Far from hitting the bars and fleshpots of the Thai beach resort of Pattaya, in their first hours onshore most of the nearly 5,000 sailors from the USS Abraham Lincoln seemed determined to go shopping. At the Hard Rock Hotel – one of two beachside hotels where they were able to stay off the ship – they hung around clutching their recent purchases. But perhaps, after a record 250 days confined inside a grey steel warship, the normality of a trip to the mall might have been just what they needed.
With their military haircuts, moustaches and navy t-shirts, they stood out against the usual Pattaya crowd in its flip-flops and beach-ware. Night, though, is where this resort city comes into its own and puts on a riotous spectacle of neon, noise and naughty bars. The few small establishments that makeup the heart of Pattaya's sex industry had been declared off-limits, a disappointment for the bikini-clad women packing the bars of Soi 6 who had been hoping for a windfall - from the sailors' nine months of unspent salary while at sea.
Conflict in the Middle East, where the USS Abraham Lincoln was last operating, has impacted business in Pattaya, with many of the tourists the city depends on choosing to stay at home. But on Wednesday night, the city's most famous promenade, Walking Street, was very much open to the sailors, with a huge, illuminated sign at its entrance welcoming the crew of the US carrier. By midnight some of the younger sailors there were so inebriated they had to prop each other up.
Others edged nervously into the red-lit caverns of the go-go bars, with their gyrating and barely-clothed pole dancers. Conversation over the pounding music was challenging. One older crew member told us they really needed the break.
"The news says we've been at sea for nine months. To be honest I've lost track of time", he said. It's never big enough on board.
It's big but it still feels a boat, especially when you're sharing it with thousands of people." How long would it take them to get home to California? Shakeira Fairfax, the mother of 25-year-old crew member Jada Fairfax, told there had been moments over the past few months when "morale was low". She described the period after hostilities broke out in the Middle East as an "uncertain" and "scary" time.
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