Pattaya Weekend #2

The entrance to the walking street.

This past weekend I returned to Pattaya with three other U of M ladies.  The last time we were there, we were entirely confined to our resort hotel, and didn’t see anything in the city itself.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from Pattaya, but I had heard that it had a bad reputation mixed up with the sex trade in Thailand.  It will suffice to say that the city more than lived up to its reputation.  While there I was very uncomfortable to see many seedy bars, strip clubs, and prostitutes, as well as middle aged or older men parading around with young Thai women or men.   I found the nightlife to be very disturbing, and ended up spending most of my nights in the hotel room.  Pattaya is said to be the Vegas of Thailand, which can partially be attributed to the many flashy lights and signs along so many streets.  It was not an experience that I have any desire to repeat, but this was certainly an eye-opener for me.  I knew that the sex trade was supposed to prevail in Thailand, but until this point I had not seen anything really disturbing upfront.  I am forced to consider that this type of thing is not confined just to Pattaya, and that the city is just much more blatant and open about it. 

A small view of the beach.

Me with wax Will Smith.

All that being said, I did manage to find something to do in Pattaya.  Our small group hung around one of the malls for the majority of our Saturday, and went to the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum and collection of attractions there.  Besides the museum, we went through the wax sculpture exhibits and the haunted house (which was pretty scary).  The exhibits in the museum were pretty cool, and took quite a while to go through because of the many explanatory write-ups.  Saturday night, I ended up going to a movie with one of the girls too.  All in all, although I would not consider going back to Pattaya, it was not a wasted experience.