Lipe @ night – The other side of the beach, reggae bar and jam session at a restaurant

Tonight we are going for dinner at the beach at the other side of the island. Sounds far away, but as the island is not that big, it's a 10 minutes walk ... well, 20 minutes with 23 people, some of them already a little tipsy...

The other side of the island is even more quiet, so it kind of feels like we are the only people there. The restaurant is right at the beach and – again – it has a bunch of things to chose from. So our corner of the table makes the best decision you can make: Share the food. So everyone picks an order, and we all got to try it. So there is some curry stuff, some sweet and sour, some shrimp stuff and fish.

I do not like anything that comes out of the sea, but this way, I can at least try it here. Because usually fish tastes better in countries like this. So I peel my first shrimp ever out of his "skin" (I always wanted to do that :) ) I end up, still not wanting to eat a whole plate of fish or shrimp myself, but not feeling disgusted by it as I usually do. So that's my way of saying the sea-stuff is pretty good here. ;)
Some guys even eat the eye of the fish ... well ... that's gross ... even if it is said to be delicious ...

We are making our way back to Pattaya beach to go to a reggae bar. It's nice. Sitting on blankets right at the beach having some beer. Some others are having smokes... 

Corn, Klaus, Freddie, Nicole and Tiff hanging out at that reggae bar

Tiff, Dave and Kiesh chilling on the blanket

At some point, I am getting hungry. So I decide to check on the minimart for chips. Tiff is joining in and as soon as we have them, we think of looking for our group leaders Ben and Bertus that we lost on our way back to our beach from the restaurant.

We find them at Pooh's Bar. But they are ready to leave. So we make our way back to the others "Bertus-style" ... which means to stop at pretty much every place where there are some locals hanging out, or drinking beer and especially when there are some instruments around.
I have to admit, one of the stops is Tiffs and my wish. In one bar there is some guy playing local songs on his guitar, so we jump in. And soon Ben and Bertus are holding the instruments in their hands... they are trying hard to make me play the violin they got here...

Tiff singing along with Ben and the guitar

Listening to Bertus playing with one of the locals

Finally I am giving up on rejecting even though I can not play one song out of my mind. But when I hear the first tunes from that pretty instrument it's awful...and I do not dare tuning it, as the strings are pretty rotten already. So I get out this time... :) But I am really amazed how the local guy does still play it along with the guitar. I would never dare. I mean, it still does not sound like it should, but somehow it is not that bad the way he is using it to play along... weird.

The local guy playing the out-of-tune-violin :)

When we finally go back to the reggae bar, the last ones are leaving...