The seafood court at Patong.

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Our hotel in Patong.

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26 JAN Afternoon

Our flight from Phuket landed in Bangkok at 4:40 PM. Our transport to Pattaya was scheduled at 6 PM. Disembarking and claiming our luggage was smooth and without any undue delay. At the arrival hall there were maps and travel brochures for Bangkok. We had quite some time, so we gathered some of these and sat down. Around 5:45 PM we exited the arrival hall and went to the gate where the airport representative of Thai Vision Holidays was to meet us. The representative turned out to be a Thai lady who spoke English well and could mutter a few Hindi words too. She informed us that due to some traffic related problem our transport would arrive a little late and apologized profusely. The little late became quite late and finally the van pulled up at the gate. There was another family from India. They had come from Gangtok, Sikkim which is in my opinion the most scenic place high on the mountains. The residents have Mongolian features. We boarded the van around 7 PM and the Thai lady spoke rapidly to the driver and to our benefit shouted “Fast fast”

The van pulled out of the airport. The traffic was smooth. Soon we hit the toll road and the driver gunned the throttle and we were cruising at 180 KMPH. There were very few vehicles on the toll road at that time. The toll road has many bridges over canals. It took us around 50 minutes or so to reach Pattaya. From the semi dark highway we entered the brightly lit town. The van arrived at A One Royal Cruise Hotel where our accommodation had been arranged.

This hotel has mixed reviews on the travel forums with some travelers describing it as great place and some condemning the hotel as the worst. The hotel consists of two blocks. The rooms may be different in the two blocks I can’t say. The room offered to us was really huge with a very big bed and an equally huge LCD TV which my daughters made good use of at night. The wardrobe had a musty smell and guests are told to smoke on the balcony only. We were feeling somewhat tired by the time we checked in and decided to eat at the hotel restaurant. A decision to be regretted later. After a few drinks we went down to eat. There was a dinner buffet. The spread looked ok and the price very reasonable so instead of A la carte we opted for the buffet. The food was absolutely mediocre and proved to be the worst meal of our entire trip. Another thing I noted in the hotels in Thailand. They supply just two bags of tea, two packs of coffee, two pouches of sugar and whiteners. That means you can only make two cups of beverage !!!!

After dinner my family went up to the rooms and I went out for a stroll. The street next to the hotel was lined on one side with bars, one next to another. The bars were all full and I was greeted with raucous cries of come on from bar girls sitting alone. I returned the greetings with folded hands and moved on. After the row of bars I found a massage parlour and walked in for foot massage. This time a very nice young Thai lady massaged my feet and she was quite talkative. She spoke quite good English. So soon I learnt a bit about life in Pattaya, things like the rent of a two bed room apartment, cost of living, and job opportunities and so on. I also learnt where the bulk of the money earned by her goes, about her current boy friend. It was pretty late when I came out and walked back to my hotel. I passed the same bars but I didn’t invoke that kind of reaction from the girls.

Enjoying all the detail of your report Jyo. Looking forward to the next installment. I hope you made it to Cabbages and Condoms.

Lily.... to the forum. You can indeed organise a camping trip to Maya Bay. There was only one operator licenced to take tourists there overnight when we were last there. We didn't camp there as we travel with two young children but we spoke to a couple that did and they enjoyed the experience. It is truly a magical place. We managed to get there very early one morning, well before all the tourist boats decsend on the place, and we shared the beach with only one other couple for about an hour. I would love to wake up there and experience the sunrise, it would be priceless.

If you want to start a thread with any specific questions on Phi-Phi I would be happy to help with any information that I can offer. I have been there 3 times over the last 10 years and really like it there.

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I love Thailand this much

Good Heavens Jyo I'm surprised your wife let you roam the streets of Pattaya on your own I've heard the raucous cries the girls make to call the guys in and not for the faint hearted. We have spent many a night sitting at the bars chatting to the girls... they are such good fun. Of course we are tucked up in bed when the real action starts.

Looking forward the reading about your stay there.

Cheers Geri

Well dear Geri, wife letting me stray alone.... doesn't it speak volumes? Volumes yes but the content may not be as flattering for me.

And dear Shanek, very sorry to admit that in spite of my resolve to spend some money at C&C I failed as by the time we reached Pattaya I was facing a near revolt by my daughters protesting against eating at sit in places. You know how the girls are.... Oh I see you have two sons !!!! But I will definitely visit C&C on our next visit although it would be their restaurant in Bangkok as I don't have the intention of going back to Pattaya again.

We had a very good sleep that night sprawled over the huge bed. Today we have the Coral island tour and our pick up was scheduled at 9:30. Our tour operator Thai Vision Travels is very well organized. Every night they delivered a message at our hotel informing us about the schedule for next day. The balcony of this hotel room is very narrow and hardly any view except the Thai herb garden below. I found many guests standing in the balcony having their wake up smoke like me with tea or coffee. At around 8:30 we trouped to the breakfast buffet laid at pool side. Since most package tours from India have Bangkok & Pattaya only in their packages we found a lot of Indian dishes and many of them are not really breakfast items though. Never mind, the buffet was huge and all of us relished our intakes. Having provided enough or more than enough nourishment to our bodies I went to our room to bring the bag which we had packed for our excursion. By the way I forgot to mention that last night after my return to hotel I happened to share the lift with a very drunk Russian lady. In a sober version of herself she met me in the smoking zone while I was having my post breakfast fix and asked me if I was angry with her for what she had said to me last night. To be very frank I hardly remembered what she had said to me. I assured her that I wasn’t angry at all and offered her an Indian cigarette which she took.

Our pick up van turned up punctually and we drove off to the beach where we were to board the speed boat. It was a group of Indian families and the family from Sikkim who had shared the van with us from BKK airport to Pattaya was also there. The gentleman was very upset and kept on telling me that Thai govt. should ban the sleaze and all that stuff. I kept mum, the Pattaya scene is no secret and I guess every visitor who comes to Pattaya is very well aware of that. Having completed head count our tour guide led us to our boat and we sped off. We were taken to a floating dock jam packed with tourists mostly from India. This was for para gliding. We were not interested in that any way but we had no other option than sweating it out sitting on a rickety bench till everyone in our group had their fill. I was really amazed at the efficiency and precision of the team handling the scene. Not a second was wasted. One landed and synchronized with it another took off. My hats off to those guys

We returned to our boat and after about 15 minutes we were near an island where for 1200B one can go diving assisted by guides. People who wanted to do that went over to a big boat and we boarded a mechanized long tail boat with a glass bottom. The so called glass bottom was covered by a plank. We sailed to one particular spot and the plank was removed for a few minutes to show us corals. We were terribly disappointed with the view, it was not even a shadow of what we had seen at Phi Phi. I did not include Pattaya in our itinerary for this trip though. I had visited the underwater world in Singapore alone and missed my family. So my main reason behind coming to Pattaya was in fact to take my family to the aquarium. Having completed our glass bottomed tour we finally sailed to Koh Larn. This beach proved to be the saving grace of our today’s excursion. The water was absolutely clear. We were taken to one zone where deck chairs and beach umbrellas were allotted to us. We kept our things and lost no time in plunging in to the sea. This would be our last dip in the sea this time.

I met four not so young bachelors who had come from Mumbai. Jolly happy go lucky guys engaged in real estate business they were, who in a span of one hour or so had finished a bottle of duty free Scotch. I told them about our Phi Phi tour and they immediately decided to postpone their return to India next day and buy tickets for Phuket after returning to Pattaya. I sniffed out a small restaurant and bought a plateful of bar-be-cued prawns, a small cup of fiery red dip and two cans of chilled beer. The prawns were succulently fresh and the dip was terrific. It was time to return now and our guide like a shepherd was busy heralding his flock. After a half an hour ride we returned to Pattaya.

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The saving grace.....

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Our hotel in pattaya overlooked the sight the para sailors swishing through the air and landing back on the pontoon like some kind of strange exotic birds.
There were hoard and hoards of trippers setting off in the boats.

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Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.

Loving your reports, made me laugh re the tbone steaks, Im on your families side on that one hahaha.
Cathy

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