Introduction to Pattaya, Thailand

The night before we landed, we were given a medical brief, as well as a brief of what we'll be expecting in Thailand.

The medical brief was interesting, it told us not to buy food and drinks from the street(which we later found out why), not to eat shelled seafood(for obvious reasons, sometimes when they didn't cook the seafood enough its enough to cause a stomachache in the least, food poisoning at the worse), and then the STD section began.

Whew, that was really educational. I've seen pictures that i don't want to see in real life. Ever. Also learnt that a double condom is actually worse than a single one, because the rubber contact with rubber makes tearing much easier. Bet you didn't know that~

Turns out Pattaya is a resort island, and beach activities seem to be the front of all the activities. However, there were also other fun places to check out, examples include MiniSiam(where there are many minatures of buildings from the oprah sydney house to the white house), Tiffany's where men and women cross dress and put on a really wonderful show(i'm told)below Tiffany's was a shooting range that i really wanted to check out, and there's also a gay street bar, and a gay beach. The coxswain asked us to check it out, see what its really like.

I wanted to check out all of the above, but ended up i didn't. My group didn't go to all these places.. pity..~

On to the first day..~

The trip To Pattaya

I was tasked to be on duty for the first day, so i woke up at 5:30, woke the other chef up, and we prepared breakfast. I made coffee, he cooked some eggs, and some other stuff. I don't remember much.

But what i do remember is that i washed a lot a lot of crockery and utensils... i've never washed so much in my life as compared to that single day.

On one of the days i helped made some prata, and i made tea too.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but i don't really want to go into every detail..

In my spare time i finished 1 1/2 books, finished watching the movies/animes i brought in my PSP, and played a lot of games, not to mention reading Men's health, and some late night shows that Eugene brought.

I watched "The Girl Next Door" on one of the nights at the Gym, and also quite a lot of episodes of "Whose line is it anyways?" where i was first exposed to. I must say, i've never laughed so much in my life... in fact, i laughed so much my head hurt. beh.

And that sums up the 4 days of sailing to Pattaya. I mean really.

Next, to the 3 days of holidaying at Pattaya, Thailand~

I'm back!

I must say, its been a really long time, and i'm glad to be back~ (Not back in Sg, more like back to the blogging scene.. haha.)

Okay, for everyone or anyone who didn't know, i sailed to Pattaya from the 6th of Feb to the 16th... and it was a really eventful trip. okay, for a close-up on the sailing trip, here we go..~

For the first day, the 6th, me and eugene, the medics for the trip, basically just helped out with the loading of ammo, weapons(just a few) into the ship, then i used the crane and helped load the food stores.

Somehow, the chefs decided to enlist us into their company since they were a bit shorthanded, and hence we became assistant chefs~ Basically we just partner with the other ns-men chef and take one of the 3 days to sail there, so work 1 day, 2 off days.. sorta.

We still had some time before we actually sail off at night, so we had our lunch at the canteen, and actually played a bit of pool at the specialist mess. I must say, i've never been inside, and it looks pretty good, but its too empty. And other than a pool table and some newspapers there's nothing. Sheesh. Not like i'll be going there much but still.. *shrugs*

okay, for a laydown of the ship, we're travelling in the MV Avatar, a merchant vessel, and its a really big ship. 7 Levels in all, Eugene and i share a room on the 3rd level, which is just beside the Gym, which happens to be beside the medical centre.

The room is relatively big, compared to the other ships i have sailed on. About the size of 6 toilet cubicles? haha, and there's an inbuilt toilet as well. The room had 4 beds, and there was supposed to be an Ns-men bunking with us, but somehow i guess he deferred, so its 2 of us to 4 beds. Woohoo!

The crew mess where we have our meals is on the 4th floor, same as the chefs' bunks. The officers bunk on the 5th floor, and the 'control' room is on the 7th floor, the deck.

For this ship, the Avatar crew itself consists of maybe around 14 russians including engineers, chefs, etc. They also have a 'washing' service. Every Tues, Thurs and Sat from 1900 onwards, we put our dirty clothes (minus underwear and socks) on the basket and they'll wash it. The next day when we wake up in the morning our clothes will be clean and folded neatly on the basket.

For us, our primary job is to provide medical cover when they're doing anything hazardous or when they want to report sick, so we do get a lot of free time. But since we're attached to the kitchen, our free time just decreased by more than 40%, but still its quite an experience.