Filth and Fun, Fair and Fight and Flight and Festivities (1)

Alliteration, the one thing along with metaphor, that most half decent scholars can remember about secondary school English lessons when they're grown up and have long forgotten everything else- if not the term, then surely the purpose, where specific words starting with the same letter are used for effect by a writer.

It is with this purpose that I link you into our latest adventures since the Krabi expedition. Although here the 'Fs' are not used for profanity or to stutter like Arkwright the erstwhile, northern shopkeeper from the popular 80s sitcom, starring the late, great Ronnie Barker and 'used to be great' David Jason.

Far from it in fact, as I couldn't possibly be s-s-s-s-s-sstutterr-r-r-ring about the last month! Have I whetted your appetite for more? Good, then read on dear reader...

Although November is seen as a miserable month in the Western world, it could be equally be viewed in the same way out East- not much happening apart from cooler weather (a whole 4-5 degrees!) and the potential of no rain at all for 6 months (marked by Thais with the Loi Krathong festival, where Thais of all ages set off little floral boats onto water to thank the waterways for the usage by us and to thank Mother Nature for stopping the incessant daily hour's torrential rainstorm- although like the rest of the world and global warming- it's very unlikely that the wet, dry and hot seasons will shuffle in and out in the same way anymore). We however, continued to have as many adventures as we could- starting with:

Filth and Fun

Everyone warned us, no-one expected us to venture into the world of filth and debauchery that is the Sex capital of Thailand, if not the whole of South-East Asia, the infamous Pattaya.(although some expert recently claimed that 'there was more prostitution in the Phillipines and Taiwan, easily.' I don't know how and why he conducted his research and nor do I want to know- still who am I to argue.) As always with these things, the claims were greatly exaggerated and we had a great weekend. Yes, the streets are laden with go-go bars (a slightly weirdly old-fashioned term for bars/strip joints/brothels that has been left over from America's occupation of Vietnam and continued by the U. S. oddballs (followed by Brits and Aussies) that returned to this part of the world over the last 40 years- I almost expected to see such outdated adjectives as 'happening' and 'switched on' to advertise them in their bright neon signage!)

Yes, it was a bit seedy, with old men wandering around with young girls, but it seemed strangely appropriate in this quite pretty seaside resort, rather than in BKK- 10 quid each return and 3 and a half hours there and back from Bangkok. There's a whole post and debate about Thailand's most famous industry, but as always things are never as cut and dried as they seem. It was also easy to ignore and keep away from, if you wanted to, which we did.

Think a slightly more exotic Benidorm and much more exotic and with a better seafront Blackpool!

We went down to see some colleagues post-sky dive (I bailed at the last hour- not from the plane, of course!) and to escape Bangkok for a bit and in the cooler temperature and cheap and very basic room at 8 pound a night we had a great stay and will venture back soon. We especially enjoyed the drunken Brit getting battered around the ring by a 15 year old Muay (boxing) Thai fighter in a bar and 'Ripley's Believe it or Not!' museum (yes, really!) on the Sunday, but not the Irish bar and overpriced British Transport Cafe styled all-day breakfast (advertised as being 'the no1 food for truckers all over the world', not sure if Tibetan truckers in the Himalayas would tuck into greasy bacon and eggs though...) as well as bad Danny La Rue impressionists miming to bad/good Korean pop!

Coming next- Fair and Fight