Thailand, Day 1

As a note, this trip is in three posts so if the next one doesn't show up, just go back in the archive. They're in order.

Well, it’s my first day out in Thailand and nothing has gone right. My first night here I was planning to head out in Pattaya with someone I was looking forward to getting to know more about. Unfortunately, we never finalized plans so they went with their friends. Oh well, maybe next time. Instead I went through my bead magazines and decided on my next project. I’m gonna remake a piece I left home since it was so delicate but I’ll make it slightly differently. I haven’t decided how yet, maybe a different color scheme or a pendant inside the webbing. I’m not sure but I don’t need two necklaces the same color and design. I haven’t really done any good jewelry since I got out here, even though I continually buy beads and pendants.
Before I start on my delightful day, I should explain that my job requires all of us to go out by twos in each place we go. Well, I basically have two “buddies” at the moment and they never go out together so I can only go out with one at a time. I go out with the one I work with and I wind up going out with too many of her coworkers (which are technically mine too but I’m rarely in that space these days so I don’t really know them and what I do know isn’t very inspiring, not that I’ve looked too hard). Those guys seem to have no friends outside work so my buddy winds up making plans with them and would prefer it if I came along so she’s not the only girl in the group. When I hang out with my other buddy, I leave my coworker alone with them or on the internet at work all day and I feel guilty. I wound up leaving her to them for the whole Hong Kong trip and although I had fun with a friend I’d like to hang out with more, they barely went anywhere except to get food she wasn’t really thrilled with. She never saw any of the attractions because the guys didn’t want to. Needless to say, I hang out with my coworker a lot lately. When I hang out with my other buddy, it’s usually one on one and we go shopping and eating American stuff. I have fun with both of them but was really hoping the outing the first night would work so I could have another person to hang out with, someone kinda different and that my buddies couldn’t really be angry about.
Anyways, I had plans with my coworker to get a suite in a hotel with two of her coworkers for cheap (hotels are cheap here for good stuff but it’s still cheaper to go in groups than to pay full price). I only agreed because it was a twenty dollar a night payment for two bedrooms, a kitchenette, lounge, and bathroom. Sounds like a really good deal and I’d never have to see the guys as me and the girl could do our own stuff and the boys would be in the other closed off bedroom. If they got annoying (and one of them is REALLY annoying) I could go to our room, close the door, and not be bothered by them. That’s how it should have worked.
She decided she didn’t want to come back to where I was staying so I could leave my place with my buddy so I pretended I was buddied up with a bunch of guys I work with that are really funny and we left on the bus to Pattaya. As we passed an over thirty minute ride passing what I think was the worst extended stretch of third world country I’ve seen yet, I realized exactly why they say anything can be had in Thailand for enough money, and I do mean ANYTHING. Anyways, we arrived near the end of their New Year’s celebration (today is the last day) and the way they celebrate is to douse every passerby in water using anything from water guns to Super Soakers to hoses to buckets or pails filled from barrels of water they congrate around or mount on pickup trucks to travel with and they pat paste on faces, especially female faces. Well, my coworker went through that the first day and they soaked her computer and all her clothes so she wasn’t going to meet me. Understandable, I’d just put my stuff in a trash bag inside my backpack and walk the few blocks she showed me on a map from the bus stop. Easy plan, right? Wait and see.
Anyways, the bus stopped at Hard Rock Café so I went with guys for brunch (15 bucks and awesome orange juice. Hmmm…) then they took a taxi to their place and I started walking. The hotel that was supposed to be a few blocks away was nowhere to be found and I was drenched and stuff was coating my cheeks. I was in such a good mood when I finally headed back to the Hard Rock for a taxi. Turns out taxis are rare commodities on holidays when traffic is sporadic. Half hour later I was willing to try again, trying another way to the street. Maybe the hotel could only be reached by one road, not the main road. Another half hour later my fake smile is now a constant conscious effort as streams of water hit me, some cold, some warm, from all directions, including moving vehicles, I’m getting buckets of water poured over my shoulders and head, and strangers are patting me on the face with paste that doesn’t have time to harden before the next person pats me.
It’s now two days later and I’m not as frustrated. My computer died and I never got back to the hotel to finish writing this yesterday so you may see a slight change in mood but I’ll try to keep it detailed.
Where was I? Oh yes, the second walk to the hotel. I walked until the road turned and I saw that it was much longer than it looked on the map. I stood there for a moment before giving up and walking back through the drenched and drenching crowds with my fake smile painfully in place and headed back to the Hard Rock. I got there feeling like something the cat dragged in and told the attendant with a little humor that I would wait for a taxi. Hoping that no one I knew was around, I sat down on the stairs to wait. At least twenty minutes later a taxi finally pulled up but by then there were three groups waiting and we’d all realized that taxis were really rare so although I was next in line, the other two were trying to figure out who got the taxi and how we could all use the one. Too bad we were all going in separate directions. Finally the third group backed down and decided to wait so I would get dropped off at my hotel and the second group would then take the taxi back to our work which in that traffic would be a few hours away. (Normal traffic put it at a little over 45 minutes.) The taxi driver wound up going all the way outside of the town to take roads back to the street I’d walked to. Turns out my hotel was about another half mile beyond where I’d turned around. I finally got there to find out the hotel was a multi-building structure and our room was in the back building on the fourth floor. When I knocked on the door, my coworker greeted me with a smile. I thought she was smiling since she was happy to see me. Nope, it was an I-know-something-you-don’t-and-you-won’t-like-it smile. When I realized why she was smiling, it got bigger. They had decided to wait to check-in in person because they hadn’t wanted to fax a copy of their credit card. Perfectly understandable. However, by the time they got there, all the suites were gone so my coworker was sharing a room with the really annoying guy and the other guy had gotten his own room. The room was actually pretty nice. It had a king sized bed, a twin bed, a window nook that doubled as a bed if needed, a small kitchenette, and a nice bathroom. I got there and she had the twin bed and the guy (who to be fair was paying the most) was sleeping in the king bed with his Thai “girlfriend”. Luckily my coworker had yelled at the guy enough that he didn’t bother us at all on our visit. Needless to say, I was not in the mood to be around people when I got to the room so I changed into my swimsuit immediately (after I arranged what little had gotten wet to dry) and hurried down to the nearly empty pool. A few of the chairs had sunbathers in them but the only people that were actually there for the pool were a business man, his wife, and their quiet five or six year old. While I was in two sisters moved out of the sun to sit on the steps into the pool and talk quietly but all in all the area was quiet. I did maybe a half hour of slow water aerobics and swimming before I just laid my head back on the ledge between the baby area and adult area so my ears were in the water but my face wasn’t, closed my eyes, and just blocked out the world for another half hour or so. The only things that entered my head were those that originated there. Hmm…Heavenly. However, eventually a family with many kids came and put an end to the peace so I went upstairs and took a shower. When I came out my coworker was sleeping and the guy and his girlfriend were gone so I took my laptop out on the small porch (that was strewn with drying clothes from the last few days to which I added my swimsuit) and started this blog. I was out there until after twilight typing in the faint breeze as my hair dried until my computer died and I had trouble finding an open power switch. That out of the question now, I read a few more pages on my Kindle until my buddy woke up and we ordered room service and played on internet until we decided to go to sleep. I also finally called home, I hadn’t done that for over a week so that was cool. The next day should have been better.