Day 1:

We anchored out beside the island of Thailand in the morning, somewhere around 10. The anchor actually didn't land in a good spot the first time we tried so we had to pull it up and try it again. We got it on the second try though. It wasn't until around 1 in the afternoon before we started being able to leave the boat. We traveled via speedboat from the boat to the pier. On the pier, everyone was already set up for our arrival. There were taxi drivers all over the place looking for someone that wanted a ride to wherever. On the pier, there were several stands up selling sodas, snacks, and of course, beer. A lot of the people bought beer before boarding the bus into town.

The bus into town wasn't too bad. It was actually clean and they tried to have it air-conditioned. It was cooler than it was outside, but not quite the temperature I was comfortable at. At least I wasn't sweating. The bus was packed so I ended up standing up for the entire ride, which was about 45 minutes from the pier to the location we were dropped off in Phuket. Traffic was outrageous! No one seemed to know how to stay in the lines, in attempt to pass whoever was slower in front of them. I was actually surprised that I never saw an accident. Most people rode little moped type motorcycles. The taxi drivers drove these rather small van/truck type vehicles. Some people had cars, and I suspect these were the wealthy ones of the island.

After we got dropped off, the first thing we did was find an ATM for my liberty buddy. He needed some cash (or Baht as they call it here). We found one and he stood in line behind about three people while I was about 10 feet away with someone trying to sell me my first item. They were trying to sell me this silk robe type thing. I kept telling the lady no, but she kept lowering her price trying to get me interested. All I could think the whole time was I wish my buddy would hurry up so we could get out of here. The whole time she was pressuring to sell this thing to me, I kept saying no, and not once made an offer. She went from 3500 Baht (approx $80) down to 700 Baht (approx $16) during the entire duration. I was actually amazed that she went down so low from her starting price. I shouldn't have been though. But that is exactly what this place was like. You walk down the street and every person you walk by is trying to sell you something. The big items that I noticed were the robes, business suits, hammocks, artwork, cigarettes, and taxi drivers trying to give you a ride. The most persistent of these were the guys trying to sell the suits and the taxi drivers.

After the ATM stop, we did take a taxi driver up on his offer to take us to the Patong Bayshore, the hotel I was registered to stay at. He charged us 100 Baht (approx $3) for the ride that would have been a good walk in the heat. We weren't all that far from the main part of town. We actually walked from there on out. The main reason we got a taxi was because we weren't really sure where our place was or anything. After the taxi driver dropped us off, and he tried offering to stay so that we could get further rides from him which we turned down, we walked into the hotel and up to the counter to check in. While we were checking in, we were given glasses of an orange type drink that tasted decent. Then a bellhop walked us to our room. He walked in and gave us a quick tour of the room. The room was basically just two rooms, the main room and the bathroom as usual. The main room had a TV, two beds, two chairs, a nightstand, a desk, and a rather large window. The bathroom had all the normal stuff, except for the bathtub. Instead of a bathtub, they had a showerhead that just sprayed onto the floor and down a drain, and a curtain that separated that area of the bathroom from the rest of it. It was a very nice hotel for the area. We went in, relaxed for a bit and waited for the air conditioning to cool down the room a bit, and then headed out to explore the area.

We wandered around the main part of town, checking out various things, but there wasn't that much that was all that different. We walked into a 7-eleven to buy some water, proceeded to walk around a bit, trying to glimpse at things that we might be interested in buying later without having the shop owners notice, because if someone that worked there saw you looking at something, they were on you like glue trying to get you to buy it. If you showed the least bit of interest in anything, they would start trying to name a price to get you to start talking of buying it. Being my first day there, I really wasn't interested in buying anything. I just wanted to look around. But we soon found there really wasn't much to look at. So we started hanging out in the main bar area where everyone else was to chat and do a little bit of drinking. Around that area there were not only the bars, but also some small shops, people walking around selling gum, flowers, hammocks, and other odds and ends, and where there wasn't a bar or shop, was a go-go girl bar, or in American terms, a strip club. I think everyone on our boat went to check one of those out just to see what it was about, guys and girls alike. I got dragged into one for a little while.

The go-go bar was definitely a unique experience. Most of the time, they just have a few girls on stage dancing in their underwear, looking for guys that are checking them out in particular. If you were caught staring at her for a time, she would come down off the of the stage and ask to sit next to you, where you would be asked to buy her drinks and such, trying to get you interested in her. There are two huge markets in Thailand. One of those is the selling of alcohol, and the other is prostitution. This is where I started learning this. After the girls danced on the stage for a while, a tone would sound and a nude girl would get up on the stage and start doing something. I'm not going to get into any detail about that though. Let's just say that going there once is all the experience you need. You wouldn't even think some of the stuff they do anyone would do. Finally, my friend who dragged me in said that he was spending too much money on buying the girls drinks, and that he wanted to leave. That was fine by me.

After that he decided he wanted a massage. I told him that was fine, we would find one of the many massage parlors there and he could get his massage. I wasn't interested because any time I really get a massage, it comes with a great deal of pain because my muscles are so tight. I haven't really had anyone try to give me a massage in years. But wouldn't you know, ask and you shall receive. We were just walking down the street and a group of like four girls stopped us asking us if we wanted a massage. I said no, but he was all for it. So, two of them split off, one guiding him to the parlor, and the other having me follow trying to convince me to get one. I was not at all interested. She got me as far as to the room where she would have given me the massage, but that was it. After that, I left and went downstairs to their little lobby area and drank a beer and listened to the American music they were playing while I waited for my liberty buddy to get his massage. Every 5 minutes though, someone would come up to me asking me if I wanted to get a massage. I kept rejecting. Finally, after a while, my friend came back down, and we traveled back to the bar strip because it was nightfall, and that is where everyone was hanging out.

Now is the point where I determine that Thailand is nothing but party central. If you could have seen all the activity on this street at night, you would have to agree. Girls hanging all over the guys, weather they liked it or not, the heavy drinkers freely exposing themselves by doing some crazy stunts. Every bar had a little part inside where you could dance, but that was rarely used. Instead, the street was the main dancing location. I saw many people from my boat walking around. We didn't stay out late though. We actually went back to the hotel room rather early where we discovered a surprise. There is a certain slot in the hotel room where you place the key. If the key is not in this slot for a certain amount of time, it shuts off everything in the room automatically, including the lights, TV, and air conditioning. So, we ended up walking into a rather warm room. It only took it about 10 minutes to cool down to a tolerable level. We flipped on the TV, watched some MTV Asia, and fell asleep with the TV on.

Day 2:

We slept in until about 10 and hung out in the room for a while, just talking, taking a shower, and watching some more MTV Asia. I believe that MTV Asia is much better than the MTV back home. They actually play what they were made for... music! There is about half an hour of mostly good music videos (which means to me they weren't overloaded with rap songs), and then maybe a couple of minutes of commercials and right back to music again without all those shows playing all day long. So, I enjoyed watching MTV over here because they played plenty of music. It wasn't until about noon when we decided to leave so we could go get something to eat.

We ended up eating at some restaurant that was along the street. They didn't really serve much in the line of Thai food, so instead we had burgers. They do not take much of the grease out of their burgers. When we picked up our burgers to have a bite, they were just dripping. Definitely kept the flavor though. It wasn't a big portion, but it was really cheap. Most food in Thailand is rather cheap. Even Kentucky Fried Chicken there had meals that were less than 100 Baht (approx. $2) that included fries, chicken, and coke.

After eating, we wandered around for a bit realizing there really wasn't anything more to do than there was the day before. Before long, we found ourselves at the bar strip again. It was much calmer at this time of day though. We sat down and started chatting with the couple of people that we knew there as well as the barmaids that came around. They did more than just serve us drinks though. They actually sat down with us and started playing games. "Connect Four" and "Jenga" were the big ones, but they also had one game where they had a large log chunk, nails, and a hammer. The goal of this game was to take turns hitting the nail one at a time, and the first one to have the nail in was the winner. They tried making small bets during these games, but very few people were into it. We mainly just played for the fun of it. This is when I met who I called my "leech" for the next couple of days. She sat down with me and we played connect four for quite a while. I must admit, I really stunk. I lost most of the time, and had this great cheer for when I actually managed to win. We attempted to talk a little, though we didn't much at first. Talking to her was like trying to talk to a child with the communication gap. She, like most of the Thai people, did not speak much English, and we all know that I can't speak Thai at all. I did learn that her name was Tia (pronounced Thai), and that she was just basically visiting Phuket. It was a sad story really.

From what I could gather from talking to her, she came to Phuket to live with her sister while she tried to make some money. Apparently her father is/was in the hospital for a reason that I couldn't figure out, all that I could understand is that she was saying that he was in a coma for a while. Her family needed to pay the hospital bill of 200,000 Baht, which is a lot of money for Thailand. While working, she was sending home 1,000 Baht per month to her mother to help pay for this bill. She is going to go back home (which was further north) in a couple of months. Back home, her family consisted of her brother, her niece, and her nephew. Both her niece and nephew were from her brother, who's wife had died in some sort of accident. Why they sent her to Phuket to work, I don't really know. I did learn more on how people in Thailand lived though. Most everyone has only a two-bedroom home, consisting of a bathroom and main room. Everyone sleeps in the main room, and has a little area in which they store their stuff. The bathroom is a toilet that doesn't flush (it operates by pouring more water into it forcing the water already in the toilet down), and a hose. They use the hose and a bucket to take a shower with. I had no idea people still lived in these kinds of conditions.

Most of the rest of this day we spent in the bar area. Toward the end of the night, Tia asked me if I wanted to go sing. Of course I did. I love karaoke and hadn't done it in well over a month. She took me to a place she goes to most every night to sing. I felt kind of strange walking in, being the only American here. They handed me a book in which I found about 4 pages (about 8 CDs total) of American songs. I chose out a couple, and realized that most songs that were in there were actually remakes done by other people in other countries, and not exactly the same. Needless to say, I didn't do a very good job. But I really don't think many people noticed since they don't speak English or not. Tia had me try to sing a couple of their songs that had "English Translation" to it. This English translation was words to say that made it sound like their language. I didn't do well at that at all. But it was overall a good time. I actually made a couple of friends there as well. I'm not really sure what their job was there, but we were showing each other tricks we knew and they brought in a couple of their type of snacks that tasted very strange.

After we sang for a while, I went back to my motel room to crash for the night. I walked into my motel room to a surprise. Someone else that had been in the main bar strip was crashed on one of the beds, apparently passed out. The buddy that I had gone out about town with had to return to the ship that night because he had duty the next morning. I didn't do much, but basically hit the other bed myself.

Day 3:

I woke up around 10 in the morning to the guy that slept over taking off to head back to the boat to shower and change. I spent a good portion of the beginning of the day watching TV and reading a book after I took a shower in the tubless bathroom. I never turned it off of MTV Asia because I liked it so much, and I knew that I wouldn't get a chance to watch music videos again for quite a while. I finally decided to head out at around 1:00.

I first headed to meet up with Tia because she said she wanted to help me do my souvenir shopping because she knew that if I went alone that they would overcharge me. I thought that was very considerate of her. She first took me to this place that was similar to a flea market. I'm not sure what they call it there. The majority of this market was made up of clothes and food, but they did have some other things there. I looked around for a while and bought myself a backpack so I could carry things around. I've gotten tired of carrying things I buy around all the time, and figure that in a backpack it would be a lot less trouble to carry everything I buy around. Tia then bought some fruit and we started walking back in the direction of the main part of town. She had me try this fruit that was white inside of a thick red skin. I had a taste and it tasted between a grape and kiwi and had seeds. It was actually pretty good and really sweet. We walked for a while and then came to a place that sold CDs, electronics, t-shirts, and some tourist things. Here, I bought a couple of CDs that were local to the area and looked around a bit. I thought they overcharged for the t-shirts so I went somewhere else for those. That actually ended up being our next stop, a stand that was out front of a main shopping center that sold T-shirts. I talked her down to 400 Baht (approx. $9) for three t-shirts, though I later found that she only gave me two of them. That kind of ticked me off. We then ate at Kentucky Fried Chicken where I got popcorn chicken, fries, and a soda all for 85 Baht (approx. $2). I still can't believe how cheap food was here.

After all of that, it was getting that time and we headed back to the bar strip. I hung out there for a while and then a little later headed back to my hotel because I knew that it would be more trouble than it was worth to keep it for the remaining two days. So, I asked a couple of people if they wanted to go back with me while I checked out, so I could have some company. The agreed, and we walked there and sat around and chatted for about 15 minutes while I packed everything up in my new backpack. We watched a couple of more music videos and then I checked out and we headed back to the bar strip for a while longer. I hung around for another couple of hours, observing the partying.

A lot of people were doing some heavy drinking since it was far cheaper here than it has been anywhere else we have been. It was running around the area of an American dollar for a bottle. People were running around wearing some funky looking things, like glasses that were too big for them, and these Thai type hats. One guy was wearing beer labels all over his bald head to keep track of how many he was drinking. As the night progressed, he became more and more covered. Girls were dancing around at various places around the area wearing pretty revealing clothing while others were sitting down at the bar playing games with us Navy guys. It was crowded for the whole time that I was there. It's definitely a party every night there. When it was approaching midnight, I decided it was time for me to depart because the next day was my duty day.

Day 4:

I only got about 4 hours of sleep, but I woke up more awake than I had been for quite some time. I got dressed up in my working white uniform, because the first thing I had to do this morning was work Shore Patrol, which just consists of walking around making sure no one is getting into trouble, and no trouble is forming. We're also out there in case some emergency comes up that we need to leave so we can gather up everyone from out boat so we can leave.

We did our usual morning muster, and then I was sent off the boat with a group of other guys from my boat, most of which I did not know, and put on a bus to go into the main town area. We got off, split into groups and began wandering around town with no particular destination. It didn't really matter though. My shift began at about 9:30am and lasted until 4:00pm. The town was basically shut down until noon though. Most of the shops were closed, and those that were open had basically no activity. Most of the bars that seemed like they never closed were empty except for a couple of workers that were using this dead time to clean up, and what a mess some of them had become over the course of the night. The streets were pretty much empty, but there were some people walking around, and traffic was still relatively heavy, though I don't know where everyone was going.

The most activity that I had while I was out on shore patrol was a report that Cregeen made that he thought he saw someone from the boat selling or buying drugs off one of the taxi drivers, which is highly likely considering the amount of drugs there are in Thailand. There are so many freely produced and distributed drugs about, that they won't even let us into a pharmacy. We cannot even enter it because some of their over-the-counter medicines are something we would need a prescription for to obtain in the US. Anyway, we went to check out the report, pulling the guy off to the side, and searching his bag. A small crowd tried to form around us, but one of the two Marines (there were two Marines and two Navy, and I was in charge) that were on my shore patrol team told them all to back off. It only lasted about five minutes, and we didn't find anything in his bag, so we did some apologizing, as well as Cregeen who made the report and stuck around to see the outcome or if he was further needed. There were no hard feelings and we all continued on our way. The only other activity was an English girl who came up to ask us if we ironed our own uniforms. She had a $50 bet with her "mum" that we didn't iron our uniforms. She was a little disappointed when we told her that we did, because she was out 50 bucks. But then she took a quick picture with all of us and then took off down the road. The rest of the time we just wandered around. We did stop for lunch at one of the restaurants for lunch where I had chicken curry, and man was it spicy. I couldn't finish it all it was so spicy. Then for desert we had a banana split. After lunch, activity had picked up a bit, the shops were open and more people were wandering around, but still not activities that we had to be especially observant of. The last couple of hours we spent ducking into some of the stores that had air conditioning to cool off. Then we were called back at 3:30pm so our relief could take over and we could come back to the boat.

After I got back to the boat, I messed around for a while and then tried to get some sleep because I had another watch later that night. I hopped into my rack and laid there for about half an hour and realized I wasn't getting anywhere in the sleep department, so I got up to do something a little more productive, though what I did wasn't productive at all. All I did was go back to my shop and play some video games and watch TV. Then 1:00am came around and I had to go down for my second watch.

My second watch was more eventful. What we did was accompany a speedboat to and from the boat, to show that we were friendly and just dropping off or picking up personnel. During the night, we waved around a glow stick and come morning we flashed a card. But the beginning of the night was rather exciting. The first thing I noticed when we got to the pier was a whole lot of people that were standing around waiting. We didn't really know what was going on, and somehow I ended up starting to assist the Ensign that was in charge on the pier. I believe it was because he approached me saying what was going on. Most of the people standing around on the pier (which was about 70 - 100 people) were waiting for a ride out to the Harper's Ferry, another boat in our battle group. The Harper's Ferry wasn't communicating as to the reason they stopped the speedboats from going out there. All we could do was draw a conclusion that the waves were too big and they didn't want to chance bringing people in. But that theory did not hold water with me, because the water was quite calm at that time of night, and those people had been standing around out there for up to 3 hours already. The Ensign finally sent someone out to the Harper's Ferry to inquire as to what was going on. He was gone for a while, and he was about to send me out with the same task, but when we started out, the other boat was coming back. He came back and was all pissed off. He was a local who was in charge of all the boats that were running to and from our battle group boats. Basically, when he went out there to ask what the problem was, he was told, and I quote, "We're taking care of it, now get the fuck out of here before I kick your ass!" It isn't right for them to treat a local that way, especially when he was just trying to figure out what the problem was. All they had to do was give a reason why there were 100 people waiting for a ride out on the pier, and instead they threatened to "kick his ass". I would not have tolerated that answer; I don't care whom I would have been talking to.

After all that had been explained and sorted out, the Ensign and I came back to the Boxer to try to establish communications with the Harper's Ferry to find out exactly what was going on. So we hopped on a boat, which I then called the "Ensign's Gig" (you people that know about the Navy will get that little joke), and we came out here to the Boxer and had the Quarterdeck call over to the Harper's Ferry. They still were very vague as to what was going on, they just said that they were trying to take care of it, and they would call us back in 15 minutes. We stood around and waited, and sure enough, 10 minutes later they said they were lowering their brow and testing it out, they would call back if everything was all right. 3 minutes after that, they called and said to bring people over. So, we went back over to the pier and sorted things out to get people over to their boat as quickly as possible. By this time, it was already passed 3am. We even assisted by using some of the boats that were assigned to go out to the Boxer to make trips out to the Harper's Ferry, which was further out than we were. It was quite busy there for about half an hour until everyone had been transported over to their boat. There still never was a reason why they closed it in the first place. I never heard their first reason again about waves being too big for them. When I took a boat over and transferred some people, I asked the people standing on their brow, and they said they closed it because "it was going to rain", which just didn't hold water with me. Later, I heard another excuse that they told someone else, about how there was an undertow of some sort preventing them from being able to keep their brow steady. That was a better reason than they had given before, but why all the different excuses? Lack of communication? I personally think they were covering something up, but I can't prove that and never really will be able to, so I'm not worrying about it any further. At least it was something to do for the night.

The rest of the night went relatively quiet. I enjoyed taking the speedboats over and back as many times as I could. I really enjoyed looking up at the stars with the wind blowing passed me. It actually felt like I was on a boat, as opposed to when I am on this one because it so steady in the water due to its size. The activity didn't really pick up until the sun started coming up though. Most of the people that came back to the boat during my shift from 1am to 7am came back between 5:00 and 6:00. We were trying to figure out why there was such a rush of people coming back from town this early in the morning, but we drew our own conclusions, made a couple of jokes, and just left it at that. I asked the Ensign if I could leave early, at around 6:45 so that I could try to make my tour, because it started at 8:30, and with a half hour to change and a 45 minute bus ride, I was cutting it kind of close as it was. He okayed it, and I went back to the boat at around 7:00am to start my next day without getting any sleep in between.

Day 5:

I came back to the boat, got changed, grabbed everything I needed real quick, got a speedboat back to the pier and was on a bus to town by 7:30. I got to where I was supposed to be with 10 minutes to spare, so I went into Starbucks, which was right next door, to get a cup of coffee. I needed all the help I could get waking up after being up for 24 hours straight. Somehow, I had no problems staying awake during the tour either. Which was good, because it was actually a decent tour.

We all got on a bus that had a really good air conditioning system in it, which was a relief from the hot sun that came down on us during the entire tour. The bus carried us south as our tour guide, Ek, began his little talk of things about Thailand. The first thing he taught us was the correct pronunciation of Phuket, which is Poo Ket, and it is actually two words and not just one. I couldn't quite figure that one out, but all the words here run together and it just looks like a line of funny characters to me. I don't know how they distinguish words from each other. The tour guide went on to explain to us what Phuket actually stood for. He went into detail about it, but what it means is basically is "Mountain of Jewels" or "Mountain of Crystal". They used to do a lot of mining in this area, but have since stopped most of that operation. Their big resource used to be Tin. Now the main jewel that they make is actually the pearl. They have pearl farms on the opposite side of the island from where I was. Their largest resource now is rubber. All over the island you can see rubber trees, and underneath a lot of those you can see other plants growing. Basically, this is because the rubber trees won't produce the sap to make the rubber until 7 years after they are planted. So, while the trees are growing, they plant pineapple underneath to grow to fund their operation until the rubber trees can take their place, at which point there is no room for the pineapple to grow anyway. Quite a good idea I thought. The other things that Ek taught us was how to say Hello in Thai, which is "Sow bad de com" for men or "Sow bad de ca" for women.

Our first stop was one of the farms in the area. Actually, it was somewhat of a special farm. A couple purchased it in the past, and now their entire family lives on the land, and some work on the land while others go out to work. One of them was actually one of the local police officers. This place had a lot of things going on with it though. The first thing we saw was the man who originally purchased the land, working hard out in the field at 80+ years old. He had many tattoos, because people here believe that tattoos help ward away evil spirits. We all met him, took some pictures, and then went to a shaded area where there was a ring. Here, we were shown one of the sports of Thailand, cock fighting.

Cock fighting is when they put two roosters in a ring and let them fight one another. They remove talons from the back of their feet so that they cannot kill each other, because that is actually illegal in this country. They may fight, but they may not kill one another. We watched as they first cleaned them off and cleaned their throats to prevent injury and death during the fight. Then they set up this unique timing device to time the round. It was a small bowl with a whole on the bottom put into a glass car. The bowl slowly filled with water and the bowl sank. When the bowl hit the bottom of the jar, the round was over. So, they placed the bowl in the jar and let the roosters loose. They danced around each other for a while before either of them struck. It was strange seeing a rooster that actually looked agitated and ready to battle. They flew out of the ring a couple of times, and were brought right back in. Their main attack seemed to be flying up and landing on the other. About 3 minutes of this went on before the timer expired. We were only shown one round. They said that the winner was determined when the other rooster just started running around the ring.

They took the roosters away and then showed us some Siamese fighting fish. They were all in jars lined up on a shelf. Some of them had cards between the jars so they couldn't see the jar next to them. It was explained that males fought other males for territory, and if they even saw each other, they would try to battle each other and kill themselves running into and trying to bite at the glass of the jar. The jars that didn't have cards between them were males and females. We were told that the female species of this fish could get pregnant just by the male making eye contact with her. She gets pregnant and lays her eggs that they transfer to the male's jar, and he fertilizes the egg. They then let the father raise the fish, because the mother would kill them. They showed us a round of two of the males fighting, which really wasn't much activity. We were told it was more of a wet season sport, and when done in the dry season, which it is right now, it could go on for hours before one of the fish would give up. They did lock together once, and had to be forced apart from each other. Again, the winner would be declared by a fish swimming around in the jar and no longer fighting.

We then walked over to a different area of this farm and shown different species of monkeys. The first one we saw was more of an arrogating that was about 50 - 60 years old. These monkeys can live as long as a human. She definitely didn't have oomph in her anymore though. They just gave her a leaf to eat, which she gladly accepted. We then were shown to a different monkey that was young and jumped around a lot. Where the grandma monkey (the first one) did understand some commands, this one wasn't trained to do anything yet. We could get close to these monkeys, but couldn't touch them because they weren't "people trained". It was nice to be able to get close enough to take a picture though. The third monkey was a wild one, one that had even bitten his owner. They had him all caged up and said they only owned him for show. The fourth monkey we were shown actually had a job on the farm, like all the monkeys have at one time or another. His job was just to run up trees and to pick the coconuts off and throw them to the ground. He can pick up to 800 coconuts in a day. The put him on a leash, sent him up a tree, and showed us what he could do. He picked about 8 coconuts in less than 2 minutes. It was actually pretty neat to watch.

After the monkeys, we walked back to where we entered the farm where they had a cart tied up to a water buffalo for a water buffalo ride. We all got on the cart and the buffalo pulled us about a quarter of a mile and back again. It was a slow ride, but quite an experience. I had never seen a water buffalo before as it was, but they sure must be strong to pull 9 of us up a hill. It was only one water buffalo tied to this cart. There was one point where we thought we were going to tip over, but everything was under control, it was just the awkwardness of the dirt road. After the ride, they took us into a shack of theirs to drink some cool sodas and cool off for a while. There, we all just talked for a while about Phuket. Ek told us that they didn't raise prices when we came in, but it sure did seem that way. Especially the way the hagglers started so high at the beginning of the week and kept coming down as the week continued. I guess that was just the hagglers though. I could see the actual commercial markets keeping the same price, but I could also see them raising the price of alcohol since that is really what we are known for.

After cooling off for a while, we all got back on the bus and continued on to one of the more popular temples of Thailand. There, they explained the whole Buddhist religion to us, and how there is a meaning for everyone's life based on the year you were born, what month you were born, and even what week you were born. I learned that in the Buddhist religion, the year I was born (of the snake) says that I keep a lot of emotion and things to myself, which is true. The month that I was born in, specifically the stone (diamond), represented innocence. The day of the week I was born (Sunday) represents that I am a leader. I don't really see the leader part, but many people in my life have told me that I would make a great leader if I tried. I don't know. No one has really listened to me the way they would a leader. Maybe someday in the future things will be different. I walked around the temple for a while looking at all the decorations and colors. The temple also had a story behind it, of two women who dressed up and acted as men to help win their country after their father died. The temple we were at was actually a training ground that they used. The two women is basically the national representation of the country as well.

After the temple, we went to what is known as "the big house", which is a mansion of Thailand. It was built in 1904 by people that came from China. It is still owned by the same family line, and parts of movies have been filmed at this house. The movies we were told that were filmed here were "Young Indiana Jones", "Heaven and Earth", and "The Killing Field". I have not seen any of these movies, so I couldn't place what part of the movie was filmed here, though they said in "The Killing Field" it was an embassy. The house was very nice. It had an English exterior with a Chinese interior. The price of everything inside was extreme. The owner told us that he had to repair three support beams in the ceiling that cost him 3000 Baht each, and took time to bring in because they had to be shipped from another country. He lives upstairs, while the downstairs is more of a tourist place. One thing I really liked about it was the indoor well and a pond that was in the dining room. Above the pond, it opened up to the outside. It is a sort of natural air conditioner. It brings a breeze in that blows through the house. Quite a good idea I thought. After looking around here for a while, we sat down and had tea and cake. A little more talking took place, and then he took us back to where we started, marking the end of the tour.

The rest of the evening I spent walking around buying some last minute souvenirs, and then went to the bar strip for one last night out. I drank mostly water, listened to the American music, and talked with friends for the remainder of the night. At about 9:00pm, it was time for me to leave. On our way back to the buses is when it started to rain outside and not just a gentle rain either; it was a downpour, a storm with some thunder and lighting, but a lot of rain. I could only imagine what this place is like during the wet season.

There were other events of the night, but I have to leave some surprises. Write me if you have any questions.

Social Life:

This is a party town. Plain, flat out, party town. The main thing around here for tourists is alcohol and prostitutes. This has to be the only country where you can easily get laid if you really wanted to. For the right amount of money, you could have any girl you wanted. Massages aren't just rubbing down your body around here. Even some of the bar maids are there specifically to go home with you for the right amount of money. I don't know much more about the social life of these people, since the only area we were really in was partyville. Although it seems like everyone should live in poverty, everyone seemed to be well fed, and I didn't see one person who seemed like they were homeless. I don't know what the cost of living is around here, but it can't be much. Most homes are just a basic room and a bathroom which is basic itself. That makes this an easy place to be able to live and be stable, but the question really would be... would you want to live here. I'm sure the locals don't mind, but being from America, I don't think I would do very well here.

Overall Impression: