Experiencing Asia: Pattaya

"One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things." –Henry Miller

                When you enter Pattaya, Thailand, near Jomtien Beach, there is a sign that reads, “Pattaya: The Extreme City”. Whoever designed the sign got it right. I can think of no better word to describe this over-the-top location. After our exhausting day in Bangkok, the next leg of our journey was visiting the Thai coast for five days. We would be staying in Jomtien, the name given to the actual beachfront area just outside of Pattaya. Surviving a marathon bargaining session (refer to the Bangkok blog) we were able to secure a reasonable ride for the two hour trip from Bangkok to Jomtien. Uneventfully, we arrived at our hotel and began our stay in the most exotic locale I have yet to experience. Pattaya, it seems, is one gigantic brothel disguised as a city. With two-dollar cocktails and twenty-dollar prostitutes, this town has become the wildest, craziest, most popular European male tourist destination in all of Thailand, perhaps even the world. The main street consists of bar after bar with neon blazing, music blaring and foreigners stumbling. It was quite the saddening sight to see old white males, two blue pills away from heart failure, weaving along in a drunken stupor. Thankfully, we were not staying in the middle of this and only experienced it during planned trips into the city for the sake of purchasing trinkets and giving me material to write about in this travel blog.

                Still a part of our first major trip outside of Taiwan, one of the first startling incidents was the price of our accommodations. We stayed in an amazingly clean hotel with plenty of style and space for a mere $27 a night. Those few bucks being inclusive of a great American style breakfast each morning as well. The first day in Jomtien found us searching the local food scene and scoping out the beach. According to the professionals, there are seven wonders in the world. I’m not sure what all seven are, but I do know that two of them could be found just outside our hotel. The first is a small wooden cart selling Thai coffee. Scott and I celebrated this miniature nirvana each morning. Perhaps choosing your bean roast, watching espresso steam and witnessing the fusion of rich condensed milk and hot coffee isn’t truly heaven, but I am positive that not partaking in the finished product is one of the nine levels of hell. (Not forsaking my Harris heritage, at just over a dollar a cup, the argument for heaven is really strong.) The second world wonder is only a block away, where classic Thai curries and noodle dishes are a mere three dollars each. Sitting on a patio a couple hundred yards from the beach and eating seafood fried rice out of a pineapple has to be on the top world wonders list somewhere. Having experienced these wonders and reassured that we would not starve or go broke during the next five days, we checked out the local beach. Jomtien beach isn’t much to write home about. (Yet here I am doing just that. What can I say? I’m a rebel!) The water is murky and the sand is dirty. The constant movement of countless boats is like a seven year old boy in the summertime; in and out, in and out. You’re either losing precious air conditioning from little Jimmy’s escapades or losing your water clarity and peacefulness from Banyat’s boat business. However, Banyat the boater does offer countless water activities like banana boat rides and parasailing. Thai beaches are also apparently the birthplace of henna tattoos and dirty car salesmen. As you lie on the beach and enjoy the beauty of the sun and the loud, incessant roar of outboard motors, you will soon feel a light tickling upon one of your extremities. Not a crab or a sand flea, just an overzealous tattoo artist beginning their masterpiece on your God-given flesh. For some strange reason these daring DaVinci derelicts do not understand complex ideas like personal space or the word, “no”. They do, however, understand angry inflection of the voice and vehement shooing motions. Once you overcome these minor annoyances you will begin to realize one of the most profound ironies known to mankind. Here, just a couple miles from the real “sin city”, where sexuality and adultery is glorified, the locals visit the beach fully clothed. Perhaps it is not ironic; perhaps they cover up merely to avoid becoming “black people” as my Asian students do so religiously during P.E. classes. But, it still blows my mind that women flaunt what their mamma gave ‘em on one side of the city while enjoying the wonders of the sea in black pants and a turtleneck on the other side. (If any PCC administration is reading, please realize that this analogy belongs to me and you will need my permission before using it to show the slippery slope of attending a college corrupted by accreditation.) I gripe about these minor nuisances in order to illicit humor from you, the reader, when Jomtien really is quite a nice beach. In the evening, when the boats are docked, dreaming of hoisting a Jolly Roger and terrorizing the seas, it is wonderful to just relax. Lounging in a beach chair, sipping juice from a coconut that just had a lobotomy while the sun slowly slips below the horizon is part of life we can often only dream about when our own “boat” is docked cozily in our covers.

                Top on my wife’s “to do” list was for me to take out the garbage. (Sorry, wrong “to do” list.) Top on my wife’s vacation “to do” list was riding an elephant. We set out to accomplish this feat during one of the most intense thunderstorms I have ever experienced. We discovered the tantalizing secret that Pattaya and the surrounding area are very susceptible to mass flooding. Our prescheduled ride picked us up and began snorkeling to the home of the elephants. We inched along alleyways with water up to the seats on scooters. This visual stimulation actually gave me the grandiose idea of incorporating a new phrase into our everyday vocabulary. Imagine in amazement along with me. “Chris, can you help me out, tomorrow?” “I’d love to, man, but I’m up to my scooter seat in grading, maybe Friday.” The next time someone tells you they are up to their scooter seat, you know who to thank. (Soon, I expect to be up to my scooter seat in thanks from all of you.) But, getting back to the elephants, we were seriously chugging along with water seeping under the van door and the exhaust gargling incessantly like OCD teeth brushing. Finally after sending out a raven and a dove, the dove brought back a banana leaf and we knew it was safe to leave the van. The rain held off for the most part and we met our new chauffer for the day. A quirky, feisty little elephant who, in elephant years, was either in her terrible twos or a teenager. She didn’t like following instructions. Riding an elephant is kind of like bungee jumping with an ADD instructor. You bounce back and forth like a pendulum, along with a slight fear of falling, considering the height of the elephant and the fact that your seat in hooked with a rope under the pachyderm’s posterior. The best part of our ride was when little miss moody decided to check out a tuft of grass off the beaten path. Her nosiness disturbed something in the brush, which in turn startled her and sent her on a stampede. Bouncing like a bowl of jell-o on a jackhammer, we hung on and prayed to see tomorrow without a full body cast. After a beating worthy of a Quentin Tarantino film, our guide got moody pants to stop running and safely returned us to base camp. Happy to be alive, a little damp from the drizzle and ready to be away from the stench of elephants “Doing the Doo”, we enjoyed the complimentary fruit buffet and returned to our hotel haven. We slept well knowing we had conquered land’s largest mammal and avoided “death by scared elephant”. (If “Death by Scared Elephant” is already a patented Ben & Jerry’s flavor, I sincerely apologize.)

                The other major highlight of our trip was escaping to the local island paradise. For less than a dollar you can climb aboard a rickety old ferry and traverse to a delightful getaway in the middle of the ocean. For the most part the island is devoid of man’s commercialized terror. There is a small, touristy section selling trinkets and necessary items, and you do have to pay for a chair on the beach but otherwise the island is untouched. Paying for a chair (when there is no beach without chairs) is probably the pinnacle of ripping off tourists, but when it only cost $1.50 for the whole day I think a free pass is acceptable. The difference between Jomtien beach and the island beach is like night and day, like hot and cold, like Obama and socialism. (Wait, that analogy is no longer valid.) Where Jomtien is murky, the island is crystal clear. Where Jomtien is dirty, the island is pristine. Where Jomtien is noisy, the island finds peace and solitude. Where Jomtien peddles unwanted graffiti, the island peddles real fruit slushies. There is really no competition here. The island destroys Jomtien beach like a Gosselin destroying reality TV. Words and pictures can never truly describe or visualize this amazing location. How can I even describe being in water clearer than a swimming pool or being surrounded by a Hollywood movie location? The beach was spectacular and even now, a year later, is one of the top highlights of any trip we’ve taken.

                The rest of our trip was consumed by consuming the great local fare and relaxing as much as possible. However, our eventful trips into Pattaya cannot go without being commemorated. You’ve already gotten a pretty clear picture of Asia’s “sin city”, but nothing can prepare one for actually walking down the famous/infamous “Walking Street”. This is the club district loaded with normal clubs, neon signs, restaurants, strip clubs, neon signs, 7-11, lady boy clubs, more neon, and creative hagglers and performers. Creative, how, you may ask. Well when I see a dark-skinned, shirtless midget break dancing for handouts and get haggled to pay for a photo while holding someone’s pet lemur, I use the word, “creative”.  Creative could also be used to describe Pattaya’s famous lady boys. I think the name says it all, but in case your elevator stops on the 10^th floor of a 12 story building, I will elaborate. A lady boy is a man (that’s where the boy part comes from) who has chosen to make himself look as much like a lady (origin of the lady part) as is humanly possible. These “men” dress in elaborate, Vegas show girl costumes and perform extremely professional, neatly choreographed dance routines. After the show they come outside and pose for photos so that 300 people can gasp, and make comments like, “I can’t believe it’s not butter”. Despite the unnerving, “I’m a women trapped in a man’s body” concept, this part of Pattaya is actually well respected and mostly free of the seedier aspects of the town. Speaking of seedier aspects, the “Walking Street” hookers and transvestites (common name for a lady boy who didn’t make the cut) are relentless. The dancing, cat-calling and hand-pulling on all sides is more than a little overwhelming. It takes approximately 2.5 seconds to understand why this is a hot military port of call. It takes approximately 2 seconds more to realize how the aforementioned military’s personnel could awaken the following morning to a monster headache and the sober realization that Erin spells her name, Aaron. All in all, the heart of the city has some great food and cheap souvenirs, but the shock value is like wearing medieval armor to fly a kite in a thunderstorm.

                Senses overwhelmed, both from nature’s beauty and the unnatural violations of “Walking Street”, we got up early one morning and began our two-hour “taxi” ride back to the airport. I write, “taxi”, because the car that picked us up in no way fits any definition of that word. The speakers in the trunk were larger than our suitcases and left little room for our bags. The rims were custom, the lights were custom, the interior was custom. If you’re late for your flight, never fear. This “taxi” had NOS, a custom air intake and an intimidating growl from the custom muffler that demanded right of passage. I felt like we were Queen Latifah and Jimmy Falon, only my wife was not large, African American, or the one driving and our ride was more interesting that that entire movie. (If you have no idea what I am talking about consider yourself even luckier than those who missed the sparkling vampire analogy in my last blog.) However, even with the Fast and the Furious taxi, I was still too tired to really care. I fell asleep and dreamed of sipping fresh coconut juice while overlooking a gorgeous sunset on an amazing beach. Startled awake, I yelled, “No! I don’t want a tattoo!” but it was just the taxi driver. Our time in Thailand had sadly come to an end. As I waited to board the plane, I remembered the road sign and thought of how I would someday begin a blog with that phrase. “Pattaya: The Extreme City”; one simple road sign says it all.