Pattaya, Chonburi, Thailand

Pattaya is a city built for fun on the northeastern coast of the Gulf of Thailand. It is located in Chonburi Province around 150 kilometres south of Bangkok. In the Sixties, Pattaya was scarcely known, yet the American soldiers fighting in Vietnam started using it for R&R and it started to grow. Pattaya is most famous for its entertainment and its nightlife, but in fact it has a great deal more than that to give.

As far as only sport goes, Pattaya offers horse riding, swimming, diving, wind surfing, golfing, tennis and jet skiing among others. However, not like most sporting towns or cities, it does not begin to go to sleep as the sun goes down.

The bars, restaurants, discos and strip bars start to open in abundance at around four o'clock. The bars are of each persuasion to suit every niche market.

There are Welsh bars, American bars, Irish bars, Lady Boy bars and each other type of bar you can think of. Likewise with the restaurants, there are specialized restaurants for each country. 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 become unique.

I am sure that you could remain in Pattaya for months without going the same bar or eating the same sort of food twice. This is just as well because there are representatives from every country in the world there too. You will hear English, Russian and each European and Asian language spoken in Pattaya on an everyday basis.

Pattaya gets more than one million visitors a year. Most of these visitors are men, but the local government is attempting to do more to appeal to women and families by moving 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 want near-by. However, if you do want to travel around, nothing could be easier. Most people merely hop on a 'Baht Bus'. These small open-backed pick-ups can be seen going around the city by fairly predictable routes when you understand the design of the city.

The 'fixed fare' is ten Baht for as far as you want to go on the route, even though some drivers will strive to get more out of you if you go a long distance. Thais pay five Baht. If you do not feel confident enough to forecast where the bus is going, you could hire on one of the thousands of motorcycle taxis.

They are more expensive at about forty to sixty Baht, but they will go anywhere you like. Get a quote before you set off to avoid disappointment on both sides. If you do not want to hire a car, there are other alternatives. 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 pretty chaotic.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several topics, and is now concerned with Songkran - the old Thai New Year. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Package Holidays to Thailand.