Patong

Sawasdee! In order to differentiate my posts fom Pet's, I've switched to blue italics, which are very fetching and quite stylish.

So we finally left the hotel today and headed into Patong. Quite an amazing town - if I'd have come here when I was 20 it would've seemed like paradise: countless open air bars right on the beach. I would've drank myself stupid.

There are street vendors EVERYWHERE. You literally can't walk past one without encountering another and they are all desperate to sell sell sell. And to try to rip you off. One guy wanted to sell us something for 1200 baht and we ended up buying it off him for 300 baht. We wanted a couple of Cokes so went into this bar and ordered 2 Pepsis from the girl behind the counter. She brought out two cans of Diet Coke and said we'd have to pay this other guy down the other end of the bar. So we walk down to him and he's busy buggerising around with his pad and calculator (no sales get made here without a calculator). We get sick of waiting for him and turn to walk away. "No no no!" he calls and comes after us, quoting us 95 baht for our two Cokes. So we get out our 95 baht and then he picks up his calculator and writes 114 baht on the bill. So we get out more baht to make up the 111 and then the cheeky shuyster writes 141 baht on the bill! At which stage we said "No way!" and stormed out in righteous indignation. A curse on him!

But every cloud has a silver lining (which is kind of apt as there seems to be a big thunder storm brewing) and our silver lining is that I got a new cap and that you can buy cans of Singha Beer from the chemist for only 30 baht each! And they sell Leo beer for 24 baht! So I'll be stocking up on that for when we get back to the hotel. And if I see that guy with his dodgy calculator...