IT'S NOT ALL WORK

As you can see, I have finally made it to the beach. Pattaya is about 100 miles or so from central Bangkok, and we took a bus trip down for the day last weekend.
I had been to Phuket before about six or seven years ago, but I have to say that central Pattaya is far different from the isolated, tropical Thai beach you might be thinking about. It's well and truly aimed at tourists, to the extent that most of the signs are in English, German and Russian. I probably saw more foreigners in one day than I have in the entire time I have been in Thailand so far.
The beach itself was very small - no more than about three meters wide when you take into account the three or four rows of deckchairs. We say in the shade, paid our 30 baht (about 50p) to sit on a deckchair and literally had the sea lapping at our feet.
Well, I can now add 'going for a paddle in mid-January' to some of the weird things I have done out here.