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The month began where the previous one left off, i.e. in the middle of the PGF charity weekend, and on December 1st, Pattaya staged it’s annual AIDS day parade.
This was a huge pageant involving many schools and organisations though out Pattaya, who combined to produce a spectacular parade of several thousand participants, complete with banners and floats that marched all the way down the beach road and back up Second road.
This started at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and must have taken about an hour to pass me - I was situated on the pavement just about halfway down. Unfortunately it was not possible to completely close the road to passing traffic, but efficient marshalling managed to keep the one-way flow well to the side of the marchers, even if it did somewhat get in the way of taking pictures.
Nevertheless I did manage a reasonable selection of shots, some of which are shown below.
The final night of the charity weekend took place the following evening with a street party in one of the small Sois (side streets) off Second Road that fortunately had this time been able to be completely closed off to vehicles.
 Most of the bars and clubs in this Soi laid out tables in the street and had waiters on hand to supply food and drink to the attendees.
Similar in format to the beach party a few days previously, a stage was set up at one end of the street, on which various cabaret acts entertained us, and on which once again the event concluded with the prize draw, for which again a large number of tickets had been sold, all again contributing to the total amount raised.
Another fun night out and the whole weekend was a very worthwhile marathon that raised a lot of money for a very needy cause, and great thanks must go to the sponsors and organisers for all the work put into it.
Just a few days later, December 5th was HM The King’s birthday - this being a very different sort of celebration, with all the civic dignitaries plus members of the public, both Thai and foreign, assembling early evening at the top end of Walking Street to pay tribute to His Majesty.
This year the pedestrianised area of Walking Street had been extended some way up beach road, and the stage on which portraits of the King were displayed and to which homage was to be paid was laid out parallel to the beach rather than across the top of the road as the previous year.
 This meant that those assembled could group themselves r ound the stage better, and it was easier to get a better view of the proceedings as representatives of the Civic authority, the Police, and various clubs, organisations and businesses took it in turn to present their tributes to the King.
Last to do this was Khun Pairat, the Mayor of the City of Pattaya, who also gave a speech (in.Thai of course), praising His Majesty.
After that all the assembled crowd lit the small candles they were carrying and joining in singing anthems and tribute songs to the King.
A very moving ceremony, after which there was a firework display and several boats in the bay lit up to display messages of greeting to the King.
After the very hectic calendar of the past few weeks, a few days rest was in order, but not for very long, as in order to give my car a much needed run out before it was due for its first annual service (it had only done just 2,500 miles and most of that in and around Pattaya), I decided in the company of a friend, Tim, from the bowling club, to take a one day trip to Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand, about 30 miles North of Bangkok.
There was no special reason that it had to be this location, it just seemed a reasonably distance to get there and back from in a single day.
So we set off from Pattaya around 9 AM and after a relatively easy journey, found ourselves on the outskirts of Bangkok just about an hour later.
Apart from the use of a hire car many years ago, I had no experience of driving through Bangkok, nor was I totally familiar with the route although I had a broad idea of where I should be going, but Tim fortunately had driven this way several times previously and so was able to navigate me through the various expressway interchanges without a hitch. Or rather without a major hitch - we did find ourselves stopped a couple of times by police stationed at the express toll way booths - the first time just to check my tax and insurance (all valid fortunately) but the second time on the way back, something of a mystery which resulted in having to pay a very small fine for some totally unknown offence (this is Thailand).
Anyway apart from this, the journey was without incident and comparatively smooth - I even came to the conclusion that driving through Bangkok was in many ways easier than Pattaya as the traffic seemed much more disciplined, but then I was only on the expressways and main highways, so perhaps it would be unfair to come to a definite conclusion based on this limited assessment.
 We reached our destination of Ayutthaya around Noon, i.e. a journey time of about 3 hours, not bad at all.
We only stayed briefly, and took some pictures at one of the major sites of the ruins of the ancient city (I had been here on tour parties a couple of times before), and then had a very satisfactory and much needed buffet lunch at a hotel in the town before setting off for home.
Again, apart from the aforementioned incident with the police, the journey back was without incident and very little difficulty and we found ourselves back in Pattaya around 5 PM - a useful journey done, and the car was duly serviced the next morning.
And that is December as up to the point of publishing this edition. Of course still to come is Christmas, which although not an official holiday in this predominately Buddhist country is still celebrated by Thais and foreigners alike, with the city and major stores being decked out with Christmas trees, Santas and all the other paraphernalia that goes to make a seasonal touch to the surroundings.
This year I will be having Christmas dinner at the Bowling Club where a good party is promised, and these and also the celebration of the coming of 2004, or 2547 in the local calendar, will hopefully be reported in the next edition of The Pattaya Otter Newsletter.
To view any of the above photos in full size, just click on it.
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