Pattaya is a city made for fun on the northeastern coast of the Gulf of Thailand. It is situated in Chonburi Province around 150 kilometres south of Bangkok. In the Sixties, Pattaya was hardly known, yet the American soldiers fighting in Vietnam started using it for R&R and it began to expand. Pattaya is most famous for its entertainment and its nightlife, but in fact it has a lot more than that to offer.
As far as just sport goes, Pattaya offers horse riding, swimming, scuba diving, wind surfing, golfing, tennis and jet skiing among others. However, dissimilar to most sporting towns or cities, it does not begin to go to sleep as the sun goes down.
The bars, restaurants, discos and Go-Go start to open in abundance at about four o’clock. The bars are of each kind to suit every niche market.
There are Welsh bars, American bars, Irish bars, Lady Boy bars and every other sort of bar you can think of. Likewise with the restaurants, there are specialized restaurants for every country in the world. There are bush game restaurants, Chinese, Japanese, American, French, German and fish restaurants. In fact there are thousands of restaurants and bars all attempting to seem unique.
I am certain that you could stay in Pattaya for months without going to the same bar or eating the same sort of food twice. This is just as well because there are representatives from all the country in the world there as well. You will hear English, Russian and every European and Asian language spoken in Pattaya on a regular basis.
Pattaya gets over one million visitors a year. Most of these visitors are men, yet the local government is attempting to do more to attract women and families by relocating the girlie bars back away from the beach.
Despite it being quite large, you can stay in your favourite part of Pattaya yet find nearly everything you desire near-by. However, if you do have to get about, nothing could be simpler. Most people merely hop on a ‘Baht Bus’. These small open-backed pick-ups can be seen going about the city by fairly predictable routes once you understand the layout of the city.
The ‘fixed fare’ is ten Baht for as far as you like to go on the route, although some drivers will strive to get more out of you if you go a long way. Thais pay five Baht. If you do not feel confident enough to forecast where the bus is going, you could get on one of the thousands of motorcycle taxis.
They are more expensive at around forty to sixty Baht, yet they will go anywhere you like quickly – weaving in and out of log-jammed cars. Ask for a quote before you leave to avoid disappointment on both parties. If you do not want to hire a car, there are other options. You could rent a motorcycle or motorbike. A motorcycle costs about 100 Baht a day at the cheapest, but be wary of the traffic in Pattaya it can be fairly chaotic.
Owen Jones has just published his first book which is called Behind The Smile: the story of Lek, a Thai bar girl in Pattaya in Thailand.