“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.”
– Tim Cahill
From Bangkok, we decided to take a day-trip and visit one of my girlfriends’ friend in Pattaya. Since it’s just 150km from Bangkok and a 2-hour bus ride, we gave it a go. A lot of you might think, of all places nearby Bangkok, why choose Pattaya? Well, it is the nearest beach in Bangkok and I guess sometimes girls just wanna have “fun” haha!
I’ve known and seen Pattaya from “Vietnam War” Hollywood movies where some US armies usually goes to agogo bars and the likes and it used to be one of the “Rest & Recreation” place during the war, and is still until now. But later on people I know who have gone to Bangkok will always take a side trip to Pattaya for the beach experience near the Capital. But Pattaya Beach was unfortunately a letdown.
There’s a train going here from Hualumpung station but we took the bus from Ekhamai Station which costs S$5.50 only for 2-hour travel. There’s a bus leaving every 30mins so no worries unlike if you take train. From Pattaya station, take the Baht-buses or the public pick-up vehicle (jeepney type) going to the Beach Road or town proper of Pattaya, it costs around S$0.50cents, you can also take the motorbike, here 3 people per bike with no helmet is allowed :O
We only planned for a day trip, but when we met my girlfriend’s journalist friend, Eric, he welcomed us to his apartment in Jomtien for one night coz he told us it’s not worth going to Pattaya if we weren’t gonna spend the night there, coz Pattaya is all about the nightlife. And a gentleman he is, he stayed in a hotel nearby.
We were supposed to go to Coral Island (Koh Lan) because Pattaya Beach (in town) is kinda polluted, maybe because of the speedboats and jetskis around, the sunlounges are few steps away from the shore so you can imagine how polluted the water can be. Unfortunately, we missed the last boat going there which is 6:00pm so Eric advised us to go the following day at Jomtien Beach, which is similarly polluted as Pattaya Beach but not so crowded with people, fair enough.
So we just headed at the infamous Walking Street!
Here it’s like the Patpong of Bangkok or the Banglah Road of Phuket but locals said this is the original hehe. Along the street are array of bars and restaurants, agogo bars, gay bars etc. We also witnessed the Chinese New Year Celebration which is very entertaining except for using a 3-5yr old kid on top of the human pyramid, so scary! I also realized that here, people kinda exploit some children, sad to say, they use them for entertainment. This time around, we didn’t go that adventurous and tried to watch another “Pingpong Show” haha! I guess, what we experienced in Patpong few nights before is good enough >.<
So that was just about it! We wouldn’t have gone to Pattaya I guess if we didn’t know anyone. Even if the beach was not fantastic, even if we missed the boat going to Coral Island, even if we didn’t enjoy the Walking Street because we are not lesbians to begin with haha! It was still all worth the experience!
I love to travel alone, but sometimes when you travel with good friends, the shitty encounters becomes a great adventure! As with any journey, who you travel with can be more important than your destination…
