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Published: December 5th 2011
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I've now been living 15 years in Asia and I never made it to Pattaya. I have always call the place the "s**t hole" of Asia, and after the week-end we just spent here, I can confirm that the name make sense!
So why going to Pattaya, why going now? Well, the kids are in Vietnam for a long week-end due to the King's birthday holiday in Thailand. So they are enjoying a little bit of tourism on their own. I'm also short of few stays to keep my nice level as a frequent guest with the SPG group (You know, the one which giving me all this lovely little room upgrades). Pattaya does have a new Sheraton, and the hotel has a pretty nice reputation.
We took the bus from Ekamai station in Bangkok on Saturday morning. Ekamai bus terminal is 5 minutes from home, and the bus is a smooth 2 hours ride for less than 4usd one way per person. It's next door, but it is actually another world for us.
Thailand is a very diversified tourism destination, the country does offer some of the best hotels, amazing service in the
world. At the same time the country welcome every year thousands of sex tourists, single old men (and not that old) with no intention to do anything else than make sure they have some fun, on the filthiest way possible. One first point to make sure I'm clear on my opinion....prostitution would not exist if people where not looking to buy a service. Blame here should not be put on the abused populations, it should be put on the clients.
Bangkok has always amazed me in the way that it is a succession of "ghettos" running next to each others. You can be in a place which is clean, nice and charming, and walk 500 meters further and I would be ashamed to walk the streets with my kids. All these people "live" next to each other in Bangkok, but actually if you look closer, never interact, everybody staying in his own area.
Pattaya is having a new kind of revival over the last few years. Hotels such as the Hilton and the Sheraton have opened around. There is a new shopping center, Central Festival...beautiful, clean, right in the middle of town. The place
has started to attract huge amounth of expat families and wealthy thais from Bangkok every weekend. First point, Pattaya is a huge place...downtown may be a "shit" place, you could find yourslef easily isolated in your own little paradise oasis few minutes away from the biggest human market on earth! Here too, like in Bangkok, we are in this logic of "ghettos"...but allow me to find strictly no charm at all to Pattaya. We will keep doing the extra one hour drive to Hua Hin!
The tourists demography of Pattaya is pretty impressive. We walked around downtown early afternoon. There was no need for us to give it another try after sunset...not a place for a young couple in love...and we were actually happy not to have the kids with us. Speaking of "people watching"...this is THE place, but not in a very positive way sadly.
I've seen all these tourist many time before...once you land at Bangkok airport, you see them everywhere, but once you leave the airport, I never bounce back in them...where have they gone? Straight to Pattaya!
First you have the young russian couples. No oligarchs here,
no hip young moscovites, these are rather provincials. I have no idea which marketing trick did get them here, really no idea!
Next, you have the thousands of 40++ or even 55++ single old men. Wow, they are everywhere. Not much happiness on the faces here. You can see that years of sadness have worked on most of them. Plus surely a little too much alcool on the way, just to forget. I'm sorry to say, everybody may have his opinion, I just found the scene pathetic and disgusting.
Some come to Pattaya to find "love", why would we blame them, they feed a huge part of the population in the area. The old men get the "love" in exchange of you know what! We walked through hundreds of "Girlie bars", and at 2pm, it was fine for me that most of them where still not operating.
Christmas is coming and more single and lonely men will come here. What has our society turned into? For me, this is simply the fruit of a high divorce rate as well as the "glamour" image that media have imposed on us, making it difficult for
an impressive proportion of the western world to find and keep their other half. Trust me, no glamour here, and not much love too! You can actually also see the price that the thai society pay for it. At 2pm, women do not have too much make up on yet, and the street of Pattaya are certainly not a fashion show...
So after spending most of our afternoon walking around Downtown Pattaya, we did what most expat families or thais from Bangkok do. We retrieve by the pool of our oasis. The Sheraton is few minutes from downtown, but here it's just beautiful rooms, glamorous bathrooms and a very quiet swimming pool. Maybe few old single men are around, but here it's mainly families and a smooth athmosphere.
For our dinner, we went to Cabbages and Condoms restaurant. The place is an institution in Bangkok and Pattaya. And here too, you see groups of thais, expats and families...another of these smooth oasis in Pattaya! We had a nice dinner, food was nice, but we have way better next door from our flat in Bangkok. Call us spoiled by quality, I do admit! What was
actually really fun is the walk to our table in the restaurant, just have a look at the pictures.
So for us, it was fun to come here, but for our next thai weekends, we will continue to go to Hua Hin. A visit every 15 years to Pattaya is far enough for me.
Oh, and I forgot to speak of the beach...does anybody really think it is safe to swim here? Wow, that was ugly!
Christmas is coming soon. It will be a very important one for us as this will be the first time that four of us will be together, a Christmas we have been waiting for years. This year we will have no snow, just water and few more bubbles, and a fair amount of sunscreen in an area of the world we still have to discover properly. Few more weeks for Christmas to arrive. Prior to this, I promise you few more underwater pictures...you know...
The children are coming back tonight, we cannot wait! And tomorrow morning, it's St Nicolas day...important for us, but even more for Leslie and Tiffany!
Till our next entry, enjoy, we are coming back soon!
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tamandfamily
Tam & Family
Definitly not a nice place
I have to completely agree with you! We have had the fortune to visit Thailand maybe 10 times and try to go to different places everytime and our visit to Pattaya was definitly on the disgusting side :( We stayed at the Hard Rock cafe which was a very very nice hotel but even around the pool there was a lot of 50 plus year old men with 5 to 10 year old boys. I pray that they were their grandsons but i doubt it :(( I will most certainly not travel there again especially with my kids. Such a shame and i think that city by itself is often what gives Thailand its s3x image :( Glad your hotel was nice though!