Havrum

Except that Pattaya is far better than Miami in about all aspects (cost of living, lack of crime, nightlife, etc). Have a friend who was from Miami and couldn't stand it there, has happily lived in Pattaya for last 15 years.

I was there in the aftermath, horrible scene.

This is one of the most hilarious videos I've ever seen anywhere.

Why exactly does this province have an unsafe reputation?

18 hours ago, Thaidream said:

This is part of the squeeze the authorities are putting on all  bars/clubs/GoGo's that sell sex.  The police are not the instigators- it is the Pattaya Administration which is military run. They do not care if all Western single tourists stop coming to Thailand. Their goal is to gentrify all the areas that attract people they do not want. Eventually, all these places will either go broke; close themselves; relocate or simply not have their permits renewed

 

Many people say it's not real but they are wrong- the Government does not like this type of business because what they sell is overt and gives Thailand a bad name by attracting criminals and other less desirable people.When it is over- most of these places will have gone out of business or relocated to the dark side or Jomtien and be more discrete. The powers that be see more money in Chinese tourism; Asean tourism and getting the middle class and Hi-so Thais to come to Pattaya. None of these groups want the current bars or would be customers. The investments being made in Pattaya and other areas of Thailand are in Malls/Shopping areas; boutique type shops and restaurants. 

 

In addition, you will also see the demise of Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy in Bangkok simply because these bars cannot afford to remain in that location and make any money and the owner of the land will take the investment money  and  sell out. It doesn't matter who has the Master lease or sub leases. It is the land owners who control everything.

Ha! the Chinese and Asean tourists "don't like it" as you claim but they can be found walking up and down Walking Street in the tens of thousands every single night. You know what gets millions of views on youtube? Not videos of beaches or malls (I loathe Thai malls) but videos of places like Walking Street and Soi 6. Pattaya is a unique place, it is a circus, party environment every night of the week. It is a unique spectacle that tourists love. The Russians mostly don't go with Thai girls either but love to come here to party with their friends of missus. You take away the party environment which makes Pattaya unique, make it like every other place and they will lose all those tourists.

Even the Thais from Bangkok come here to have a party holiday by the beach for a few days (there are 10 Thai discos near Big C). If they wanted a nice quiet beach they would go to Cha Am, Baeng Saen or Hua Hin.

19 hours ago, jmccarty said:

The great plan to fail!   Will go the way of Subic and Angeles City, shut down ghost town, then start all over albeit, with no real investment. Just the next wave of bar owners trying to scratch a living with 99 out of 100 failing within a year or less.  

 

There is far too much coastline away from the septic mess that is Pattaya to economically convert this one contaminated stretch to Central Festival Land!

 

So, smart plan, delete this money making machine and then move on to the next.  More shopping centers, more McThai, more pseudo-Japanese food sellers.

 

What historically made this place a tourist destination can be reduced to another shopping center full of imported stuff over-priced, due to heavy handed import duty, and those tourist numbers will see little point in stopping here for what it will become. 

 

Sad to see the bull in the China shop in the works!

 

 

Best post ever, cheers!

Just now, champers said:

And don't forget, chips count as vegetables....and crisps.

Absolutely.

On 6/4/2017 at 11:24 PM, balo said:

I am 

 

I am talking about western dishes as cheap , I'm sure you understand that , 

 

150-200 baht for a western dish prepared in a kitchen where they know how to cook is rare in Thailand. 

 

Either cook your own, go Thai or go vegetarian. You can make your own rice meal with pickled condiments and vegetables for under 10 baht..... Eat fruit for breakfast and lunch. Thailand has some of the best fruit in the world and fruit is nature's perfect food for humans, full vitamins, minerals, enzymes that nourishes pro-biotics in the digestive tract, anti-oxidants, full of energy providing carbs and glucose. It requires no cooking and is ready to eat in it's raw form. When you eat 1 orange instead eat 5 of them, 1 banana eat 3. It might seem weird at first but very soon your body will start craving the good stuff and will no longer desire that putrid, rancid, cancer causing piece of meat. Eat as much fruit as you like and desire, fructose is simply converted to energy, it is impossible to get fat off of fruit.

The Thais have been eating nothing but rice, fruit and  vegetables for 1,000 years, only recently have they had a large amount of meat available ( and it is still expensive). Thais are pretty slender and energetic people.

Chiang Mai is the <deleted> of Thailand. There are some pretty nice provinces a hundred miles to the south of Chiang Mai like Khampeng Phet, Lopburi etc in Centrail Thailand, but Chiang Mai is a shithole exacerbated by the tourist boom in recent years.

Pattaya is and will remain the best city in Thailand.

This is the most fair, accurate and balanced article I've seen yet of Pattaya's sex tourism. Well done Reuters!

I know this area quite well, a strange story to say the least. 

On 2/24/2017 at 6:36 PM, ffaarraanngg said:

About time they got rid of these African women, same in BKK.

 

Should be a 45kg weight limit for foreigners to ply their trade in Thailand. Not one of these would come close.

Why? They are nice ladies just trying to make a better life for themselves. I have met many personally. Time for Thailand to get rid of your ugly ass.

I don't know why the Thai government cares so much what a stupid little rag in England says about Pattaya. The press is irrelevant in many parts of the world yet they are letting a foreign media outlet dictate their policy. And guess what? Most of the British that come to Pattaya come for the sex and the grog anyways, that will just generate more tourism from that particular country. The Chinese and Russian families (who don't seem to mind the sex trade) won't ever read the newspaper. Thais really can't take any sort of criticism from any outlet.

I don't know why the higher ups in Thailand care so much what some stupid little rag in England says about Pattaya.

5 hours ago, denby45 said:

Has everyone lost sight of the fact that Thai's earn, in general, approximately only a tenth of what westerners earn. So tourists in my opinion should stop being Cheap Charlies and visit those wonderful parks. Imagine travelling all the way to Thailand and getting the hump over dual pricing. Cutting nose off to spite face comes to mind. Long term resident foreign pensioners here of course should be treated different and their pricing should be set at a level commensurate with their average income. I know that would be a difficult thing to work out very accurately but you could get at least somewhere near.    

 

Den

This westerner makes about $500 a month so I earn the same as most working class Thais and I have to save for most of the year to be able to come to Thailand.  Some Thais make $100,000 per month. Some farangs come from places like Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Romania, Poland, etc where they don't earn much more than the average wage of Thailand. Just because you make 10 times more than the average Thai and don't mind being fleeced, don't generalize for everyone else.

1 hour ago, elgordo38 said:

Its all great and nice that this chap is a cartoonist and 9/11 jokester but the bar girl I am sure after long hours on duty failed to share his humor. Something snapped. Next time I would advise you not to try out your sense of humor on a over worked bar girl. Some say she was the owner but I stand by my statement. Bar life is a tough go here. If there was indeed overcharging and not just a bleary eyed checking of the bill that should be looked into. 

I seriously can't take this forum. Can't use sense of humor with bar girls? The whole point of beer bars is to interact with bar girls and to have sanook. The girls themselves are often joking around all of the time. Most bar girls are polite, funny and have good manners about them (manners is important in Thailand). They don't take their shoe off and smash it over a guys face due to a small argument.

There are some real nasty types in Pattaya, about 3% of the population. Not enough to ruin the town but enough to cause problems. And these types only pick on weak or old people like the old man in this story, they never attack a big buff guy.

5 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

The RTP themselves are the biggest embarrassment in the country. They are incompetent, indifferent, and corrupt beyond imagination. And it is so obvious why nothing is done about it. This is a big dog and pony show. Nothing whatsoever is meant by it. No doubt they are focusing on the establishments that are in arrears to the collection fund. It means nothing to anybody. 

I think the RTP do a phenomenal job. They are very good at working in grey areas and resolving problems. Pattaya has a very low crime rate despite hundreds of thousands of year round residents and millions of tourists from all counries. The system works great.

9 hours ago, little mary sunshine said:

Good luck to The Army...there are sections of Pattaya that are disgusting 

and cater to the losers of the World....clean up these sections and these

trash losers will move out and make Pattaya a nicer, safer place to live.

Oh Little Miss Mary, you are just upset you missed out on the sex toy and jacuzzi fun.

From the Bible:

You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on another. For on whatever grounds you judge the other, you are condemning yourself,because you who pass judgment do the same things.

I may be a "trash loser" living in Pattaya but I thank myself a million times I am not you.

- Bangkokians eat bland overpriced Thai food at Mega Malls and think they are eating real Thai food. Pattayans are like fck Thai food, bring me fish and chips.

- Bangkokians think their dirty, ugly and polluted city is the coolest place on earth because they got laid last night. Pattayans know their city is one of the coolest places on earth (in a way that hipsters would never understand, it is like the cool below the radar bar that the real people hang out who known each other for years while the douche bags and posers are in the other hipster bar down the street) and they got laid last night too.

IMO odd only to someone from a western culture brought up with fanciful notions of everlasting love and romance.

You may want to reread the post, your reading comprehension fails you at the moment.

Put a hand on your heart and think in yourself....is it normal that young women ( girl ) fall in love with retired man???

She had three kids with him and was with him for 10 years. Who are you to say who she loved or did not love? It sounds like she was as much of a victim of the criminal gangs and corrupt system as the husband (and now she is in jail for four years, at least the husband retained his freedom).

A poor average looking Thai woman who is getting on in age (which in Asia means after mid-twenties) usually doesn't have much choice in who they get to marry. At best with a Thai man she would get a broke unattractive guy working a dead end job in his late thirties or forties who might have any one or multiple of the following bad habits: alcoholism, gambling, drugs, abusive, philanderer. Many farangs have some of these bad habits as well but if a stand up gentleman (which on the face of it this man seemed to be) were to present themselves to a poor, average Thai woman, she would be counting her blessings and hardly concerned about his looks.

If she actually loved him, we wouldn't be on here discussing this. People that truly love don't stab the beloved in the back.

People make mistakes and we don't know the whole story and situation as not much was said about it. Also people can fall out of love. But it seems mighty odd behavior for someone to birth three children for a man and live with him for 10 years if she did not have some feelings for him. While money may play a part, I refuse to believe that people are as cold and calculating to do this only for money, even the worst among the girls. We generally think of Thai women as living in the moment, so it would take a particular ruthless snake to live out of the moment 10 years for some expected windfall. I just don't see it and it sounds like she was scammed and got in over her head with the wrong people.

Thai people in general give their love out quite easily, even the soi dogs are beloved by many. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. Bad in that the love doesn't mean as much as someone who guards it and can be withdrawn just as easily.

I'm reminded of a great movie from the 90s called Fresh about orphan kids in the ghetto who lived with a nun who took care of them. The one teenage girl was turning to drugs and prostitution. Her biological younger brother was trying to convince her to turn her life around, and that Aunt Frances loved her. She replied that Aunt is an angel, she'd love any dog in the street as much as me.

It's always the ones with the slightly puffy under-eyes. Menacing, I tell ya.

Sign of adrenal fatigue (I have it right now) which can be caused by many things.

Put a hand on your heart and think in yourself....is it normal that young women ( girl ) fall in love with retired man???

She had three kids with him and was with him for 10 years. Who are you to say who she loved or did not love? It sounds like she was as much of a victim of the criminal gangs and corrupt system as the husband (and now she is in jail for four years, at least the husband retained his freedom).

A poor average looking Thai woman who is getting on in age (which in Asia means after mid-twenties) usually doesn't have much choice in who they get to marry. At best with a Thai man she would get a broke unattractive guy working a dead end job in his late thirties or forties who might have any one or multiple of the following bad habits: alcoholism, gambling, drugs, abusive, philanderer. Many farangs have some of these bad habits as well but if a stand up gentleman (which on the face of it this man seemed to be) were to present themselves to a poor, average Thai woman, she would be counting her blessings and hardly concerned about his looks.

All I can say is be careful. There are a lot of older "gentlemen" on this very forum who like to preach to mostly younger crowd how Thailand is not cheap and how you need a lot of money to live here. The truth is Thailand is extremely cheap and anyone telling you otherwise is probably being ripped off by their wife and family.

I am a 34 year old guy and have yet to find anywhere in the world with a better cost of living/quality of life ratio than Thailand and I've been to over 50 countries.