֎ The best-value dining in Pattaya has got to be fish and chips or a roast beef dinner for a measly 120 baht. The advert was seen on Soi Buakhao. But no sign of the restaurant offering these bargains.
֎ Jomtien’s sole agogo club is now called Viper. It’s taken over from Number 1. Near beach road as you arrive from Pattaya.
֎ With 5 million visitors projected for 2024, Pattaya now has more visitors than either Peru or the Dominican Republic. Not everybody knows that.
֎ Tourists are now being offered free Thai holidays if they smuggle cannabis back to Britain. Not to mention a long prison sentence.
֎ From all accounts Jomtien Complex, the gay bars district, isn’t doing too well. For rent signs have started to appear.
֎ Overheard. Women in Thailand are like a box of chocolates. You are never sure which have nuts.
֎ Boss Club on Walking Street is having the “biggest party of Pattaya” on Friday 15 November. Mosey on over.
֎ Pattaya has the only floating market in the world that doesn’t float. An application to the Guinness records book has apparently been submitted.
֎ Maggie May gentleman’s club on the Darkside has an unusual special offer running now. Bring your very own vinyl record and we’ll play it. Give it a whirl.
֎ Don’t forget it’s the Loy Krathong festival Friday 15 November. If Pattaya traffic is awful on most Friday nights, this one will be worse.
֎ A Chinese man has tried to buy goods with a banknote marked “copy”. He’d better think it out again.
֎ Walking Street’s clubs are said to be getting really busy. The main problem is that Chinese gawper crowds following a flag are obstructing the entrances.
֎ Still, according to Stickman, Burj Club on Walking Street remains closed after much fanfare and noise a couple of months back.
֎ The pizzas at Dom’s Pizza on Soi 5 Pratumnak must be really good. They’re always busy, even during the mornings.
֎ Jimmy’s restaurant on Jomtien Soi 7 offers an all-meat roast dinner (beef, pork, chicken and lamb) for 395 baht. You need to be a trencherman to appreciate all that good food.
֎ It’s unfair to call Pattaya Sin City. It’s actually a cultural center with an annual classical guitar festival and a bottle museum. What more do you expect?
֎ Pattaya is a tale of two cities. Pattaya and Jomtien are starkly different: crude and sophisticated. But is the distinction out of date? Answers on a post card please.
֎ Did you know that the Indian clubs on Walking Street are mostly owned by Arabs from Dubai? Maybe it’s just a rumor but it’s widely gossiped.
֎ Sexy Soi 6, the last holdout of what Pattaya used to be, has hundreds of ladies lining the street after dark. For some reason the busiest ones seem to be in the middle not either end.
֎ Pattaya has several sister cities. One of them is Quingdao in China. It’s best known for its beer, Tsingtao, a legacy of the German occupation in the nineteenth century.
֎ Twenty years ago, Pattaya had the “war of the pies” in which rival makers cursed each other in pre-internet days. Tinnies, near Jomtien beach, make top quality products if you’re looking.
֎ The latest proposal is that the cannabis plant should not be relisted as a narcotic but insists that it be restricted to medical uses. Whatever law is eventually passed will be ambiguous. You can better your bottom baht on it.
֎ Some of the bars on Soi Diana’s bar complex have changed their names. American casinos have evidently complained about using their labels. Well, Pattaya isn’t exactly Las Vegas.
֎ Jomtien immigration isn’t that busy these days. But most tourists get 60 days on arrival, no longer one month, and many expats do their address reporting online.
֎ Lastly, Amazon has refused to dispatch a t-shirt to a Pattaya customer and told them to choose another destination. The logo was “I like happy endings”.
