Thailand for tourists
Thirty
straight days of work. Four days (or maybe even five) of break.
As the van to
take me to my holiday destination runs only once a day in the morning, I end up
spending a night (and an afternoon, there wasn’t much work after lunch) at a
place that is on top of my “never go there”-list: Pattaya.
This city
is famous for masses of tourists, prostitution, drugs, western men finding
themselves Thai women, and for having everything a tourist’s heart desires.
Every other
shop window offers massages (200 baht per hour, everywhere), the ones in
between sell beer, smoothies, and souvenirs in the shape of very cheap beach
wear.
And the
people run around in these speedos and short beach dresses, not only on the
beach, but in the city as well.
I see more
white beer bellies than clack hair today. The locals that I do notice are
either selling something, driving taxis or waiting for someone who wants a
massage.
Pattaya is
like a mixture of places like Lloret the Mar or Bibione in Italy and the Khao
San Road in Bangkok or Thamel in Kathmandu, Nepal. When you’re lying on the
narrow beach underneath neat rows of palm trees, slurping your Chang beer, you
don’t even have to get up if you want something else – beach vendors come by
with ice cream, souvenirs, sunglasses, massages and even their tattoo studio.
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| what she sees |
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| what I see |
Do I like
it? No. Am I still glad I got to see it? Yes. This is the Thailand of tourists,
not the backpackers. There is a difference. Backpackers, German high school
graduates, French college dropouts – they go to Chiang Mai, Pai, and Koh
Phangan. Tourists, who aren’t taking months to find culture, Hippie-clothes and
themselves, but two weeks to relax on a pretty beach and have some fun, they go
to Koh Samui, Koh Chang, and to Pattaya. And here, you get everything you need
as a tourist. And it’s cheap! Although, I have to say, much more expensive than
in the places with less or no tourists…
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| predominant foreign language is (next to English) Russian |
So I do
what I always do: I take a walk on the beach, picking up the trash that has
been left here or brought in by the waves, and, through my favorite app, find a
great vegan restaurant: “Yes vegan”.
On the way
there, I pass small food stalls on the side of the road, they sell food,
drinks, coconuts, bananas, mangoes… In front of them: street dogs and piles of
trash.
Behind
them: a few wooden planks, ribbed roofs, canvas covers. Aka: the owners’
houses.
Across the
road: massive architectural mistakes, aka resorts.
And I
wonder: two, three years ago – would I have seen Pattaya as I do now? Or
wouldn’t I have been getting a tan on that beach, too, waiting to buy
souvenirs, drinking a smoothie from a plastic cup?
By the way,
no, HappCow is not sponsoring me or anything ;-) I just love to look up
restaurants there. Give it a try!
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