The Pattaya Experience

First the Journey

Pattaya is some 2 hours car ride to the south of Bangkok. A taxi company quoted me 1500 baht, 22 pounds, for the journey. This seamed more of a western than an Asia price to me so I decided to try the experience of Thailand’s air-conditioned bus network. I hoped onto the sky-train to Bangkok's 'Eastern Bus terminal' All the ticket booths are each dedicated to a single destination with the destination and price written in a myriad of languages on the window, so very easy for a 'farong' (foreigner) to get the ticket they need. Buses to Pattaya are every 30 minutes until 9pm and every ticket has a seat pre-allocated to it, so no made scramble for the front seats. The bus took about an hour to fight its way clear of Bangkok's grand traffic jams and another 2 hours to make the journey. Unfortunately no picturesque jungle or paddy fields can be viewed during this journey so the general consensus by everyone aboard seamed to be to sleep the journey away.
We reached Pattaya's bus station during early afternoon and there were several shared pickup trucks waiting to ferry people to their hotels. Shared pickup trucks are a regular pickup truck with seats and a safely cage bolted onto the back of them. They are not air-conditioned; but you do get a nice breeze while going along so hold onto your hats!

So how much did this spend thrift public transport journey compare with the quoted taxi journey of 1500 baht? Well the sky-train was 20 baht, coach ticket 117 baht and pickup truck another 20 baht. Total 157 baht or just over 2 pounds! That is barely 10% of the cost by taxi! For almost no extra effort.

I approached my time in Pattaya with more than a little apprehension. Its reputation as the hedonistic capital of the world preceded it. I had originally intended to pass straight through Pattaya and go onto the national reserve island of 'Ko Samet', which is reported to have far superior beaches etc. However a lack of cheap hotels with rooms still available for my late booking had persuaded me to get my sun sand and beach life fix in Pattaya instead.

My initial impression of Pattaya once I stepped outside the hotel was:
It’s damn HOT here! There is no shade from sky scrappers or smog to protect you from the full force of the sun’s rays in this town! I quickly learned that if you want to be out and about between 11 am and 4pm you should move between air-conditioned premises with the greatest of speed. Most people just find a bar with big fans in and cower there until the sun sets. I think this is why Pattaya has become such a night life town, with all the sins that that entails.

I stayed at the 'Sawadee Sea View' hotel. This is a functional budget hotel valueing huge rooms over finer details. It does not have a pool; but being right by the beach I was not overly concerned by this..... That was until the staff said the beach was not very good for swimming in. They said I should go to 'Jomtien' beach a few km down the coast for the best beach and swimming as Pattaya's main beach was dirty.
However I am a stubborn man and wandered onto the beach to see for myself. It looked clean to me. The current was pulling up a little sediment so you could not see very far in the water; but apart from that I could not see a cproblem with it. And so I went swimming in the sea. To protect myself from the serious sunburn that Pattaya's sun was begging to give me I decided to where a t-shirt into the sea. A nice white t-shirt.....
The swimming was fine. Cool and refreshing. I spent an hour or 2 splashing about and watching the jet-skis wizz by just of the shore. I then returned to the hotel and in my room I took my t-shirt of to change into something dry. When I did I could not help but notice that my t-shirt was no longer the bright shade of white it had been earlier, infact now it was looking positively dull, almost cream in colour. 2 washes later and it is definately still 'off-white'. So let this be a lesson to one and all. The sea off Pattaya beach is definately dirty! Not if only I had had the scense to actually listen to the nice hotel staff that tried yto warn me....

Chilling Out

As you can imagine, with my traveling alone a long way from home, I spent a lot of time trying out bad chat up lines at the open air bars on Pattaya's main street or should I say one particular open air bar. The open air bars are the ones with all the party girls that chill out with customers. They are the most respectable part of Pattaya's night scene. By keep going back to the same bar I very quickly ended up with a number of very good new friends.... that just happen to be very attractive young ladies.

I would like to introduce you all at this point to the young lady that took me under her wing and served me the most alcohol while I was in Pattaya. She goes by the name 'Frog', all Thai people seam to go by a nickname. Frog is actually the Thai word for 'gob' or 'mouth', as she can get a little load when trying to attract customers to the bar, especially once other customers have plied her with a few drinks ;-). 'Frog' is also a little crazy so her name just works on many levels! (That is a pop culture reference to the crazy frog mobile phone ring tones for those who don not get it).

Frog drinks Taquilla like a Mexican and can out dance Beyonce when let loose on a dance floor. Even Paris Hilton cannot outparty this girl!

Chilling out with Frog was probably the best time I have spent in Thailand so far. We would have a few drinks and then Frog would show me around for the more 'authentic' Thai experience, before then diving into a nightclub to dance the night away.

I have been introduced to the Real Thai food not the touristy stuff I had been eating.
This included:

• Street food that can be bought for as little as 25 - 50 baht, less than a pound and tastes as good as any gourmet meal!
  
• A cook your own food buffet. With this you sit at a table with a whole in the middle. The staff then bring along a steel bucket full of lit coals and place on top of it what looks like an upside down colander. This thing on top also has a wide deep lip with no wholes in it, into which is pored boiling stock water. You then go over to the buffet counters and pick whatever meats and seafood you want, take them back to your table and cook them on the upside-down colander yourself. Into the stock water you place your noodles and vegetables to be boiled. This was an all you could eat buffet with fresh tiger prawns, mussels and dozens of other fish and meats! All for 100 baht per person, 1 pound fifty! These is a 10 baht fine for every item left uneaten though. Not like we left anything though, it was that nice I had to waddle out of the place....
  

Also, being local, Frog knows all the best sights and activities to recommend for during the day while you are passing the time waiting for the bars to open and the next drinking session to start.

I experienced my first and definitely only motorbike taxi journey while in Pattaya. I wanted to nip back to my hotel to quickly freshen up after an afternoon of drinking and Frog assured me this was the quickest form of transport there and back. So I hoped on the back of this red moped taxi and off we went. Weaving in and out of the traffic. Very safe..... no helmet in site and we only went against oncoming traffic twice! Me holding on for dear life the whole time! The journey was certainly quick I'll give Frog that.

I decided it might be safer to get on a converted pickup for the return journey back to the bar. There was just something about the safetly role cage and stability of it that seemed very appealling at the time.

Finally, just incase anyone is getting worried about me bringing home a Thai wife after saying how nice the bar girls, especially Frog, are, don't worry. These ladies are the best; but I could never keep up with these dedicated party girls for more than a few nights at a time. I can see why so many men do end up marrying one of these girls though, as I do not have a bad thing to say against any of them, definitely perfect girlfriend material.

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