Pattaya Turning Into A Flea Market?

[Ulysses G.]

I think tourists may be OK with the congestion of walking through that gauntlet once or twice, but for residents it is a true degradation of the already severely stressed quality of life here. Oh well. I don't agree about market forces. These people are low end people who will be happy with tiny earnings. Unless city hall kicks them out, they aren't going away.

The last time I heard the phrase "Low end people" it was from an obnoxious hi-so Thai.

If that is the same as the "small people" it would be an executive from BP.

[Jingthing]

Not all the vendors are small. Some fat mak mak.

[Mobi]

Anybody else dislike the junk sale along the beach? Makes it very congested.

Remove all cars and traffic' date=' and Beach Road will be perfect, even with all sellers

[/quote']

They did that with Patpong some years back and totally destroyed it.

Trouble is they have no idea how to control the number of vendors to make it into a pleasant place to walk and shop. They are just too greedy.

[Mobi]

I think the whole thing with having vendors on beach road started after the red shirt riots in Bangkok.

The government tried to help those vendors who had lost money during the riots by holding a couple of "special market days" on Beach road to compensate them for their losses.

Unfortunately, once many of these vendors came to Pattaya with their wares, they decided to stay put.

But be in no doubt on this. Not a single vendor would be allowed to ply his trade on the beach if the BIB weren't given a bung.

It is clearly a new source of earnings for our beloved BIB, and once started it will never stop.

Not even the Mayor of our wonderful city would dare to get in between a cop and his bungs.

Incidentally, I would dispute the assertion that the clothes sold at the Thepprasit market are crap.

On the contrary, many of them are of exceedingly good quality, at extremely cheap prices, which leads to me to believe that much of the merchandise being sold there probably fell off the back of a few trucks.

I am currently wearing a high quality T-shirt that I bought at Thepprasit market some months back and it is still in perfect condition after dozens of laundry washes.

Just about every lady I know loves to shop there.They always come away with a stack of hand bags, shoes, jeans and other women's apparel, much of which is very good quality, at very reasonable prices.

As with every market, there is always some junk around; you just have to shop carefully.

Edited July 26, 2010 by Mobi

[Rimmer]

One off topic post deleted.

[moo9]

If City Hall were really thinking, they would close Beach Road to traffic and set up the vendors in one lane and leave the walking path next to the beach clear. Such a simple fix.

TheWalkingMan

Lol and where should the cars go?

[moo9]

Don't know what people are complaining of. Nothing has really changed over the years!

If one prefers to buy high end luxury articles one should go to BKK anyway. Many tourists prefer to buy the "crap" and one should accept it.

[TheWalkingMan]

If City Hall were really thinking, they would close Beach Road to traffic and set up the vendors in one lane and leave the walking path next to the beach clear. Such a simple fix.

TheWalkingMan

Lol and where should the cars go?

hehe, yeah I know.

Actually I was thinking that this market was a once in awhile thing and so closing the street to traffic would have been easy. I did not realize that it had become something of a permanent revenue stream for the BiB.

TheWalkingMan

[WaatWang]

It's definitely not on every night, but it seems to be a few nights every few weeks.

During the Marathon they had stalls mostly catering to the sports crowd.

When the night market is on, if it's a quiet walk on the beach you're after, why not go to Jomtien beach? Just a suggestion...

[Phil Conners]

Market forces will dictate, if they sell junk that no wants to buy, they will eventually give up ! Generally people like idling through these flea markets, hunting for a bargain !

That would be the market conditions you are used to from home. Here things are different. There will always be another Thai standing in line to try his hand with a business idea regardless of how many has failed the idea before him. Another thing you need to take into account is that a Thai will be quite happy sitting in his market stall all night for 50 baht profit. Different rules here.

[powderpuff]

I personally HATE being harassed by those Indian tailors. They will chase you into the middle of the street.

[thaiman]

So, does anybody know for sure how often the market be held?

As far as revenue goes, I know that the stalls have to be rented out. Someone is making easy money and probably won't want this flow to stop.

[andyww]

If you dont like street vendors then Thailand is not the best place to live in. The original Thai constitution as drafted by King Ramkamgheng stated that all Thai people should be free to trade any goods in any place, and not much has changed since then.

[Jingthing]

Are they free to set up shop in the middle of a busy roadway, in effect blocking traffic? Try walking that narrow gauntlet of misery and you will appreciate the analogy.

[Doppelone]

If you dont like street vendors then Thailand is not the best place to live in. The original Thai constitution as drafted by King Ramkamgheng stated that all Thai people should be free to trade any goods in any place, and not much has changed since then.

... yes, but the point surely is that the beachroad esplanade used to be a lovely place to jog and walk in the early evening and now the market clogs the entire space which is a terrible loss.

It's not even very well thought out. There's very little room for customers never mind joggers and walkers. All very odd.

[Mobi]

Since I moved to Jomtien I can't honestly say that the traffic hasn't bothered me that much.

It used to bother me far more when I lived in Bangkok when on a bad day it could take two hours to move two miles.

As a rule, I have never experienced anything approaching that kind of congestion in Pattaya.

I do admit that I try to avoid driving into congested areas at peak times and that I make a judicious use of "rat runs" - side sois which provide short and sometimes 'long cuts' (longer in distance but shorter in time). Generally speaking, by making a sensible choice of routes, I can usually drive to my intended destinations to any part of Pattaya within an acceptable time-frame.

There really is a very large choice of roads and sois to make your journey easier and as far as I'm concerned, it's mainly the visitors and the idiots who get stuck in the jams.

For example, if I wanted to go from Jomtien to North Pattaya and I knew that Sukhumvit was going to be very congested, and probably 3rd Road even worse, I would turn right from Theprasit into Soi Kow Talo and take a left at the local road which runs parallel to the rail lines, (and Sukhumvit), and I will be in Pattaya Nua in less than five minutes at almost any time of the day.

Pattaya Klang is another bottle neck, but I never drive down it as there are so many alternative routes to take, even if I wish to go to Carrefour, TOT, Foodland or any other destination on Pattaya Klang, I will find a route that ensures I spend the minimum amount of time in Pattaya Klang itself.

And so on....

A bit of savy navigation will nearly always keep you clear of the main congested areas.

I admit that Beach Road in late afternoon/evening can be a bit of a nightmare, and for this reason I will always keep clear of it at that time of day. But even if I do get stuck on beach Road, I will take a left up one of the Sois and double back using second road or Soi Bukow and use an alternative route to get to my destination.

It seems to me that most Thai car drivers have no idea of all the short cuts and alternative routes that abound in Pattaya,(or simply don't mind being stuck in traffic jams) but many motor cyclists have learned the same ropes as I have.

It's all good fun. To me,it adds to the charm of sin City - it keeps me thinking and continually challenges me to work out ways to "beat the jams".

As for Issan - well all I can say is my personal experiences of many of Issan's provincial towns is that they are more congested than Pattaya - especially on weekends and holidays. I once spent over an hour trying to drive through Roi Et, it was just one set of red lights after another, until I thought I would never get out of the pesky town. Then I found out there was bi-pass that my then lady hadn't told me about - because she said it was further to drive!!!

Si Saket, Maha Sarakam, Karasin, Khon Kaen and so on were all just as bad and as for Korat - well the least said about that town the better.

I have also seen horrendous jams in Chiang Mai.

It's all a matter of perception.

That's my take on Pattaya traffic anyway.

[Mobi]

It's not even very well thought out. There's very little room for customers never mind joggers and walkers. All very odd.

Not really. This is Thailand. Nobody actually cares. If they did care, they wouldn't do all the crazy things that they do to put off tourists.

And why don't they care?

Because it doesn't matter what they do and how much inconvenience they cause, the punters will keep coming to sin city. Even riots in Bangkok hardly stopped them in their tracks.

Think of it - the country was on the verge of anarchy, the rioters were killing each other every day, there was a curfew, and half of the capital city was a no go, war zone.

Yet the number of arrivals at Bangkok airport dropped from 30,000 per day to 20,000 per day.

O.K.a large drop, but there were still 20,000 visitors a day pouring into Thailand.

20,000 people who were completely un-phased by the civil unrest. They were determined to enjoy themselves in LOS come what may.

So I doubt whether any disruption to joggers or promenaders along Beach road by hawkers' stalls will affect the tourist numbers one iota. For every disgruntled tourist who vows never to return, there will be two more ready to take his place.

And the Thais couldn't give a monkey's......

Pattaya is pretty impervious to such happenings....

[moo9]

If you dont like street vendors then Thailand is not the best place to live in. The original Thai constitution as drafted by King Ramkamgheng stated that all Thai people should be free to trade any goods in any place, and not much has changed since then.

And that was a very good decision. In Europe people have to pass many hurdles to create a business, that's why many prefer to live on welfare! I don't know what people are complaining about here every time. You can find decent T-Shirts and other stuff at the markets and I am happy that they still exist!

[moo9]

I personally HATE being harassed by those Indian tailors. They will chase you into the middle of the street.

How long do you stay in Pattaya? Just ignore them, no eye contact, no word. Just don't care, as there as more important things in life to take care about!

Cheers

[Rimmer]

One flaming post and quoted reply deleted