hanging out in pattaya

My visit to Pattaya got off to a bad start on Thursday. On reaching the city limits my bus knocked down a young woman riding a moped at a traffic junction. Luckily, she wasn't seriously hurt (she did cut open her hand though), and a police officer came over and sorted everyone out. We stopped in a layby for about 20 minutes while the girl was checked over, and the policeman took statements.

My first impression of Pattaya is that it's a hedonist paradise, and not a cheap hedonist paradise either. Pattaya seems to have been an early developer in Thai tourism, and sits now rather bloated by its small but attractive beach. You can't move an inch without being propositioned by a bar girl, or a conman ready to relieve you of your hard earned savings.

My trusty Lonely Planet had no suggestions on finding any budget accommodation here, suggesting instead that travellers just splurge on a nice hotel and put it down as a treat. I was about to take this advice when I noticed a cheap looking place, and an old woman calling, 'we have room, 200 baht.' This was music to my ears as I'd been almost resigned to paying at least 600. After a quick inspection I accepted her invitation. The hotel is called 'House Breeze' and I am inhabiting Room 022, which is decorated in a contemporary style (circa 1963). It's big and - bonus - has its own bathroom, a luxury to which I am increasingly unaccustomed. The double bed has a large blue blanket on it, in the middle of which is the yellowed outline of an iron left to sit too long.

Having unexpectedly saved several quid on my room I went out and blew it on an hour long Thai massage. I like Thai massage because it is based around acupuncture and the location of pressure points. It's also a pretty vigorous form of massage: your arms and legs get bent all over the place, and your back is bent and clicked.

Psychologically, it makes me feel I've got my money's worth if I get beaten really badly.

In the massage parlour they were playing traditional Thai South American pan pipe music, and later an album which I suspect must have been called 'Piano Moods.' I think one of the tracks on this album may have been the theme tune 'The Incredible Hulk.' The massage was very, very good.

I've also been to the cinema to see a subtitled Thai film called 'Koyteryeum' which I think means 'see how they run.' The best way I can describe it is a being a horror/comedy. The basic plot is that a ghost of an aborted foetus haunts the town of the monk who fathered then abandoned him.

It's a classic tale really: boy meets girl, girl gets pregnant, boy abandons girl, girl has an abortion, boy becomes a monk to seek redemption for his acts, ghost of aborted foetus comes back from the spirit world to haunt monk and the townspeople where he lives, monk confronts ghost, ghost reveals that he is the ghost of the monks aborted son (in front of every-bloody-one), monk hugs ghost, ghost says 'that's all I ever wanted Dad,' and ghost then returns to the spirit world. It's as simple as that.

The most strange bit is at the end of the film. After the dust has settled one character says to another 'at least we don't have to worry about any more ghosts of aborted children,' and as he says it about 50 appear hanging in a nearby tree. Everybody screams and then one of the foetus's runs at the screen and says to camera, 'think about these poor suckers next time before you have an abortion.' Then the film ends.

It sounds a bit odd granted, but apart from that tacked on bit of moralising at the end I thought it a good film worth watching.