Is Pattaya as bad now as the Pattaya News subforum makes out?

[thaibeachlovers]

I always loved Pattaya as a fun place where guys could go to enjoy themselves, but reading the News subforum just now, I'm wondering if it's just not a fun place anymore.

I see tourists getting mown down trying to cross on a zebra crossing, the city council authorising non police employees to demand 2,000 baht from tourists on the beach, and what could possibly go wrong with that ( we've seen it before on Sukhumvit in Bkk )? The police "cracking" down on dart boards while garbage lies everywhere, and the beaches are covered with sea borne trash. Pedestrians are at risk of being killed by falling debris from buildings under demolition, bars constantly raided, and it seems that anyone with a Thai woman will be at risk of being banged up for something, while the infrastructure slowly disintegrates and traffic crimes are ignored.

I have to wonder if the glory days are over for Pattaya.

Tell me if I'm wrong.

 

If you're an anti "fun" guy, don't bother responding as this thread isn't about your desires for a fun devoid city, which we all know well.

[champers]

You are wrong, I think. If there are more "incidents" it is only because there are more people living and working here. Also, anyone with a smartphone can create and/or report a story these days; it is no longer the sole province of traditional media. Bad things are always more likely to be reported than good things; 'twas ever thus.

[topt]

I am sure JSixpack will be along  at some point with a line by line rebuttal of all your points to reassure you that as champers above says 

15 minutes ago, champers said:

'twas ever thus.

 

[HLover]

Same things have been happening in Pattaya for the past decade.

Personally, I don't live my life dictated by what the inaccurate sensationalist garbage news pukes out daily.

To answer your question, yes- it's still fun.

[theguyfromanotherforum]

I don't know what op is on about.

 

Pattaya is a world class tourist destination.

[Suradit69]

24 minutes ago, newnative said:

   Yes, you are wrong.  By the way, a fairly significant part of the negativity in the Pattaya forum seems to come from you.

And a fairly significant part of the negativity about Pattaya comes from sex tourists who only know about Walking Street and Beach Rd while at the same time claiming they would never come here.

 

If someone comes here solely to get drunk and hit all the gogo bars,  falling debris from buildings being demolished seems an odd complaint and reaching the conclusion that

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

anyone with a Thai woman will be at risk of being banged up for something

is hyperbolic sensationalism.

 

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

the infrastructure slowly disintegrates

If one bar stool can't support you, straddle two.

[jinners]

Nah, still a great place.

[Rimmer]

A troll post has been removed

[Colabamumbai]

It was at its' best 45 years ago, but I imagine most of you are too young to know that.

[giddyup]

3 minutes ago, Colabamumbai said:

It was at its' best 45 years ago

So were half the places in the world.

[jacko45k]

No, of course not. Don't forget the only good news for the media is bad news.

[jacko45k]

1 minute ago, JSixpack said:

The Pavements report lately. In fact the infrastructure is now far better than it was in 1994 and even as we post cables are going underground on Pattaya Nua.

Well that is hardly going to help traffic is it!

[JSixpack]

1 minute ago, jacko45k said:

No, of course not. Don't forget the only good news for the media is bad news.

 

If it bleeds, it leads, esp in this era of clickbait. Funny how we get two or more threads on the same bad news topic for a repetition of the same posts in response. 

[dotpoom]

1 hour ago, champers said:

You are wrong, I think. If there are more "incidents" it is only because there are more people living and working here. Also, anyone with a smartphone can create and/or report a story these days; it is no longer the sole province of traditional media. Bad things are always more likely to be reported than good things; 'twas ever thus.

Couldn't have said it better myself.....OP is only citing things that happen everywhere....but that wouldn't suit the narative.

[Rimmer]

Several  Pattaya Bashing posts have already been removed, If you only want to post the usual one line derogatory posts you will recieve a posting suspension in this respect I would  I would draw your attention to the following rule:

 

11) You will not post slurs, degrading or overly negative comments directed towards Thailand, specific locations, Thai institutions such as the judicial or law enforcement system, Thai culture, Thai people or any other group on the basis of race, nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
 

[JSixpack]

24 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

Well that is hardly going to help traffic is it!

 

Infrastructure isn't only about traffic, as a Brit discovered a moment before he was electrocuted in 2009 by an overhanging cable. How's your cellphone working? Got internet at home? Does CentralFestival have electric power? As for traffic the widening of Beach Road did help traffic on Beach Road. The resurfacing of the streets helped. The new traffic lights w/ timers all around town helped. What didn't help was all the new tourists flooding in.  

 

But if you were thinking objectively on that topic you'd have mentioned The Tunnel completed not long ago amid the chorus of sneers here and emphasized its success at doing what it was intended to do, not its supposed failure at doing what it wasn't. MAJOR new infrastructure.

Edited March 15, 2018 by JSixpack

[jacko45k]

Let us stick to inftastructure the City is responsible for! Cellphones it isn't!

 

Widening of Beach Rd did not help at all, it still bottlenecks at the South end. It was done to provide a better festival area to erect a market (when it isn't under water)!

The resurfacing of the streets is behind necessity too, 3rd Rd is down to rebar in many spots as an example.

The traffic lights are not synchronised and are mostly operated by the police in boxes because timers and how they operate has not been well planned.

The tunnel is good, but not much benefit to me as I always use my motorbike.

 

Even the burying of cables you cheer over, this was done quite efficiently on Klang, not that I noticed,  I daren't take my eyes off the road!

Edited March 15, 2018 by jacko45k

[thaibeachlovers]

28 minutes ago, giddyup said:

So were half the places in the world.

In 1963 there were only 3.2 billion people on the planet. More people has not been beneficial for anything except making billionaires.

[thaibeachlovers]

29 minutes ago, JSixpack said:

 

Infrastructure isn't only about traffic, as a Brit discovered a moment before he was electrocuted in 2009 by an overhanging cable. How's your cellphone working? Got internet at home? Does CentralFestival have electric power? As for traffic the widening of Beach Road did help traffic on Beach Road. The resurfacing of the streets helped. The new traffic lights w/ timers all around town helped. What didn't help was all the new tourists flooding in.  

 

But if you were thinking objectively on that topic you'd have mentioned The Tunnel completed not long ago amid the chorus of sneers here and emphasized its success at doing what it was intended to do, not its supposed failure at doing what it wasn't. MAJOR new infrastructure.

I thought I specifically referenced PUBLIC infrastructure in the OP, not private, but I apparently missed out putting that in. However, for this thread the infrastructure is the PUBLIC infrastructure, not the private infrastructure.

 

Edited March 15, 2018 by thaibeachlovers

[thaibeachlovers]

37 minutes ago, dotpoom said:

Couldn't have said it better myself.....OP is only citing things that happen everywhere....but that wouldn't suit the narative.

So, is Pattaya as bad now as the News subforum makes out? I was not talking about things that happen elsewhere.

Narrative? Please enlighten us as to what you mean by that. I was asking a question, not telling a story, but no doubt you can point out the story in my OP.

[JSixpack]

2 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

Let us stick to inftastructure the City is responsible for! Cellphones it isn't!

 

A cellphone isn't infrastructure. Cellphone towers are and yes the City and the providers coordinate on that as indeed CPN and the City coordinated on the new power line to CentralFestival subsidized by CPN.

 

Quote

Widening of Beach Rd did not help at all, it still bottlenecks at the South end. It was done to provide a better festival area to erect a market!

 

Well, you're just playing your Tunnel game again. The widening wasn't intended to solve the bottleneck at the south end, which was there long before the widening. Yes, it DOES help traffic before that point, a lot really, esp the CentralFestival traffic. Yes, it help traffic a LOT during the festivals, which had become a major problem. No, it doesn't have to solve every little problem for you to be an improvement.

 

Quote

The resurfacing of the streets is behind necessity too, 3rd Rd is down to rebar in many spots as an example. take my eyes off the road!

 

Being "behind" isn't the same as "didn't do anything yet." Yes, they did improve Beach Rd., S. Pattaya Rd., and 2nd Rd amid the chorus of sneers. I've often enjoyed riding over that improvement, too. When 3rd gets bad enough by Thai standards, not yours, they'll work on that. So you don't have a point, just hot air.

 

Quote

The traffic lights are not synchronised and are mostly operated by the police in boxes because timers and how they operate has not been well planned.

 

They don't have to be synchronised to be represent an improvement. Much better to see the timers now than nothing, and new turn arrows too. No, they aren't "mostly" operated by police in boxes but only sometimes during some peak events. I just went through quite a few today w/ no police around. You're starting to lie now--is it that important to you?

 

Quote

The tunnel is good, but no benefit to me as I always use my motorbike.

 

Improving the infrastructure isn't all about YOU, you see. We have 8 million tourists or so visiting Pattaya yearly and it's a top destination in SE Asia.

 

Quote

Even the burying of cables you cheer over, this was done quite efficiently on Klang, not that I noticed, daren't

 

I'm not cheering over the burying of the cables but merely counteracting the bias and nonsense about "deterioration, no improvement." Yes, it was done well to the consternation of our naysayers and it's a good thing.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

2 hours ago, topt said:

I am sure JSixpack will be along  at some point with a line by line rebuttal of all your points to reassure you that as champers above says 

 

Except of course that Pattaya was NOT "ever thus". In fact it was a very pleasant place where the most dangerous thing was being pickpocketed by a katoey.

Of course, one had to be there then to know.

[JSixpack]

14 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I specifically referenced PUBLIC infrastructure from the OP, not private.

 

It will come as news to all that The Tunnel was a private infrastructure project. What company owns it? Then we need to ask whether you're qualified to discuss this topic.

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, JSixpack said:

 

It will come as news to all that The Tunnel was a private infrastructure project. What company owns it? Then we need to ask whether you're qualified to discuss this topic.

What does the tunnel have to do with the OP?

 

[JSixpack]

9 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Except of course that Pattaya was NOT "ever thus". In fact it was a very pleasant place where the most dangerous thing was being pickpocketed by a katoey.

Of course, one had to be there then to know.

 

Which you obviously weren't or just wearin' them classic rose-tinted glasses. Been hearing the same complaints (and more) , except for the magnitude part (actually, forum dogma holds that tourism has always been dying), with the same dire prediction for decades. Here it is in 1997; everybody's gon' go to the paradise of Cambodia, it's so bad!

 

There are two types of articles appearing in the Pattaya Mail with regularity: those where business and political leaders decry the decline in tourism and propose ways to improve the situation; and a steadily increasing number of reports of tourists being insulted, assaulted, drugged, robbed and extorted. All the good intentions and empty proposals by community leaders are not going to change the behavior of the people at street level, and it is they who are driving away the life blood of the city.

 

. . . It doesn’t matter if the streets are cleared of garbage, no one is going to walk down them if doing so leaves them open to being insulted and assaulted. Having a beach promenade doesn’t matter if strolling along it means taking the risk of being knocked down and robbed. No one is going to participate in the vibrant night-life if there is a good chance that they will wake up three days later in the hospital with all their possessions gone, or in some cases, not wake up at all. No one is going to seek an exotic experience if it means they might be set up by girls with both a legal age and under age ID, and then extorted for immense sums by the police.

Pattaya is being inundated with rude obnoxious thugs who do not care about the city or its visitors. They do not listen to the community leaders, and the police do not have the budget or manpower to control them. They are driving away the tourists and the income and jobs that they bring. Inevitably, this rabble will win as they reduce everyone to their level of poverty.

Meanwhile, tourism to Cambodia is increasing by 50% every six months...

     --Lawrence Neal, "Down On Pattaya, Pattaya Mail, Vol. V No.5, Friday 31 January 1997 - 6 February 1997

 

And same w/ the infrastructure.

 

Edited March 15, 2018 by JSixpack

[JSixpack]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

What does the tunnel have to do with the OP?

 

 

I take it you're now (cough) realizing The Tunnel wasn't privately constructed or owned. Now: what does the tunnel NOT have to do with while the infrastructure slowly disintegrates?

[thaibeachlovers]

The OP mentioned "infrastructure" once as an aside.

The OP is not about the infrastructure, crumbling or not.

I know there are some that seek to deflect the topic for personal reasons, but if anyone wants to comment on this thread I'm pointing out that the thread is about whether Pattaya is as bad as the news subforum makes it out to be, not tunnels or shopping malls. Those that want to comment on private infrastructure should post on one of the many threads about such or start their own.

[thaibeachlovers]

7 minutes ago, JSixpack said:

 

Which you obviously weren't or just wearin' them classic rose-tinted glasses. Been hearing the same complaints (and more) , except for the magnitude part (actually, forum dogma holds that tourism has always been dying), with the same dire prediction for decades. Here it is in 1997; everybody's gon' go to the paradise of Cambodia, it's so bad!

 

There are two types of articles appearing in the Pattaya Mail with regularity: those where business and political leaders decry the decline in tourism and propose ways to improve the situation; and a steadily increasing number of reports of tourists being insulted, assaulted, drugged, robbed and extorted. All the good intentions and empty proposals by community leaders are not going to change the behavior of the people at street level, and it is they who are driving away the life blood of the city.

 

. . . It doesn’t matter if the streets are cleared of garbage, no one is going to walk down them if doing so leaves them open to being insulted and assaulted. Having a beach promenade doesn’t matter if strolling along it means taking the risk of being knocked down and robbed. No one is going to participate in the vibrant night-life if there is a good chance that they will wake up three days later in the hospital with all their possessions gone, or in some cases, not wake up at all. No one is going to seek an exotic experience if it means they might be set up by girls with both a legal age and under age ID, and then extorted for immense sums by the police.

Pattaya is being inundated with rude obnoxious thugs who do not care about the city or its visitors. They do not listen to the community leaders, and the police do not have the budget or manpower to control them. They are driving away the tourists and the income and jobs that they bring. Inevitably, this rabble will win as they reduce everyone to their level of poverty.

Meanwhile, tourism to Cambodia is increasing by 50% every six months...

     --Lawrence Neal, "Down On Pattaya, Pattaya Mail, Vol. V No.5, Friday 31 January 1997 - 6 February 1997

 

And same w/ the infrastructure.

 

Do you have anything to say about the OP or are you just trying to annoy me?

None of that had anything to do with the OP and is nothing to do with the topic which is "is Pattaya as bad now as the News forum makes out.

I will not be replying to you the next time you make an off topic reply on here.

[Peterw42]

OP, I think you have answered your own question with this quote from your OP.

 

"tourists getting mown down trying to cross on a zebra crossing"

 

Firstly, it was "a " tourist got hit by a vehicle, Thats how it would be reported anywhere other than Pattaya. Not only are you "drinking the kool-aid" re-quoting some click-bait rubbish, you are adding to it!!!

[JSixpack]

28 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The OP mentioned "infrastructure" once as an aside.

 

There's no rule about the "asides" can't be discussed. And showing the inaccuracy of an aside calls into question all the rest. The cool thing about that aside is that it's pretty objectively disproven and mere anecdote and feeling can't hold the usual sway,

 

Quote

The OP is not about the infrastructure, crumbling or not.

 

Oh, but part of it is and yes we can address that statement. Sorry!

 

Quote

Those that want to comment on private infrastructure should post on one of the many threads about such or start their own.

 

If I see anyone doing that, I'll let them know.

 

Edited March 15, 2018 by JSixpack