Day 3 - A day in Pattaya

Waking up early in the morning as the sunshine shone through the curtains, I decided to take a stroll before the tour starts in the afternoon. I found a little accessible gym on our level and a swimming pool, which is free for all guests. The gym has a small collection of well maintained machines, with towels and a water cooler free to use. Outside, the streets were quieter and the bars almost empty compared to what I saw last night.

In the afternoon we visited a fruit orchard where they served an 'all you can eat' fruit buffet with fruits that were in season, including pineapple, watermelon, bananas, grape fruit, guava and jujube

Just close by was  a museum about the history of the Opium Wars and the Golden Triangle (in particular Ban Hin Teuk, a little village in Northern Thailand). From what I've gotten from the short movie and small tour, it tells the story of a piece of Thailand that was involved in the Opium trade with 2 other places nearby in China and Burma. One of the ways they would try to smuggle the drug is by using a dead baby and hiding packets of opium in their guts...at least that's what I was told. Then there was this whole other affair of the war between Burma and this little area in Thailand, which Burma won in the end and took over. The warlord leader, Khun Sa, took defeat and left, and no one knows where he went and what happened to him until he died in 2007. There are a few huts around the museum to show how the people lived with actual villagers living there.

[Opium packets on display. Fakes I'm sure...]

 [naw look at that sleeping smiling doggy]

Alright so today wasn't really jam packed, I failed to mention a gem making factory and a silk store because it wasn't really that exciting and personally not really worthwhile mentioning. It's what you get for joining a cheap Asian tour...
So we'll skip along to dinner at Pattaya Park Tower. The restaurant is situated in the revolving part of the tower where it's once again a buffet amongst the scenery of Pattaya. Compared to yesterday it didn't have a wide selection of drinks, the cakes were dry, and the seafood crabs didn't have a lot of meat. Only good dish worth going for seconds and thirds was the chicken curry. The tower revolves around full cycle in 1 hour.