LaemChabang/Pattaya, Thailand

Thailand is a nation of smiling people, happy children, saffron-robed monks and, without doubt, the world’s most congested streets.  It is crisscrossed with canals and Bangkok’s moniker is the Venice of the East.  Rice barges, massive rafts of teak logs, ferry boats and river busses all glide along, presenting a kaleidoscope of changing colors.  It is a mecca for shoppers looking for the exotic, superlative silks, gemstones and intricately decorated objects. Sights are all around, at every turn; the vendors, the children, the food and flower stalls, the shops, the tuk-tuks and traffic.  In short, Thailand is everything you read and hear about and more.

After taking the shuttle into town (a 45 minute ride), we found an internet café to call home and answer a few e-mails.  We have been having problems accessing certain accounts due to the poor internet aboard ship.  Since they also blocked Skype, we have been unable to contact anyone for a while.  Afterwards  we went to have a great lunch of fried rice and cashew chicken.  Outside of the restaurant were 4 huge tanks of water filled with small, smelt like, fish.  People sit on a chair above the tank and put their feet in the tank.  The fish then eat off the dead skin.  It’s a good thing we saw it after lunch instead of before.  It was an amazing sight to see.  Can you make out the feet in the tank? Sad to see mega-malls here, Thailand has lost some of it’s charm.

 Thailand is also known for its great massages and inexpensive manicures & pedicures. I decided to have a manicure and pedicure while Gary had a leg/foot massage for 1 hour.  Actually the girl only filed and polished my nails, none of the instruments were sterilized and there was no way she was using a clipper on me. 

The streets are packed with open air shops filled with everything imaginable…it is a shopper’s paradise.  The ship stops here so they can take people on tour to Bangkok.  It’s a 2-2 ½ hour ride each way and they only stay 4 hours.