Saturday Night -- Pattaya Walking Street

How very Thailand of you, Thailand. We stayed Saturday evening in Si Racha so Bridget could see the park aerobics and the bridge bumpers (not yet blogged about these guys, will come with photos. they are absolutely awesome!), and then headed off to Pattaya around 8 pm. Just far enough out of town, yet still nowhere near Pattaya, we got a flat tire. My first. Realizing in no way could we continue to drive it, we found a service station and started to figure out how we were going to fix the problem. After a lot of misunderstandings and negotiation, we continued down the road to find a man who looked like he might help us, and we were right.

Not entirely understanding what he was offering us, we agreed to go with the flow. Awesomely, the plan turned out to be loading the bike in the back of a tuk-tuk (fantastic!), and following behind in this nice man's car. They drove us all the way back to Si Racha, where the tuk-tuk driver's motorbike taxi driving friend fixed us up right quick after hours. This man not only drove us, he waited with us until the bike was good to go, and he offered to pay (we, of course, politely declined). There are several people in Thailand with very good hearts who want nothing more than to help, you just have to know where to find them. We were very lucky in some sense, but, before we had any help at all, we knew we would be lucky, because we knew what to look for and were able to find it. It was an excellent way to start the evening and put us in Pattaya at a much more reasonable time, rolling into town around 11.

Our nice new friend and the tuk tuk driver loading up the bike. 

Tee-hee. Something I've never seen before, and I really enjoyed it. 

Our view from the car. We were rolling laughing the entire time. So ridiculous to see my bike in such a state. I can't believe it didn't fall out!! 

Wowza. It was seriously, seriously blown. Lucky they were able to fix it immediately.

Watching and waiting. This was the first of two flat tires over the weekend, just fyi. I guess two months is about their max.

Walking street at night. There are several other images I have on facebook, none of which are appropriate in any way. I've never seen any place like this, and I can only hope I never do again. It's amazing the bubble some people live in, just trapped. And it's even more amazing the people who choose to have this life. With all our faults, we are so blessed not to be thrown into this kind of life or forced to choose between our morals and putting food on the table. Many of the women are here because it helps them to support their families. And, to be fair, many of the women here are actually men (or used to be). Stupid stupid unsuspecting farang men..

Bob Marley, Che Guevara, and a Texas Longhorn (Native American included?!). Apparently, we're pretty up there as far as the icons go. I dig it.