Pattaya

         From Bangkok, we took a 11/2 hour taxi ride to Pattaya. We thought we would eventually go further south but never did. Pattaya is the most tourist place I've seen so far, except all the tourists were russian. The city is spread out along a big crescent moon shaped bay. The water is quite warm, but unfortunately not very clean. There is alot of pollution  both there and in Bangkok. We decided to stay at a place called natural park resort, because it had these cool Thai style bungalows.

The bungalows....not my picture

         If you ever stay in Pattaya, I suggest staying at the "Rabbit Resort", where we ate lunch once. Its owned by Thai people so its not annoyingly "Americanized". It has a nice pool and very beautiful Thai style rooms. Also a note about Thai style beds. Thai beds are much harder that American beds. I've heard its better for your back, but it took me some getting used to.
         An interesting part of Pattaya is the night life. The daytime is too hot for people to be outside very much, but after sundown the whole city is loud and busy. While in Pattaya, we decided not to go to Vietnam for a few days as we had planned because we couldn't work out how to get there :(. We only stayed in Pattaya for two days as we were anxious to see Chiang Mai and go to Home of Blessing