Sunday, October 19, 2008 - Well, I guess it was a matter of time until I got "too far up the river". I found it... General Kurtz isn't here, but you can smell his campfire from where I'm standing. Welcome to Pattaya. The international capitol for all things a little too weird. How can I describe this scene? It is literally too far out for words, but...I'll try.
Pattaya is a small beach town on a bay about 2 hours southwest of Bangkok. It is a naturally beautiful bay with lots of warm water, cool breezes, palm trees and coastline.
Across from the beach are several streets with hotels, restaurants and bars. It's the usual scene in a tourist town with street vendors, fairly aggressive purveyors of taxi rides, boat rides, scooter rides, and tailors. Yes, tailors. It does seem a little out of line with the rest of things but, hey, here we are. There's even one called "James' Tailor"... I couldn't make that one up, no one would believe me.
But that's not all it has. In addition to the usual things a resort town offers, Pattaya offers several streets lined with bars and restaurants overflowing with Thai women that seem to be extremely friendly...As I said to my childhood buddy Scot..."I don't think we're in Metzger any more..."
It also has lots of middle aged men walking around with attractive young Thai women. I'm no prude by any stretch but this one leaves me a little perplexed. It's a little disturbing at first though I'm not sure why. I guess it's considered part of the way of life here, it's just that it all seems a little pathetic to me. Lonely men from around the world that have found companionship, that should be a good thing shouldn't it? It's just that they mostly seem to continue to look lonely to me, a little embarrassing and I guess the jokes on them eventually.
The Thai people seem to be good natured about the whole thing. It brings in billions (that's a billion with a capitol "B") in revenue each year and helps the local economy survive. And we all know that these are rough economic times. Not here to editorialize or to judge, I'm here as an unbiased traveler and amateur reporter. Glad I got to see this although I'm sure it's going to take some time to figure out how I feel about this one...
Time to get back on the PT boat and head downstream to calmer waters...Bangkok. Who woulda thunk???
Just a few more days until I get on the plane for 23 hours and get my feet back on familiar soil. Thanks for taking the time to check out my ramblings.
