Today was the day we left Bangkok again and this time headed out to Pattaya. Pattaya is located on the Gulf of Thailand approx 145 km south of Bangkok. After a 2 1/2 hour drive out of Bangkok we stopped shortly to hit a restroom. While there we popped into a mini-mart to pick up some TP for the bus (none of the bathrooms have toilet paper so bring your own) and some Thai cookies and candy. A quick trip up the road brought us to a Gem Factory. We got a tour of the plant showing us what they gems they look like in their raw form before cutting, the gem cutting demonstration, explaination of how the gems are mined in Thailand. The gems most mined here is the blue saphire, ruby, and jade. Their store was packed full of over 30,000 pieces of jewelry and loose stones. It's a jewelry shoppers paradise. And the prices.... really good. From here we went to a huge place called The Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens. About 30 min outside the city of Pattaya. Beautiful rock and oriental gardens. After a quick buffet lunch we attended their cultural dance show which had some beautiful costumes, great dance coreography including live elephants as a part of the show. Once it was over, we moved on next door to the open air theater for the live elephant show. They were so adorable. Playing soccer, basketball, darts, bowling, dancing, and painting. You could get a t-shirt or a poster painted by one of the elephants! This took up most of the day. We wish we had a little more time to be able to tour all the gardens. But we had another appointment for the afternoon and we had to get checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Nusa Playa Hotel and Spa on the 24th floor with balconies overlooking the Gulf of Thailand. What a georgeous sunset. The last thing for today was to get a traditional Thai massage. They put us all in one large room, we changed into a set of pajamas and got a great massage for 2 hours for $20! Wow! What a deal. We all will sleep great tonight! G-nite! Anna
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