjoyed every minute of it.

More impressions for Ban Phe

I found this lovely quiet place the other day.

Lots of fresh fish on offer.

Dried fish is also popular 

Another Divine Sunset

After the ugliness of Pattaya, I had to spend some more time on the beach. The colours always reminds me of Turner ad I think I have to go to Tate Britain when I get home to enjoy some of his seascape.

Longan

I had seen this fruit in the shop for a while and it was time to try it out. I bought a bunch cost 46 Thai Bath, which is 89 pence or 11.27 NKR. It taster very nice and sweet, very similar to Lychee.

Mangoes and coconuts growing everywhere

I walk past these trees every day and I wonder when they will be ripe. By the way the young coconuts are particularly delicious, the meet is soft and sweet and the coconut water is very refreshing.

Pattaya

My friend wanted to meet in Pattaya so I took the bus to Rayong City and another bus from there to Pattaya. Obviously I have heard a lot about Pattaya over the years and I had a picture in my head of what it would be like. Lots of beer drinking middle age men with young Thai girls I suppose. But I had also heard that it was fine for "normal tourists" as well. Pattaya turned out to be much bigger than I had imagined and the extend of the red light type of industry was a lot more visible than I had thought. Although one could spot the odd european looking couple, the majority of tourists were single men mostly in their 50s and 60s. I cannot help feeling uncomfortable when I see men in their 50s and 60s walking around holding hand with girls in their early 20s. It all felt very weird. When the sun went down every bar and pub in South Pattaya turned into a meet market with endless amounts of pretty young girls waiting for their mostly older customers. The sight made me sad but this is also a part of Thailand. Young women mostly from poor families in the north who have no other means of earning a living then to offer themselves to the sex tourists. I am back in my beautiful part of the world again now. The visits to Pattaya is something I wish I had skipped.

People, mostly single men sitting on top of each other on the beach and a local lottery seller.  I didn't take any photos of girls in the bars as I think that would be totally inappropriate. 

Eccentric Swiss with his Alphorn on the beach...

I had a chatt with him and he showed us how he controls the sound with his mouth only.
Very fascinating but perhaps a bit eccentric to do on a beach in Thailand.

Flowers

These flowers grow on trees around the pool area. The are really lovely and smell good.

Dusk

Dinner at the beach

We had a lovely seafood dinner at one of the beach restaurants the other day. Its about 20 min walk straight down the beach from here. The offered seafood you can pick a choose and then they barbecue it right there. It was really delicious. The perfect drink to go with BBQ seafood is coconut juice. Very healthy and tastey.

A huge salad while waiting for the seafood 

Ban Phe Beach

Ban Phe also has a very long beach and you can find a small community of fishermen and people selling fresh or dried fish and seafood as well as the odd person bathing but parts of it is nearly deserted on a weekday. Weekends tens to get busy though.

Lama, sheep or goat ?

First I though these statues were of lamas but they have horns and also we are not in Peru so I guess tis a kind of sheep or goat. What the significant of these are I have no idea. I kind of like them though. 

On the beachside

I have seen theses type of flowers on beachside other places in the world but it don't make them less beautiful.

Early morning on the beach

It's just as lovely as the sunset.