January 19, 2008
Rayong - Pattaya: Thailand's many faces
From the coast where we are now, 15 kilometers from Rayong, we make our way to Pattaya. From there we plan to get a bus to Chiangmai. The road is again the N 3, the traffic roars by and we feel relatively safe on the wide shoulder. We are lucky, it's a cloudy day and cooler than anything we have had so far. It makes a difference and we are surprised how quickly the kilometers go by. This is fortunate since we miss the direct road to Pattaya and make a 20 kilometer detour. We never did find a decent map.
After 80 kilometers we stop at Jomtien Beach, a few kilometers short of Pattaya proper, and find a peaceful and secluded beach with bungalows, something I didn't think existed here anymore. Hotel skyscrapers are visible to the north and to the south but they are at a safe distance. We take an evening swim and are satisfied with our day.
We have a good night's sleep in our bungalow and then plunge into the morning traffic for the last 15 kilometers to Pattaya. It's unpleasant - too much traffic now, too fast, the slow lane is often blocked by parked cars. We're happy when we find the hotel we had picked out in our Thailand guide.
Pattaya, one of the oldest and most over-developed beach resorts in Thailand, is everything you have ever heard about it. We have no real reason for coming here except it is easier to ride into Pattaya to catch a bus north than to ride into Bangkok. Before it became a major R&R destination for Americans fighting in Vietnam, it was a fishing village.
We chose our hotel, Radi Mansion, because it was described as having spacious, clean rooms and it is located not too far from the bus station, an accurate if incomplete description. I soon notice that Janos is the only man here who isn't accompanied by a Thai woman under 30. Radi, the Serbian-German owner, is an interesting character and a successful business man. After making a small fortune in Germany, he moved to a country with a more lenient climate and multiplied his wealth. Radi runs a tight ship, the buildings (Radi Mansion I and Radi Mansion II) are in perfect shape and all parts of the hotel are controlled by video cameras. We can add this to our list of hotels with something special.
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