Police Checks At Ekamai Bus Station

[PattayaOneTeam]

Police Checks at Ekamai Bus Station

By Stickman

As if proof was needed that Soi Cowboy is very much the expats' favourite playground, when the heavens open early evening, the soi is in a quiet evening. Even the most popular bars which can have 50 or more customers at 8:00 PM may be lucky to have a handful of checkbins out when early rain strikes. It takes more than a monsoon downpour to keep visitors away from the bars but for expats in a city where transport can snarl up when the heavens open, an early evening downpour can be the difference between staying in or going out. Afternoon showers and rain after 8:00 PM have much less effect. What bar owners hate the most is when rain starts around 6:00 PM and their expected evening take can drop by 50%. Entrepreneurial tuk-tuk drivers stationed at the soi 23 end of Soi Cowboy have been charging those punters who have braved the rains a baht a meter, 50 baht for the 50 odd metre distance to a bar's front door. It's a small price to stay dry.

After many delays, Carlsberg finally became went on sale again in Bangkok. At this stage it is only available in draft and interestingly, it is only bars in the farang areas offering it.

Sukhumvit soi 5 is becoming much more colourful these days, and you will see no more colour than in the small, open bar with a spacious area out front, just next to Foodland, adjacent to the steps going up to Country Road. Like the bars in Sin City, Bangkok's bars are seeing a new type of visitor.

If you take the bus from Pattaya to Bangkok's Ekamai bus station, don't be surprised if a man in a brown uniform is waiting at your destination to welcome you to our fair city. Part of his welcome routine will be a check of not just your belongings, but of your person. Bangkok's studious officials seem most concerned that visitors from Pattaya may have the sort of contraband on them that could sully the pure reputation of the Thai capital. If you have no interest in being welcomed, note that the bus from Pattaya head to Ekamai stops 4 times en route, the last at the Onut skytrain station, about 2 km east of Ekamai. You can jump off there and then either get on the skytrain or jump in a taxi and avoid the welcome committee.

Rugby fans might prefer to remain in Pattaya when big rugby internationals are taking place. With seemingly more cable TV options in Pattaya than in Bangkok, there is more chance of catching your favourite match live in Sin City. None of the networks broadcasting in Bangkok have any live international rugby scheduled. The fixture between the All Blacks and the Wallabies in Hong Kong confirmed many Bangkok-based expats' worst nightmare - the match did not appear on any local television channel's schedule.

Puffery greets you at Crossbar with the sign outside announcing “probably the best pub in Sukhumvit”. That honour is up for debate, but the landlord is doing his best to make the claim true, introducing a new pub grub menu with traditional pub favourites, such as scampi in a basket, chicken in a basket, ploughman's lunch, cottage pie and there's even some Indian dishes to keep the Brits happy!

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-- Pattaya One 2010-11-11