Lost Horizons

Holiday - day 4

You heard it on this blog first. According to the Bangkok Recorder blogger sub domains are blocked in Thailand. This seems reminiscent of the youtube incident. Bangkok Recorder blames it on a Thaksin interview being available on some blogspot sites, but I have also read somewhere that it is now possible to create sites on blogger with Thai script, and this move could be linked to that.
One incident on Monday night that I forgot to mention happened in Angelwitch; a farang male came in with his cute Thai date, and because the place was busy, they had to sit next to the dance floor. This was fine until the snake dance started, when it became quickly apparent that the young lady was scared of snakes! Whilst the snake was draped around the dancer in the middle of the stage, the scared lady couldn’t watch and hid her head behind her date’s body. Later in the dance, the snake is paraded around the edge of the stage; by now the poor girl is cowering behind her man. The dancer then bought the snake off the stage and into the audience – I am sure she did it on purpose to tease the young lady.
On Tuesday we hired a car and driver for the day. First we went to Sriracha Tiger Zoo. Here they have the pricing strategy of “farang pay double”. Peanut gets in for 150 baht, whilst my ticket costs 300. I remember talking to Peanut about this a couple of years ago, and asked her why places have this double standard. Her logic was sound, “Farang can afford to pay more”. When I asked her, then, why wasn’t the airport tax double for foreigners, she just shrugged her shoulders and changed the subject.
One of the successes of this zoo is that they have been able to successfully breed Bengal Tigers. There are also rumours, according to Peanut, that tigers are sold to the Chinese, which I am not so keen about. One of the reasons for their success, it seems, is that they have the tiger cubs suckled by pigs. It is really strange to see two baby tiger cubs and three piglets suckling of an old sow. They also put piglets, covered in tiger skins in with the mother tiger; I suppose to make the tiger think that she hasn’t lost her cubs.
There is a big alligator compound there and a bridge you can walk across and feed the alligators, so Peanut wanted to do that.


After she had fed the ‘gator, Peanut takes of her baseball cap, and her sunglasses drop off the cap, and were eagerly chomped up by a waiting reptile below. Luckily they were only 200 baht shades, not real Gucci ones.
I have been to over zoos in Thailand, and this one has the same old shows, such as alligator wrestling, with a difference though: this zoo has a lady alligator wrestler, and she is quite cute.



After the zoo, we went up to where Peanut is staying at the moment, with some relatives. This town is known locally as Ao Udon, which is a lot easier to say than Phanatnikhom, as it is written on maps. This town has a new industrial estate, so a lot of workers are moving into the town, which seems really nice. Covered markets, a park, lots of shops and stuff, and a lot of new houses being built. You can pick up a new three-storey house for 1.3 million baht or about US$40K, but of course you can’t buy the land the house sits on, because foreigners can’t own land.
Peanut is sharing a room with some relatives of her mother. It is very basic, but supplies all their needs. Peanut took me to the food stall run by her and her aunt. It’s really nothing, but they earn a living making about 400 baht per day profit. I sat at the food stall where they fed me grilled chicken and papaya salad. They even sent someone off on a motorcycle to fetch me some Heineken.
Everyone, who drove passed, stared at the farang. And when the children came back from school, they all wanted to have a look at farang, but being naturally shy, they were all trying to hide behind one another.
After that we came back to Pattaya, where I managed to fit in a massage and a couple of beers before going back to the hotel to get changed.
In the evening we went into town, and decided to eat at the P72 restaurant on Walking Street. This was an unmitigated disaster: the tables are too close together, they forgot half of our order, and other diners were having their meals bought out at separate times. Take my advice and give this eatery a wide berth.
Wanting to try somewhere new, we went to Nui’s go-go on Walking Street. This is quite a small place; the girls wear gingham skirts and tops, which, on the whole they keep fastened up. The only exceptions were a girl, who as soon as she got on the stage unfastened her top, and another girl who was wearing some fancy white lingerie, instead of the standard uniform.
Then we went to Tony’s entertainment – Club Europa. We had popped into this place earlier in the week, but it was too early. Everything seems to be white, apart from the pool tables – now that would do my head in playing pool with all white balls on a white baize. I was dreading this, but, Peanut wanted to come here, and, I actually enjoyed it. Yes, its over-priced, a beer and a vodka and orange was 400 baht, but the service was good and the drinks came with a bowl of popcorn and prawn crackers, and occasionally were given a plate of sliced mango. When we arrived there was a band playing, some eight or nine-piece band from the Philippines or Indonesia, but they may have been Thai. Then some dancing girls came on with a couple of katoeys, the really over the top, camp and deliberately ugly ones, who did a couple of numbers, then the dancing for real started with the stage turned over to the public. Now, I don’t dance, and if I do it’s a sort of spastic version of daddy dancing, but Peanut really likes to show off and have a bogey, so she did. She was getting more than a little drunk, now; and, she kept trying to order Tequila, which I know is deadly for her. So I had to be strict with her on that, which, luckily she accepted.
We had three drinks, left, and, of course Peanut wanted some food, and after the earlier meal I was quite happy to go along with this. Walking towards the food stall we were stopped by a young kid, eight or nine years old who offered us orange glow-in-the-dark bracelets for twenty baht each. We had one each and I gave him a fifty baht note, and he was so pleased. He was really polite and spoke nicely, but what was he doing up at that time during the school term?
Finally we made to the food stall where Peanut wanted to eat, as the food was really good. I had a vegetable omelette and a bowl of soup, whilst Peanut ordered Rice with Nam Prik. Now, I know that Nam Prik is not something to be messed with, its like the Devil’s Tabasco, this stuff dissolves rust and strips paint at ten feet, but the Thais love it. Peanut mixes a bit of the brown stuff with some rice, puts it in her mouth, and it was like a volcano exploding. Tears came to her eyes, her face went a sort of olive colour, her mouth opened wide. It was too spicy for her! Yes “som nam na!”
Despite her protestations that farang cannot eat! I picked up some of her rice, where a small bit had been mixed with namprik, and ate it, and kept it down and kept my composure. Sure it was spicy, and I couldn’t have eaten a plateful of the stuff.
Anyway as I sit here typing this up, Peanut is sleeping off, what I am sure will be the mother of all hangovers.

posted by Luke @ 10:34 AM