Pathaya

Pathaya is so ugly and obnoxious that it’s almost fun. But… not quite though. It’s a city composed exclusively of hotels, red light bars (they all literally glow red) and tourist shops. Quite logically, it is also exclusively populated by tourists, prostitutes and street sellers. The tourists fall in 2 categories: the 40-60 year-old white males holding the hand of a 20-year old girlfriend (or sometimes wife and toddler), and the grapes of 20-40 all-coloured males looking for a girlfriend – or cheap sex.

I can hardly describe how ugly, charmless, bleak the long alignment of budget hotels and international chain restaurants is.




But honestly, these pictures don’t do justice to the dreary atmosphere by night. Cheap massage parlors (“happy ending for you sir…”), bars offering naked women shows and German travel agencies are everywhere in the soi. Some of the street crowd I find plainly disgusting. By the glares I got from some Indian and Middle-Eastern guys - insistent and inquisitive - Thai women are probably not the only ones resorting to prostitution. Makes me feel like a piece of meat.

In a clueless search for entertainment that did not involve buying human flesh, I walked into a second-hand bookstore: I forgot it would necessarily be a reflection of the Pathaya crowd. Most of the books were in German, except for 10 copies of Dan Brown and a couple of Crichton. I thought movies would do as an alternative, but got slightly discouraged by the choice between "the return of Superman" and "Pirates of the Caribbeans 2"...


By the way, don’t mind the procession on the side of the first picture: the Thai never run out of energy when it comes to relentlessly celebrating their beloved king.



Although some seem to get a bit tired of parading…

Yet, quite unexpectedly, I found a quiet hotel with a charming pool bearing the unlikely name of ‘Ma Maison’ (home sweet home). And even a bookstore with a good selection, and a DVD to watch in bed. But I'm still going back to Bangkok tomorrow.