Typical Beach Tourism in Pattaya

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Day Five

Today we hired a scooter from the hostel where we were staying – it was a bit of a shitbox beast of a scooter, but we managed to get it going, and it was big enough to carry both of us. We grabbed a map and starting hooning all around the Pattaya and Jomtien Beach areas, for a bit of a look – it was great to have our own transport so that we could do whatever we wanted. Vaughan got the hang of the traffic rules (or lack of), and we ventured up the steepest hill we could find to King Rama IX Royal Park, for a look at the view back over Jomtien Beach and the surrounding areas. Yet another giant Buddha statue greeted us at the top of the steps, and the view was OK, but the heat haze was just incredible, and taking photos was pretty much a waste of time. We didn’t stay too long as it was already very hot, so we ventured back down the hill and straight up the next one – the second hill separates Pattaya from Jomtien as it is right on the edge of the coast. The viewpoint looks out mainly over Pattaya Bay, and Vaughan and I bought a cold coconut to try the chilled milk, which I must say was pretty nice on such a hot day. We walked out to another viewpoint where there was a local radio broadcasting station, as well as an admiral monument (like a navy monument), before jumping back on the scooter (which we had nicknamed Scooty), and cruised back down the hill, to the fishing pier right at the south end of Pattaya Beach. The fishing pier was really interesting as there were a number of fishing boats and fisher people around, drying their morning catch of squid/calamari, and doing maintenance on their fishing boats. The boats were all very bright and the people were friendly, probably finding it a little unusual that two tourists had made it down to the fishing pier (as opposed to the tourist pier by the bars), and were interested enough to ask about how their livelihoods.

The heat was intense by this time so we decided to go into Pattaya itself, cruising down the beachfront road (so many scooters, signs, restaurants, hotels, bars and people) – it was busy and exciting, and a complete change from the quiet beach at Jomtien. There were tourists everywhere, big malls, and speed boats racing out in the bay making loads of noise. If that was the off-season, I’d hate to go when it was really busy! We parked Scooty and went for a walk on the beach, past loads of beach chairs and umbrellas and down to the water – while the water was warm, the beach was actually a bit rocky in places, the sand less yellow and the water less blue than I'd imagined. It wasn’t quite the idyllic Thai location, but it was nice enough I guess. We are spoiled for beautiful untouched beaches in New Zealand, so perhaps we were difficult to impress in that sense. Pattaya really was pretty much just for tourists. We went into one of the malls for lunch so that we could get a bit of air conditioning, and went to the main food court, which worked on a weird token system – the food was cheap but really nice, and we also managed to stock up on more supplies at the supermarket next door. After a short browse around the mall (mostly to establish that it wasn’t significantly different to the malls back home, especially as it catered to the tourist market), we headed off to find the floating market, in the back streets away from the beach. It proved completely elusive, despite our map, and despite stopping off at an internet café to get directions – however on the upside (for us at least) was that we got to see how many of the real Thai people lived, as we cruised the dirt tracks surrounded by huts and smaller houses. I found it interesting that there was such a difference between their lives, and the lives of the international tourists down at the beach (just a few blocks away) who rely on the Thai people to provide their food, service, etc, while on their fancy holidays. It certainly helped keep things in perspective, and I was grateful for the experience.

On the way back to the hostel we managed to find a massive Tescos supermarket (they even have them in Thailand, so why can’t we have them in New Zealand?), so we stocked up on more supplies like water, interesting and strange munchie food, and general bakery goods for breakfast the next day. We had taken to eating bakery goods for breakfast, and as we were staying in fairly low budget accommodation, breakfast was not usually provided. Thai bread is made with a lot more sugar than in New Zealand, and all the bread is incredibly sweet rather than the savoury flavours we are used to back home. The thunderclouds were starting to close in, so we zoomed off back to the hostel as fast as we could to avoid being caught out. We were just parking Scooty up outside when the heavens opened and drenched everything in sight. We watched the lightning from our balcony for a while and then had a rest in front of the TV, and generally just chilled out with a couple of drinks. A couple of hours later the rain had stopped and the street vendors were out, so Vaughan once again had to get his evening snack, which this time ended up being half a chicken! I tried calamari kebabs, and I also had some chicken ones, which included all kinds of different chicken parts including the heart, liver, wings, and a couple of other bits that I can’t recall – I’m not really into that kind of thing but I gave it a go. I don’t think I’d try the liver again, but everything else was OK and I was glad I’d tried it!

From there we jumped on Scooty and headed back to Pattaya, this time to visit Walking Street after dark. We managed to park the scooter in an area that was already packed with scooters, as well as the local prostitutes, where they draped themselves across people’s seats and handle bars like some kind of show. It somehow wasn’t that seedy though, and the girls seemed reasonably attractive and youthful. We managed to negotiate past all the girls, and despite the early(ish) hour, Walking Street already was loud, bright and full of people. It was pretty busy and can’t imagine how crazy it must be in the middle of peak season – basically Walking Street was a pedestrian thoroughfare consisting of one bar after another, most open to the street, serving the international tourist market. Groups of attractive girls dressed in promotional ”uniforms” (a different one for each bar) would stand outside with signs, trying to get punters to spend their money at that establishment. These bars mostly seemed like genuine bars, offering cheap drinks, dancing, bands, and general drunken mayhem. Some had girls to dance with in the main bar. Some were strip joints. But if you really wanted to find a girl to take home, there were men (and women) in the street literally offering a menu of what was available, and I’m not just talking about a menu of girls, but also what they can do, and how much it costs. I noticed that most of the promotional girls didn’t look that happy, and spent a lot of the time talking to their friends (who were also holding promotional signage), rather than trying to get the patrons in the door. I was surprised by the number of live bands in a lot of the bars, which kind of livened up the place a little and gave it a bit more personality, rather than just being unoriginal screaming neon signs and outdated techno music. It was a cacophony of sights and sounds, and all in all it was actually really interesting – Vaughan and I walked from one end to the other, and then out on to the tourist pier where it was much quieter, before heading back down into Walking Street again. I wanted to stop and have a few drinks, maybe watch a band or look for the local “ladyboys”, because I really wanted to take some photos of what that side of Thai life is like, but Vaughan didn’t seem very interested, and the crowds were kind of annoying, so after a while we just headed back to Scooty and zapped back up the hill to the lookout, for some photos of Pattaya Bay by night (minus the heat haze). After a while we cruised back to Jomtien Beach in the night air, and considered a night swim, but for once it was almost cool enough not to bother, so we just went out onto the sand, stole some chairs and a table that were stacked together under the palm trees, and set up on the beach for a while. It seemed as if there wasn’t a soul for miles. It was peaceful and relaxing, and such a contrast to the insanity of Walking Street, just a couple of kilometres away. Neighbourhood dogs padded up and down the beach, occasionally stopping by to say hi to us, but even they seemed as if they were on a quiet mission of their own in the stillness of Jomtien.


Day Six

Today we had a sleep in, and vowed not to rush around like crazy at any point, as all we needed to do was to get back to Bangkok sometime within the next 20 hours for our flight to Chiang Mai. We bade goodbye to the ever trusty Scooty and checked out of our hostel, stocking up on supplies from the 7/11 for our bus journey back to Bangkok. We caught a songthaew to the bus station, and bought tickets to depart in about an hour. We boarded the bus and took the same route back to Bangkok, although we had decided to disembark at a different bus station, closer to the airport hotel where we would stay for the night. The bus station was still quite far away from where we wanted to be, so we had another mission on the trains after we arrived, but that was OK. The trip on the bus and in fact the trip overall was uneventful and easy. We arrived at our hotel to find it was really nice (much nicer than the other places we had been staying), and it even had a pool, so we went across the street to the 7/11 (this was becoming a habit) to stock up on snacks and get more water supplies and breakfast for the morning before sitting with our feet in the pool for about an hour just chilling out. When we got hungry we headed next door for a fantastic fish dinner at a street vendor we had seen earlier when we had gone to the 7/11 – although the cart of cooking fish was the normal size, this place actually had a food prep area, as well as many plastic tables and chairs, under a marquee. There were a few other vendors who were part of the same complex on the other side of the marquee, and the whole set up was a little more permanent (or semi-permanent at least). The vendor-family seemed excited to see us there, as we were mostly surrounded by other Thai people. I think that most visitors who stay in airport hotels are business people tending to frequent upmarket restaurants for their dinner, but we were so glad we bothered to stop at the marquee. The fish were huge, and fresh from a big tub on the ground where they were swimming around (I'm not sure how they killed them as I wasn't watching), just super-salted and then BBQ’d to perfection. The fish were served whole, along with “bottomless” salad, rice, bottled water and sauces, and it was absolutely incredible. Considering I am not the biggest fish fan, even I was mightily impressed. Our fish was so big that Vaughan and I could not finish it between us. It cost less than NZ$15 for both of us (you pay per fish, not per person, and the fish probably would have served four), and was worth every penny! As we were eating, a massive electrical storm blew in very quickly, and all the vendors rushed to put down the marquee flaps to protect all the customers from the rain. Once we had finished eating, we raced back to our hotel, and watched the storm from our balcony – the fork lighting was incredible, and I managed to capture a couple of good photos. We had intended on going to bed once we got in from dinner (as we had to get up early for our flight in the morning), but ended up staying up because the volume of the thunder was just insane. An interesting end to a very relaxed day!

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