What happened 30 years ago ?

[dailydouble]

I was reading a story at Pattaya Mail today and there was a picture of an empty beach. The caption mentioned that the beaches are the most empty and quiet they have been in 30 years. What happened in Pattaya 30 years ago that they were so quiet ? Or was that just an irrelevant caption ?

 

[carlyai]

I was having a Margarita with Father Ray (now resting in heaven ) at the Pattaya Orphanage a while ago now.

He was telling of the time they used to row out into the bay and fish. The water was so clear you could see the sandy sea bottom. This is only going back 20 odd years, so 30 years ago ...

[jacko45k]

39 minutes ago, dailydouble said:

I was reading a story at Pattaya Mail today and there was a picture of an empty beach. The caption mentioned that the beaches are the most empty and quiet they have been in 30 years. What happened in Pattaya 30 years ago that they were so quiet ? Or was that just an irrelevant caption ?

 

There was a bloodless coup.

[Kerryd]

I was able to dig up this story about Pattaya's beaches 30 years ago:
"It is the height of the season in Pattaya, one of the biggest moneymakers in Thailand’s tourism boom. The Gulf of Thailand is an obliging ultramarine, the sun sparkles brilliantly and the coconut palms along the beach even manage to seem sultry.

But no one is frolicking in the water. The beach is almost deserted. Although there is not a single warning sign along the one-mile strip of Pattaya’s beach, word of mouth has effectively spread the word:
Pattaya’s water is dangerously polluted."

Read the whole article, it's quite an interesting snapshot of what Pattaya was like (and why) 30 years ago.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-01-14-mn-297-story.html
 

[sirineou]

30 years ago people did not float , except if they were witches, so they never went to the beach. 

[PatOngo]

30 years ago......Mobile phones did not exist, social media did not exist, life was good! 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by PatOngo

[mark5335]

1 hour ago, Kerryd said:

I was able to dig up this story about Pattaya's beaches 30 years ago:
"It is the height of the season in Pattaya, one of the biggest moneymakers in Thailand’s tourism boom. The Gulf of Thailand is an obliging ultramarine, the sun sparkles brilliantly and the coconut palms along the beach even manage to seem sultry.

But no one is frolicking in the water. The beach is almost deserted. Although there is not a single warning sign along the one-mile strip of Pattaya’s beach, word of mouth has effectively spread the word:
Pattaya’s water is dangerously polluted."

Read the whole article, it's quite an interesting snapshot of what Pattaya was like (and why) 30 years ago.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-01-14-mn-297-story.html
 

My first visit there was almost 29 years ago (Songkran 1992), and it was well known that the water was quite polluted.  I recall there was a warning about this in Lonely Planet guide at the time.

[roger101]

1983 first time here. Went for a swim and cut my foot open on broken glass. Haven't swum in the see at Pattaya Beach  since. Jomtien was OK  then but the last time I swum there i came out itching and rushed to the shower in Pattaya Park.

[treetops]

Someone posted on here that it was the lowest high season ever.

[TaaSaparot]

17 hours ago, Kerryd said:

Read the whole article, it's quite an interesting snapshot of what Pattaya was like (and why) 30 years ago.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-01-14-mn-297-story.html

 

Could have been written about any year in Pattaya's History (and was/is)

Edited January 14, 2021 by TaaSaparot

[TaaSaparot]

19 hours ago, dailydouble said:

What happened in Pattaya 30 years ago that they were so quiet ? Or was that just an irrelevant caption ?

 

 

I was in Pattaya for the 89/90 High Season and once the Festive Season was over, business did slow down more then the norm at the time, but to say the beaches were empty is wrong.

 

I seem to remember the blame was directed at a series of newspaper articles that painted Pattaya in a bad light, especially in the German Press, but there was a few infamous ones in the British Press also.

 

Pre-Internet days, so Pattaya was still a bit of a secret back then, and I was asked a lot by Family, Friends and Workmates, why was I travelling all that distance for some winter sun.

 

A ""Sleepy Fishing Village"? .... erm, most definitely not.

[charmonman]

My first time there was 30 years ago. I didn’t go there to swim.

It was smaller and quieter then but still plenty of bars.

[bradiston]

16 hours ago, roger101 said:

1983 first time here. Went for a swim and cut my foot open on broken glass. Haven't swum in the see at Pattaya Beach  since. Jomtien was OK  then but the last time I swum there i came out itching and rushed to the shower in Pattaya Park.

Funny you mention itching. I swim on Dong Tan beach and get a prickling sensation like I've been stung. I thought maybe the salt?

[marin]

On 1/14/2021 at 8:23 AM, carlyai said:

He was telling of the time they used to row out into the bay and fish. The water was so clear you could see the sandy sea bottom. This is only going back 20 odd years, so 30 years ago ...

He was dreaming. 20 years ago the pollution in Pattaya Bay was much more than now. Many hotels pumped sewerage directly into the sea. But as said it was fun, before the cell phone. TQ and the old Sugar Hut on Jomthien were really cool places..

[Nout]

On 1/14/2021 at 8:23 AM, carlyai said:

I was having a Margarita with Father Ray (now resting in heaven ) at the Pattaya Orphanage a while ago now.

He was telling of the time they used to row out into the bay and fish. The water was so clear you could see the sandy sea bottom. This is only going back 20 odd years, so 30 years ago ...

Nah..The water was dirty and polluted around Pattaya Beach in the 80s...definitely by the later 80s.

[Nout]

On 1/14/2021 at 9:22 AM, PatOngo said:

30 years ago......Mobile phones did not exist, social media did not exist, life was good! 

 

 

Mobile phones certainly existed but they were less common. Coke dealers, city traders, band tour managers had mobile phones..about the size of a small house brick.

[Tbone999]

On 1/14/2021 at 8:23 AM, carlyai said:

I was having a Margarita with Father Ray (now resting in heaven ) at the Pattaya Orphanage a while ago now.

He was telling of the time they used to row out into the bay and fish. The water was so clear you could see the sandy sea bottom. This is only going back 20 odd years, so 30 years ago ...

Not true at all, I was there early 1990's, and used to hate getting on the speedboats to take the weekly Sugar Shack group to the Ko Larn, the water was horrible, mid you, Ko Larn was crystal clear back then.

 

[Dagfinnur Traustason]

On 1/14/2021 at 1:43 AM, dailydouble said:

What happened in Pattaya 30 years ago that they were so quiet ?

30 years ago??? I don´t even remember the color of my hair since yesterday.

[Leaver]

On 1/14/2021 at 7:43 AM, dailydouble said:

What happened in Pattaya 30 years ago that they were so quiet ?

 

Perhaps the new discovery of AIDS.  

[jacko45k]

51 minutes ago, bradiston said:

Funny you mention itching. I swim on Dong Tan beach and get a prickling sensation like I've been stung. I thought maybe the salt?

No, I don't believe so. 

[TaaSaparot]

1 hour ago, Nout said:

Nah..The water was dirty and polluted around Pattaya Beach in the 80s...definitely by the later 80s.

 

Well,  that's the myth.

 

 

[natway09]

You really do not want to know !

In 1968 the beaches empty but the real reason for Pattaya was alive & well with R & R providing the ladys with a great living

[LookChang]

I came for the first time in Pattaya in 1986. The water was already polluted. The main difference was that Thai girls were shy to wear bikinis and they went in the sea fully clothed...

[KhaoNiaw]

1988 was the first time for me. You couldn't swim at Pattaya then. I got taken down to Bangsaen, where the water was clear and you had fish swimming round you but a year or two later that wasn't any different. 

[flexomike]

1 hour ago, natway09 said:

You really do not want to know !

In 1968 the beaches empty but the real reason for Pattaya was alive & well with R & R providing the ladys with a great living

I went  there several times between 1968-1970

[thedemon]

It sounds to me like the aftermath of Black May 1992. My parents visited soon after that and I took them on a day trip from BKK to Pattaya. Indeed Pattaya was dead quiet and I recall there being no cars parked on beach Rd, only rows and rows of rental bikes. We also went to the (then newly opened) Ambassador Jomtien Hotel to see what a 4,000 room hotel with no guests looked like. In fact there was a small contingent of soldiers staying there from (as I recall) Peru which seemed pretty weird to me. But otherwise we were told by the serving staff that they had no guests.

 

Some of the recent photos in the media of a dead Beach Rd have reminded me of that day.

 

It didn't take long for the tourists to forget the violence of Black May and come back in ever increasing numbers though.

[geisha]

And what do you know, the same situation as today ! Nothing has been done to save Thailand’s beauty and treasures. On the contrary, it’s got to the point where you can hardly breathe ! Lack of regulations , city planning and respect of hygiene and people’s health , ,mass tourism, has killed the golden goose.

[Kerryd]

6 minutes ago, thedemon said:

In fact there was a small contingent of soldiers staying there from (as I recall) Peru which seemed pretty weird to me. But otherwise we were told by the serving staff that they had no guests.

Peacekeepers on R&R from Cambodia.

My first trip was in early 1993. I was on R&R from a Peacekeeping Mission in Croatia. At the airport on the way back I encountered a small contingent of German military who were going back to Germany. They were on a Peacekeeping mission in Cambodia.

That was back in the days when you went through security at Don Muang before getting to the check in counters. They'd wrap/strap your luggage at security and then you could go to the counter. That is where you found out there was a 250 baht "Departure Tax". Great. No ATMs in those days and the only exchange booths were out on the main concourse so you had to leave the "secure" area, have the wrapping/straps cut off your bags, go get some money, then come back and go through the whole procedure again.

Back in those days (early 90s) Pattaya was still pumping raw sewage out into Pattaya bay. I think the outlet was about a kilometer from the beach. (Keep in mind that all those boats out there don't dock up and empty their black water tanks or offload their garbage either. It all goes straight into the water as well.)
Somewhere in the later part of the decade Pattaya built a waste water treatment plant and stopped pumping all that sewage into the bay.

However, Jomtien was still doing it nearly 10 years later. I remember the first time I went to Jomtien beach. You could see where the sewage outlet was by the flock of seagulls that was always right above it.

I think the pipe is (or was) still there (I haven't gone done there in a long time). 

[Leaver]

3 hours ago, geisha said:

And what do you know, the same situation as today ! Nothing has been done to save Thailand’s beauty and treasures.

 

But everything has been done to protect Thailand's World Class corruption. ????

[Colabamumbai]

On 1/14/2021 at 10:27 AM, mark5335 said:

My first visit there was almost 29 years ago (Songkran 1992), and it was well known that the water was quite polluted.  I recall there was a warning about this in Lonely Planet guide at the time.

First visit 1971, rented houses on the beach.