This will be a short one, because days 4-6 mostly seem to involve sleeping ;-) We're definitely still playing catch-up, but it's nice that we've got this downtime at the start to make sure we're ready for the rest of the trip. It's fair to say though that we're not getting value for money from the free breakfast provided by the hotel!
The winds have been pretty bad from the north, really chopping up the water, so we've decided not to dive again in Pattaya until we return just before Christmas. Wayne took us on a trip out of Pattaya, to Nongnooch Gardens, which are about 20 miles south of Pattaya. Fortunately we discovered a friendly songthaew driver who took the other passengers on a minor detour (a couple of miles!) from the main road to deliver us directly to the door of the place, and all for less than 40 baht each (though Wayne did overhear him on the phone to the Gardens, I'm guessing the 20% incentive for delivering passengers might have helped!) Beautiful place though with some genuinely spectacular (and also some genuinely unusual) garden areas - very tranquil, and a massive juxtaposition with Pattaya. Marred somewhat though, by the entirely unnecessary elephant show (avoided) and chained up tiger cubs ready for photo ops ("just 50 baht" - seriously...) Given the above, the unpleasantness that is ignorant Russian tourists is almost forgivable, though I'm not sure the "butterfly house" with 6 butterflies was ;-)
Had a great couple of nights out with Wayne and Nok (including a ridiculously good Mexican in Jomtien), and they (mostly Nok) sorted out our bus to Poipet at the Cambodian border, which Linda was slightly concerned about given we hadn't got anything sorted! Turns out the flooding has receded and there are no problems with the roads, but there are no easily accesible public buses so we've bought a couple of seats on a "visa run" minibus to the border (to be continued...)
