pattaya: party paradise or parasites partying?

The famous Alex Gilbert was back in town for the past week after her sojourn in Burma and Bangladesh. To summarize her reports on those two countries: the first is a depressing, exceedingly poor place characterized by a heavy reliance on ancient puppets for both souveniers and government leadership, and the second is a thrilling democratic hubbub of a country populated by handsome men, man-eating tigers, and 5-metre long crocodiles.

When Alex got back to Bangkok, she helped out with our big houseparty as punch-maker extraordinaire and as super DJ. Things went well for the big fiesta. We had it catered (whoo hoo) by a local Indian restaurant, and they sent us two waiters, a chef, the manager, a tandoor, and vast quantities of mutton masala, saag paneer, grilled fish tikka, samosas, papadums, biryani, fresh veggies, and gulab jamun. Oh, and tablecloths too! Then, on top of all that, the manager at my school very kindly had the school cooks put together some Thai dishes, so we also had fish, glass noodle and shrimp salad, tom yum, and stir-fried greens. Phet, Alex, and I stocked up on the booze and had fun offering up whiskey punch, shots of cranberry vodka (everyone had at least one shot - they're suckers for the whole 'it's-a-family-tradition' shtick the first time), and G&Ts made with 10 year old Gilbey's gin. The guests brought Ji a truckload of gifts, and I swear that we will be making a hearty donation to a Bangkok orphanage if we get even ONE MORE stuffed animal.

We had a nice mix of guests: the entire Chinese department, the managers from my school, a bunch of the TAs, and maybe fifteen of Phet's colleagues. The other falang teachers were notable by their absence. They had all scampered off on holiday the very second the christmas show was over. My colleague from Singapore did come, however, so she's in my good books in the upcoming year. Check out photos from Ji's birthday dinner and birthday party.

On Saturday while we were in recovery from the party, Alex encouraged us to keep up our hunt for a beach bungalow in Pattaya. Phet and I had Monday off for the King's birthday (Long Live The King!), and so we were keen to go, but we hadn't had any luck finding rooms; the 12 hotels we called were fully booked. But finally we checked with the Amari hotel and we were set: a deluxe room would be ours for the weekend! Phet and I had heard that Pattaya was kind of grotty, but we had high hopes given the exorbitant 140$ US per night tarrif the hotel would be charging, and Alex was in full-on excitement mode in anticipation of her first visit to a swim-up pool bar. Ji kept demanding to know whether he'd be allowed to fling off his clothes and jump into the ocean as soon as we arrived. We packed up and trotted off to the bus station (a 5 minute walk from our house) and caught a bus within moments of arriving at the station.

The bus was perfectly decent. Clean enough, low-level air con that wasn't too hot or too cold, and no terrifying slasher films on the in-bus TV. When Phet and Ji had to take the 12 hour bus ride home from Chiang Mai, Chucky (#4? #5?) was onscreen at full volume. Our bus driver very thankfully didn't even turn the TV for our journey. The ride from Bangkok took two and a half hours. The landscape wasn't particularly notable, though it was nice to see some greenery. As we got closer to Pattaya there were a few hills off in the distance and we were able to see the ocean on one side of the highway.

When we arrived we caught a truck tuk-tuk to our hotel. The hotel lobby was lovely; beautifully designed and open-air. We tucked into refreshing complimentary lemongrass teas and then went to check out our super deluxe room. I was disappointed. The view was crap - it overlooked a busy road. The beds were singles and there were only two of them. The room was small. The bathtub was teeny. There were mosquitoes in the room. There was no extra bed for Ji. I was not impressed. But, anyways, we were on holiday, so we called for a bed, asked if we could change rooms the next day, and went to check out the pool bar.

The pool set up was ok, but not quite the lush resort we had imagined. There was a swim-up bar, but no one was serving drinks at it. Still, Ji enjoyed his swim immensely, and then we went to get ready for dinner.

We walked along the waterfront to check out restaurants and the beach. The beach turned out to be skinny and over-populated. The beach-goers, mostly middle-aged white men, were paunchy and sunburned. The water was not trashy but it was a bit suspicious. The restaurants and entertainment establishments we passed were trashy and suspicious. Many were open-air bars with outdoor pink flourescent lights. What I mean to say is that most of the bars had raw flourescent lights lighting their premises, and all these lights were pink. This, apparently, is Pattaya's take on the red light district you may remember from such episodes as "Amsterdam". Now, of course, I'd read about Pattaya's reputation as a primo destination for gentleman callers, but it's really amazing how the whole town (as opposed to a few streets or neighbourhoods as is the case in other places) caters to the sex trade.

The deal with the bars is as follows: beer bars with the pink lights are usually open-air and have a cluster of 10-15 ladies around the bar. These ladies chat up the fellows who sit for drinks. If a man decides that he likes one of the ladies he can pay her bar fine and then she is allowed to leave with him either for a short time (ie a few hours) or for a day or more. After the bar fine is paid, the customer works out the actual price of upcoming events with his chosen lady. Quite often the tourists will keep the same lady for their entire stay; prostitutes don't work so much by the particular service rendered, but function more like girlfriends. Ok, yes, very active girlfriends, but the deal is that they'll hang out with their customers, go shopping with them, go out to restaurants, go dancing and so on in addition to their regular work. There are also go go bars, which are more like strip clubs with on-site servicing available. 'Shows' of many sorts are organized for visitors, drinks are more expensive, and there's air conditioning.

The main drag of Pattaya is lined up like this: pink bar, pink bar, restaurant, go go bar, pink bar, 7-11, pink bar, go go bar, vacant lot, bar, pink bar, restaurant, go go bar, bar, bar, pink bar, pink bar, food stall, vacant lot, government building, hotel, bar, bar, pink bar, go go bar. And that's just one block. The theme repeats itself again and again, and the bar-to-non-bar ratio tilts further and further towards BAR BAR BAR the closer you get to the centre of town. And by the time you get to the center of town you basically feel like your at an XXX-rated version of the CNE. In Phet's words, you feel like singing "Let's go to the SEX!" Unfortunately, the town isn't just flashingly well-lit and crowded and exciting like the Ex, it's also depressing like the Ex. You know, like, that whole seedy underbelly / weird carnies / greasy slop-buckets / kids bawling after getting spanked / candy floss puke / 2-metre tall, styrofoam-stuffed ugly panda kind of depressing.

Across from all the bars is - as previously mentioned - the beach. We crossed over to the beach side for some relief, and found that the beach is populated by ladies known in Pattaya parlance as 'freelancers'. These are the ladies who are not quite hot enough or maybe not quite well enough or perhaps not well-off enough to work at a bar. They line the beach and make their own arrangements without visible middlemen. Apparently these ladies are more dangerous to pick up as they're more likely to rob their customers; however, one can only imagine that the reverse is also true and that it is far more dangerous for them to be picking up customers without the protection of a bar owner.

Anyways, the beach was definitely not the place to go for a cheery sunset family stroll.

We finally stopped to eat at a seafood grill place that looked decent. The menu was all translated into German and Russian. The waiter was surly. There was a fish-it-yourself pool at the back. Several bar girls in slinky red satin dresses were on break behind the fish pool. Many televisions were littered around the restaurant playing the sports channel. It was pretty surreal. We had gotten some seafood and some plain rice when a waiter came by with a pineapple stuffed with fried rice, announced "Mr. 99 Fried Rice!" and attempted to set the pineapple down. We all looked at our plates of white rice, then at the pineapple rice, then back to our white rice, and then at the face of the waiter and said, "We didn't order that." It appeared that he didn't believe us. The manager came over, opened up the menu, pointed at the Mr. 99 fried rice, and the back at the pineapple. We reiterated the fact that we, uh, already had rice. Why would we have ordered more rice? Our order-taking waiter had made himself scarce, and pretended he had nothing to do with the screwed up order. Finally, while flashing pissed off glares, the manager carted the pineapple back to the open kitchen, where we could see a conference of sorts then take place. Our order-taker seemed to have taken some credit for the mistake, and in time he sullenly brought us our fried veggies.

We had a dilly of a time with the beverages as well. Us: "One pitcher of white sangria please." Waiter: "Sangria?" Us: "Yes, this one, with the big picture in the middle of the menu? Sangria?" Waiter: "Sangria?" We should've known then to just order some pina coladas, or better yet a bucket of beer, but we perservered. Waiter: "White or Red?" Us: "White." The waiter came back in 5 minutes and said, "No white Sangria. Red?" Us: "Yes, that would be smashing." He came back in another 5 minutes with a nice carafe of coral-coloured 'sangria'. We tasted it and by our best estimation it was a potent mix of bad whisky and juice. On ice. Cheers to Pattaya!

The next day we were planning to go to a different beach called Long Beach, and I decided to try calling a different resort to see if they had any vacancies yet. They didn't, but they recommended a hotel next to theirs, called the Long Beach Hotel. We called and got a reservation with no problem, and then hightailed it out of the Amari.

The Long Beach hotel turned out to be a big place catering to Russian couples and Thai families. The decorating wasn't quite as spiffy as at the Amari, but it had a nicely air conditioned lobby, and bigger rooms with great ocean views. We got a super big bathroom and enough space for everyone to sleep comfortably. Best of all, the hotel had a private beach that was not interrupted by a busy thoroughfare like at the Amari. We took ourselves down past the pool and camped out ocean-side. Alex suntanned to make her Montreal friends agonize in jealousy and Phet and Ji swam and built sandcastles while I dozed. In the evening we stupidly and accidentally got in a tuk tuk and went into town to eat and walked even further into the heart of the main drag because we were trying to hunt down a copy of Ghostbusters on DVD. We had no luck with the movie, but on our ride back to the hotel we did discover vast new tracts of pink bars and go go bars and "physical massage" parlours and discotheques that we hadn't seen before. So that was a bonus.

All in all, I have to say that I won't be heading back to Pattaya soon. The problem is that it really is a men's destination. I don't mean that every man would find it a dream destination. No, the problem is that it is an ideal tourist destination for men in general. There are no handicrafts to be bought. There are no cute little boutiques or even any cut rate bargain outlets. There are no shoes on sale except for metal-heeled white go go boots and Nike sneakers. There aren't any adorable little restaurants or museums. Unless you count the bottle museum, that is. There aren't any natural wonders or beautiful gardens. Of course, there are cobra, crocodile, and tiger shows. But there aren't any animals-in-the-wild, just animals pretending to close their jaws on human heads and faking being wild. There is no hiking. Dressing for dinner is not required. In fact, dressing for anything isn't really required. And there sure as hell aren't any florists within a 10 kilometer radius of the town. So: perfect for your average American or German middle-aged male tourist. But not for me.

Check out our non-bar photos of Pattaya (and also a few pics from Ji's christmas show). And trust me, we worked hard to make Pattaya look this good. [On The Road-6-December-2005]