After a 7 hour flight we arrived from Doha to Pattaya in Thailand. To be honest Pattaya isn't a particularly rewarding destination in the terms that we were interested in. We flew in there only because of the low price of this particular flight connection. Instead of rushing off straight to Bangkok we decided to spend one day there anyway, and it did surprise us with a few pretty cool attractions.
Pattaya is said to be one of the top tourist destinations in Thailand. Doesn't really match my opinion, does it? Well, it is famous for two reasons - package holidays for every budget and extremely wild nightlife. It was quite common for people to go there for obvious reasons, so it was dubbed the capital of sex-tourism of Thailand. Even when I was doing research about the places we were going to visit when I looked up Pattaya nearly all the articles about it were sex-tourism related, either as a guide "how to" or as a warning. In my opinion it wasn't as bad as its reputation suggests, though. We did take a stroll through the city's main walking street where all the bars are located, and as long as you don't react to hostesses inviting you to enter their venues - it is okay. However some bars have catchy and suggestive names as "Russian Girls" for example, so I'm sure that if we were looking for erotic entertainment - we would find it.
Pattaya is fighting boldly to regain good reputation. It is a coastal city located by the gulf of Thailand, so it is perfect for developing tourism and this is what they are trying to focus on. The whole southern part of the city consists of new resorts, hotels and hostels offering ridiculously cheap prices to attract families and regular tourists. We found a 4 person apartament in a new hotel with a pool for 150 baht per person per night. Come on, it's like 3 GBP or 4 EUR...
So, after a short introduction of Pattaya, lets have a look of how it looks like!
There is an island in close proximity to Pattaya. It's called Koh Larn. It is not as pretty as all the famous islands by western Thailand shores, but it is still something pretty cool Pattaya has to offer. It takes about 30 minutes by ferry from Pattaya's ferry terminal.
Because it was off-season we could enjoy an empty beach basically for ourselves.
Back in town we climbed Pattaya hill to enjoy a splendid viewpoint
The rest of the evening we spent strolling around the city centre and enjoying delicious street food for the first time.
One of the most interesting temples I have ever seen is The Sanctuary of Truth. It's an all-wood building with incredible sculptures of Buddhist and Hindu motifs. The sanctuary's complex offered many attractions but since our time was limited we visited the temple only.
The temple was under renovation, so all the visitors were obligated to wear safety helmets at all time. It was grotesque.
0 komentarze