[Paddy]

I've been meaning to write this FR for weeks. Thought it might give you a laugh....

I went to Patong for the last week in Oct and the first in Nov. We thought we might try the Valhalla Plaza, having seen their website and Bobby's pictures of the fun he had in the jacuzzi there. They have one in every room.

As it turned out, my mate couldn't come for the first week so I got there on my own. The Valhalla Plaza is a very strange place. The pix on the website don't really do justice to how bizarre it is. You can tell there's been more than a few outlandish episodes there, because the booklet in the room tells you the cost of replacing broken items, and it works all the way up from the ashtrays to the mattress and the telly. The manager was a nice guy. I felt sort of sorry for him. He seemed to have this grand vision of what the hotel should be like, and it obviously wasn't going quite according to plan.

When I got there, it was just before the start of high season. The hotel was empty and the heavy rains were just finishing. As a result of that, the rooms smelt really damp and musty. I'm honestly not a fussy type but there was no getting away from the smell - on the beds, in the air and especially on the pillows. Nasty. The fact that they're so dark you have to have all the lights on all the time, even at midday, didn't help. They're really small as well and half the precious floorspace is taken up by the famous jacuzzi.

The jacuzzi wasn't very clean. What was worse, it didn't drain away properly so there was a pool of stagnant water in it from the last time it had been used. Not very appetising. But I cleaned it up and, on the first night, gave it a go. It took about 20 minutes for it to fill deep enough to use the water jets. They were volcanically powerful when you turned them on, strong enough to literally throw you around in the water. A bit much really.

The next night, before going out, I thought I'd just have a nice long soak in a hot, deep bath, without all the pyrotechnics. As I was lying there, my finger found a little hole in the side of the bath and I absentmindedly put it in. I don't know why: it's just the sort of thing you do in a bath, like putting your toe in the tap. Anyway, I put my finger in - and it gave me an electric shock! I was out of there like a shot, wrapped myself in a towel and went to fetch the manager blokey. He didn't seem all that bothered. 'Oh yes,' he said, 'I keep meaning to put a notice up telling people not to put their fingers in the hole. It's not strong enough to kill you though.' So that was all right then.

The next night I went down to the Mai Thai and met Nicke and the girls. Nicke is a real gent. He makes you feel very welcome and does his level best to get you rat-****d, on all manner of weird concoctions. He certainly succeeded in my case. We knocked them back till closing time, then I headed for home with one of his lovely girls. (Very sorry, but I'm afraid I can't for the life of me remember her name.) Back at the VP, we had some fun then I asked her if she fancied a jacuzzi. She didn't even know what it was and my explanations didn't make it any clearer. 'Just try it,' I said. 'you'll love it'. All the time it was filling up, I was telling her how much she was going to enjoy it. Finally it was deep enough. I told her to get in with me, then I turned the handle....and the jets started to blast out this horrible stuff that was only a couple of steps away from raw sewage! There were shreds of toilet paper in it! I suppose it was because it had been raining so much; must have done something to the plumbing.

Anyway, for the first few moments, the poor girl just sat there, completely phased. She must have thought this was some strange, disgusting English perversion. But then the smell got so bad we had to get dressed as fast as we could, gagging and retching by now, and leg it. We went round to a bar in San sabai and sat there for a couple of hours till we reckoned the stench would have gone. Fair play to the girl - she was laughing as much as I was after half an hour and a couple more beers.

Next day, I moved to another hotel. I don't want to slag the VP off too much; like I say, the manager's a decent guy and there's no doubt at all you can have the wildest of wild times there. Just remember your wetsuit and your Harpic.