Local authorities are doing their best to keep up spirits by lobbying the government for more vaccines to create some sort of herd immunity in Greater Pattaya. But the reality of a Pattaya “sandbox” holiday resort remains a distant prospect as Covid-19 infections continue to escalate nationally and locally.
The only queues in Pattaya these days are for charity food handouts or at the immigration bureau following a public holiday or heavy rains. Not to mention the occasional rush of foreigners after unfounded rumors on the internet that a vaccination walk-in center has just opened on a first-come first-served basis.
It’s true a few new businesses have sprung up. Pattaya Taco Bell, part of the chain specializing in Mexican-inspired food, seems not to be short of customers at the Royal Garden. The legalization of cannabis for specific purposes – not including recreational use – has led to some new initiatives. The Old Weed Man is just about the only shophouse open for business in an otherwise shuttered Walking Street.
English breakfast options remain surprisingly plentiful given the decline of the British presence. Facebook’s popular Breakfast Club Pattaya keeps most expat old-timers updated on a range of food-related subjects. All leading venues have their devoted flock of supporters, but a noteworthy addition is Kung’s, a tiny-fronted eatery on Soi Lengee with an unusual choice of home-made sausages.
Bars and clubs remain padlocked and restaurants can’t serve alcohol. Well-publicized arrests at shebeens (illegal drinking clubs) have led to the arrest locally of over 250 people including about 70 foreigners. Jail sentences are not the order of the day right now, because of the risk of spreading infections in jails, but foreigners face a fine and mooted warnings about a future black listing. This being Thailand you never know.
The heroines of the evening scene are surely the massage parlour girls (mostly female) who sit night after night at the front of empty but illuminated premises. Customers are thin on the ground to say the least, but they remain more cheerful than could be expected. Two years ago, Pattaya sported 200 massage parlours of which about 80 remain open. For how much longer is anyone’s guess.
Mask-wearing by day is comprehensive. All major stores and malls have their own signing-in systems which usually involve a temperature test. However, the use of tracing apps seems to have been very largely abandoned and replaced by an optional manual signing of name and phone number which is hardly credible. By night, the use of masks is less universal whilst, on Jomtien’s four kilometer beach front road, the public drinking of alcohol in chatty groups is by no means unknown.
Locals and expats continually debate the future of Pattaya, the ex-fun city. The back-to-normal lobby says it’s just a question of waiting until the virus dies down and historical tourism will resume. The neo-Pattaya brigade predicts that the city will become a family resort for Asians with commercial sex both rarer and more expensive. A third group says Pattaya will simply lose any character and become part of Bangkok’s satellite metropolis. Actually, they might all be right.
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