Shanghaied Bob: Pattaya

While visiting Bangkok, ME and I made a side trip to Pattaya. It is a popular beach resort on the Gulf of Thailand around 100 miles south of Bangkok. The city has about 100,000 people including many Russians. The area around Pattaya is considered to be in a large industrial zone with many plants including a Dow site.

It is an older resort, has seen its day, but interesting at the same time. We stayed at a new Hilton Hotel on the beach situated on the upper level of a high rise complex. We had beautiful views from our room and it was very interesting to watch the beach activity throughout the day.

Hotel with shopping complex

ME and I arrived Sunday afternoon and had tea on the roof top patio of the hotel. Unfortunately the weather was overcast and rainy for the two nights we where there. It was still monsoon/rainy season there and the resort would not start to get busy until November.

click to enlarge

This is the view from our room and the view of the pool area of the hotel with the shopping area and street level below. There was an infinity pool with these huge lounge pods able to accommodate 3 or 4 people some with little canopies which overlooking the beach and bay. It was very cool.

view from room

very cool pool aera

night view

Each morning boats would appear on the beach waiting to shuttle visitors to the different islands just off the coast. We found out that it was very popular to visit the islands to enjoy water activities and different beach experiences. It seemed like bus loads of people would gather on the beach to be shuttled away. Other boats would take groups to floating docks in the bay for parasailing. At any one time there were 20+ people in the air. You were lifted and landed very gently on and off the dock. The boat would slow down just enough to unhitch one person from the line and hook up the next , and off you go.