A Heaven of Sorts...

Day 1: Pattaya, Thailand.
Happy Family with a Touch of Animal Wildness and the Transgendered Men.

At the Sriracha Tiger and Crocodile Zoo.

The zoo attempts to create a happy family of animals, where the baby tiger feeds on the milk of a mother pig together with the piglets. (Looked sort of weird to me, though.)

My family and I together with a tiger and its trainer from Kenya, Africa.

Well, this was a first - Pig Racing.

Tigers standing vertically like humans???

Is it stupid or courageous to place your head in the sharp jaws of a vicious crocodile? (This is no tame pet crocodile. It does snaps its jaws.)

At the artificial Pattaya Floating Market.

We went to watch the 'ah-Gua' (Alcazar) show which is quite common and popular in Thailand. This is actually a man who underwent trans-gender surgery.

The grand finale. Oddly, I did enjoy the show. The stage and scene designs were spectacular. The singing and dancing by Alcazars were not bad at all. (RM 70 for entrance ticket)

People lining up to take a snapshot with the Alcazars.

Fine dining of Thai cuisine at a nearby restaurant after the show.

Spicy and sour seafood soup.

After dinner, we went for a late-night walk near our hotel. Pattaya is infested with hundreds of stripper clubs as shown in this photograph, most of which are bathed in pink fluorescent lights. The stools at the bar are seated by hookers looking for customers. Their target group is usually Caucasian males.

Day 2: Pattaya, Thailand.
Water Sports, Elephant Tricks and the Ultimate Sexual Heaven.

Getting ready for a parachute ride. The sight of me parachuting is too far for camera lens, but the ride was a total exhilaration. I was suspended in the big blue sky! (A few seconds later, the exhilaration worn off, and I wanted more excitement although I was already hanging in the sky. I think I might have turned into an adrenaline junkie because I half-hoped that I would plummet into the sea below.)

Yan tried to pose sexy and give off the rich-boy aura in front of the camera lens.

Mum, Yan and I went banana-boating. Jun and Dad were left on the shore (cowards!). The driver was totally evil. He tried to topple us off several times and became frustrated when we maintained our stability. He got frustrated and went for more aggressive sharp-turns.

Trudging back to the shore after our evil driver toppled us off from the banana boat. He can't park the boat gently near the shore and let us off, no, because he's evil. He made a sharp turn and we were thrown off the boat with splendid momentum. We ended up drinking salt water. Hmph.


My brothers were jealous as I ate the final piece of barbecued chicken.

Sipping coconut water at the beach side stalls.

Swam in the sea while scanning for hot Caucasian guys. Sadly, the selection here was extremely weak. (Pulau Perhentian was the best place for eye-candy!) There was simply no guys with six packs to be found. Only in sight were balding men with beer stomachs. discussing with abnormal enthusiasm about the saltiness of the sea water.

White tom-yam soup mixed with coconut milk, known as tom-kar. An absolute favorite of mine!

Um, this is a sight you don't see every day - Elephants riding tricycles.

An elephant playing volleyball. Like the tigers before, it could stand vertically on its two feet, just like humans.

Mum sitting on the elephants' trunks, like on a swing. I stubbornly refused to do so because I'm terrified of elephants after the article I read about on the newspaper a few months ago. Apparently, a zookeeper died from suffocation after feeding a constipated elephant laxatives. He was standing too close to the elephant's anus for observation and ended up flooded with the elephant's huge load of faeces. He was covered from head to toe, the poor guy, and couldn't breathe. I'm guessing he died of suffocation at the end because no one dared to pull him out of the faeces. What a devastating way to die. (This is no joke. It was titled Bizarre Death of the Week in Nanyang Xiang Pao).

At the top floor of the A-One Hotel, overlooking the sea.

The A-One Hotel is shaped exactly like a cruise ship. The night view from the deck was absolutely beautiful.

Went for sight-seeing and search for a good place for dinner. Photograph taken in front of Hard Rock Cafe.

Well, my dream Christmas involves a white Christmas at Rockefeller Centre, New York City, but this will just have to do for the time being.

A sneak peek at our dessert. Guess which flavor I chose?

Dinner at the Jumbo Cafe. I had Spicy Thai-Style Spaghetti with beef, and Double Chocolate ice-cream for dessert.

This is a classy open-air restaurant near our cafe. The scenery is truly stunning. It is really unfortunate we could not afford to eat here, as this restaurant is flooded with gorgeous Europeans.

Yan is annoyed at Dad for interrupting his delicious dinner for a photograph.

When I passed by a number of Cocktail Cars as such, I longed to have a taste of martini or vodka, and especially the Bloody Mary.

Yan is blocking me!

I am standing on the famous Walker Street - The Ultimate Sexual Heaven. Walker Street mainly consists of seafood restaurants, but mostly, stripper clubs. Hundreds of hookers can be found on this street, wearing the sexiest outfits to lure in European customers.

Sexy Christmas outfits for sale.

Thai hookers luring customers into their stripper clubs.

From here, the hooker and her customer will either enter a stripper club, go for a seafood dinner or search for a short-time motel. You could still see hookers in the background.

Another snapshot of Walker Street. (The later the night gets, the merrier the crowd would be.)

Showing price boards for entry into their stripper club. The strippers in Thailand are known as Go-Go girls. When a customer entered the club through the curtains, I unintentionally caught a glimpse of naked flesh twisted around a stripper pole.

A chef demonstrating his culinary skills in front of an entranced audience.

We went back to the hotel around 2230. My parents sneaked out and entered a stripper club nearby (my Mum was the only woman in the club), while my brothers and I watched Bangkok Dangerous on Star Movies. Dad later claimed that the stripper show was lousy, and the strippers were hideous (obviously, Dad would say that in front of Mum).

Day 3: Bangkok, Thailand.
A Wildlife Heaven in Safari World, Food Paradise in Suan Lun Night Bazaar and a Splendid Night View at Baiyoke Sky Hotel (the tallest building in Thailand).

With the mascot at Safari World, after a 2 hour drive from Pattaya to Bangkok. (Yan claimed that the mascot was gay because the mascot placed his hand around Yan's waist instead of on his shoulder.)

My parents looking very silly with the mascot.

Sea lion tricks. (Nothing I haven't seen before, but it was fairly good.)

A cowboy stunt show which I couldn't comprehend at all due to the Thai language medium. However, the stunts were amazing (even hilarious at times) with great sound effects.

Contemplating the Safari World map while having lunch at the Jungle Cuisine Restaurant.

The dolphin tricks were completely unoriginal.

War Spy stunt show, sort of a James Bond thing. Again, it was conducted in Thai language, and I was starting to get annoyed at my incomprehension. The explosions were really cool, though, and I could feel the heat from the fire even this far away.

We then went for a ride through the Safari Park, looking at the wildlife. We were not allowed to open any windows or doors, but remain seated in our van. This is for safety reasons as the animals roam freely without restrictions (including tigers, lions and bears). Anyway, I'm not too hot about wildlife (they stink), so I'll just skip this part.