Early trip report: The taxi mafia is FINALLY dead (I hope)

[Marc K]

Hi guys, I'm back in Pattaya after an almost 3 year (COVID) absence. It is great to be back. I arrived 4 days ago. Here are some early impressions for those who haven't made it back yet:

1. Most prices have remained the same as I remember them, including massage and off prices; food prices have inched up but at quite a slow rate (especially when factoring the considerable devaluation of the baht which has occurred).

2. The taxi mafia is finally DEAD, thank heavens, and thanks to BOLT which does an amazing job of carting you anywhere around Pattaya and Jomtien for under 100 baht! Hooray! BOLT is totally liberating. We took the song-taew to Jomtien last night and sweat it out with a bunch of Russians (long live Ukraine!) on hard seats and without door-to-door service. After this ordeal, we both looked at each other and asked WHY did we do such a stupid thing when BOLT is so reasonable. Bottom line is now "taxi" fares in Pattaya are on par with those of Bangkok, or even cheaper. And the taxis don't seem to be fighting this any more because they can participate in BOLT. No more fist fights to be seen, as we used to see with Uber, then Grab. Grab is still here but their prices on the app appear to be somewhat higher than Bolt. (Grab is hq'd in Singapore. Bolt is hq'd in Estonia.)

3. We walked by Sunee last night which was dead as a doornail. May she RIP. And BT had a few flickering lights on but indeed a mere shadow of its former self. And the environs of BT were also changed. Our favorite (blue-colored) foot massage place on Second Road is gone.

4. We walked by Walking Street which we expected to find also knee-capped but were surprised to see a brighter, renovated street with quite a few tourists walking about.

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