Pattaya trip report, Dec. 2019

[frequent]

The block’s layout has been changed to allow for four or five lock-up stalls which, in my observation, are being used not only for those Number Two-ees and by Pattaya Mail readers, but also by patrons needing simply to pee.

Some of us Beat Queens would regard that as a rather pedestrian outcome

[Wotan]

Thank you Marsilius for such wonderfully informative posts. As a Pattaya newbie, dropping in later this week, can you advise how to find the beach area you refer to. I was there for a day last year and found it rather confusing. Many thanks.

[Marsilius]

Hello Wotan - and, on behalf of everyone else, welcome to the forum. Thank you too for your kind words about my reports.

Google maps should help orientate you with the following... Assuming that you are starting from south Pattaya, you need to catch a songthaew ("baht bus") where they line up - backwards! - for passengers outside the school at the junction of Second Road and Pattaya Tai.

After a few hundred meters the bus will swing left, go through a lights-controlled junction under a flyover and then carry on along a relatively straight stretch of road (firstly going slightly uphill, then coming back slightly downhill) for, I'm guessing, 1-1.5 kilometers. You will know when that stretch is coming to an end when you pass a sign on a wall on the right for the Avalon Resort and shortly afterwards, again on the right, spot a sign "Supertown" on an archway over a small road to the side. Almost immediately the bus will take a sharp right turn. After a couple of hundred meters you will see the sea ahead of you and the bus will turn left. Get off the bus and pay the driver 10 baht per person.

Facing the sea, turn right and walk along the beach side of the road, passing between the 7/11 convenience store on the right and a police box on the left. Carry on along that stretch of road, keeping the sea to your left. Soon you will come to a toilet block. Rit's chairs area is to be found - more salubriously situated than it sounds! - just in front of that.

[Wotan]

Many thanks. That all makes perfect sense. I'm staying at Baan Souy so that looks easy to find from there as the bus stops outside.

[Marsilius]

Saturday 28 December

By the time I had reached Dongtan Beach it was almost midday and it was clear that this was likely to be a generally overcast day. It remained so throughout the afternoon, to the extent that a friend who otherwise invariably prefers to sit in the hot sunshine forward of the very front row of Rit’s chairs chose, in the absence of direct sunshine, to come to the back row instead and sit with me.

It wasn’t necessarily the best time. Having already finished two very good thrillers – my usual beach reading – in the shape of Henry Porter’s White hot silence and Shadow by James Swallow (in a significant Freudian slip there, I almost wrote of a volume called Swallow by James Shadow) – I’m now in the early stages of something that sounds on the heavy side but is, in fact, full of juicy revelations that are sometimes hilariously funny, especially to us non-religious types. It’s the recently-published Fréderic Martel’s In the closet of the Vatican: power, homosexuality, hypocrisy and I was just giggling my way through the author’s detailed descriptions of the camply over-the-top dress sense of one particular cardinal (who, it seems, in spite of his rampant publicly-expressed homophobia, insists on being referred to by his staff as “she”) when my bored friend sat down next to me.

I had, perforce, to put aside my frustration at having to abandon outrageous tales of clerical tristes with north African and Romanian rent boys, Swiss guards (don’t you just love the uniforms?) and, it seems at times, just about anyone with both a cock and a detectable pulse (though I imagine, on considered refection, that the cock needs in all probability to be detectable too). I then joined him in reminiscing about past times at Dongtan. As a relative newbie of no more than a dozen years’ worth of visits as opposed to my own 26, my friend was interested – or, having disturbed my reading, at least had the good grace to pretend to be so – in hearing how the beach has changed since the early 1990s.

Even physically, the changes – most dramatically effected in the middle and late 1990s – have been pretty immense. What little paving there was at the back of the beach was then sporadic and, when it existed at all, in a horrendously unmaintained state. Alongside it ran not the virtually continuous run of hotels, shops and condos to be seen today (though some were already there) but a wire chain-link fence. That - rather bizarrely when you consider the matter logically - was evidently considered by the beach boys to offer a modicum of privacy when they used it, in the absence of other facilities, to pee against or, more accurately I guess, to pee through.

Between the walkway/stumbleway and the beach were, of course, the areas to sit. Rit was already there in 1993, having just gone into the business after, so I have always understood, marrying Mrs Rit who had been the daughter and heiress of the previous concessionaire. Rit always tells me that I am his senior surviving customer from that era (he keeps and occasionally produces a flattering photograph that I took of him in the early 1990s), so – unless he says the same thing to anyone else – I think I’m pretty sound on the chronology. While the management may have been the same back then, the physical arrangements certainly weren’t. There were deckchairs rather than the current loungers and they were not placed necessarily in the regimented lines we see today. There was also more space between the rows to allow your new acquaintances to sit and talk. Meanwhile, instead of the individual beach parasols that we see now, there were large thatched umbrellas made of some natural type of straw (rejoice, St Greta of Thunberg!) that were, as a result, set up permanently and didn’t need to be taken down at the end of each day. Unfortunately, I think they may also have provided accommodation for mosquitos and the like – which probably explains why they were replaced in the mid or later 1990s. There were, moreover, far more trees along the beach than there are now, so it was an altogether shadier place.

Mentioning shade, it was, I think, Somerset Maugham who neatly described Monte Carlo as “a sunny place for shady people” – and in those days the same could, to an extent, be said of Dongtan. Skirting cautiously around a topic that’s rightly considered best avoided on this board, let’s just say that the average age of those on the beach was far lower than it is today (though that, I suppose, wouldn’t be difficult) and that whereas today’s beachgoers usually pack a towel, an iPad and a book for the day, 25 years ago some eccentric gentlemen instead arrived equipped with a comprehensive selection of plastic toys – or even primitive electronic games - from the market at Pattaya Tai.

The sand was certainly somewhat dirtier in those days. At a time when far more people – and especially those of ex-pat years - smoked, it was full of discarded cigarette butts. In front of the chairs was, of course, the sea – and even that has changed over the years. The wiser of us still steer clear, I think, of taking a dip. Sin City’s sewerage arrangements are too opaque to make doing otherwise worth a gamble. In the 1990s, however, despite, presumably, lower numbers of native and visiting defecators, matters were far worse. Toilet paper and, indeed, turds might be encountered floating near the edge of the water and I think that regulations about what else could be dumped in the sea must have been far laxer. Certainly, on one memorable occasion, the waters off Dongtan beach were an utterly lurid dayglo green and, I know for a fact, that someone who dipped a leg into the water – or, rather, the chemical mix - quickly came out in a nasty rash.

During all those fond and distinctively less fond reminiscences, the afternoon on the beach went its usual way. Fuk (sadly capless – doesn’t he ever read these reports?) and Chit carried out their duties with nonchalant aplomb, the manicurists manicured, the DVD sellers sold, the ice cream boy creamed (no, sad to say, he didn’t actually) and Mrs Rit sat. The toilet block remains resolutely unattended for now, but I’ve since had a good look at that honesty box and can see that its wise custodian has screwed it into the table with a couple of hefty bolts. So much for honesty Pattaya-style!

On the topic of honesty, make of this what you will. In the evening a friend, my husband and I ate at L’Olivier in Jomtien Complex. Two of us had the set meal option and one chose a la carte. As usual, the food was fine and I had no hesitation in paying the bill at the end. My husband is, though, you will recall, a consummate bargainer and also, as someone in the finance industry, generally pretty canny about cash. Thinking the bill a little on the high side he checked it through, only to find that we had been charged for the a la carte option and three set meals (the set meal option on the printed bill took up just a short line and was easy to miss). On querying the matter, profuse apologies were offered and the overpayment returned. Such an incident does, though, inevitably leave a somewhat sour taste in the mouth, even when the food hasn’t.

Having not been to Sunnee for a few days, we took a songthaew to Nice Boys where all the usual suspects were to be found on stage in various states of undress. It’s comparatively rare, I think, to see boys offed from that particular bar – the patrons prefer any action to be of the immediate and on-the-premises sort - but two of the Nice Boys were taken away in quick succession. Meanwhile, in a more traditional display, a farang vigorously demonstrated how he might light a fire by rubbing two sticks together, though with no actual sticks to hand he had to use suitable alternatives. It restored one’s faith in human nature to see how, once the demonstration had been completed, he carefully ripped some sheets from a convenient toilet roll to wipe the strangely-creamy-coloured sweat from his overheated young companion’s chest. Other interesting patrons included a Chinese (?) fellow who ordered a bottle of whisky and then knocked the whole thing back on his own quicker than I’ve ever seen anyone do it before (and well within the time that it took those - two “sticks” to ignite) and a bemused Thai (?) woman who appeared to take so little interest in the boys’ appendages (isn’t that why all of us were there?) that she might as well have been attending a meeting of the Pattaya Women’s Institute (which, given the number of kathoeys to be found in town, might be a fun experience).

Leaving the Nice Boys to go on being nice to the few patrons who were left by then, we retired for a final drink at Sun Bar, Jomtien, from where we were able to observe the performance by a large farang drag queen in the bar across the road. Raising laughs for, I fear, all the wrong reasons, the poor dear murdered her way through her repertoire of greatest hits. As my long-suffering husband observed, given her enormously and presumably-artificially enhanced embonpoint, it was more a case of hits with tits. Six young Thai boys were spontaneously (?) plucked from the audience and, stripped to the waist, acted as a cute group of backing dancers. Thankfully, they managed to keep straight faces when Madame fell down the steps, broke one of her high heeled shoes and was forced to perform the rest of her songs barefoot.

Bed was, after all that excitement, a very welcome distraction.

[Manforallseasons]

Marsilius wrote “ Having not been to Sunnee for a few days, we took a songthaew to Nice Boys where all the usual suspects were to be found on stage in various states of undress. It’s comparatively rare, I think, to see boys offed from that particular bar ”(Quote)

The last boy I offed from NB whom I’ve offed before told me the only boys that are offed are those that are new which has become almost zero, having said that I remember I was there 3 years ago New Years Eve and the only thing relatively new are the recovered sofas!

[gerefan2]

I was there 3 years ago New Years Eve and the only thing relatively new are the recovered sofas!

I was in there the same night as Marsilius, which was the first time for ages, and also saw those god awful “recovered sofas”. That’s being polite.

It looked as if someone had been to B and Q and bought a job lot of look alike Zebra skins and retuned to the bar and covered everything in sight, including all the small drink tables, with the damn stuff.

Talk about calling customers “keeneeow”

[frequent]

The sand was certainly somewhat dirtier in those days. At a time when far more people – and especially those of ex-pat years - smoked, it was full of discarded cigarette butts. In front of the chairs was, of course, the sea – and even that has changed over the years. The wiser of us still steer clear, I think, of taking a dip. Sin City’s sewerage arrangements are too opaque to make doing otherwise worth a gamble. In the 1990s, however, despite, presumably, lower numbers of native and visiting defecators, matters were far worse. Toilet paper and, indeed, turds might be encountered floating near the edge of the water and I think that regulations about what else could be dumped in the sea must have been far laxer. Certainly, on one memorable occasion, the waters off Dongtan beach were an utterly lurid dayglo green and, I know for a fact, that someone who dipped a leg into the water – or, rather, the chemical mix - quickly came out in a nasty rash.

For those of us who deliberately avoid Pattaya your description makes it sound as though we've made the right decision - despite the best efforts of Pattayaphile illuminati such as arsenal with his mouth-watering reviews of local eateries. My preference would be for those who gambol in the waves rather than gamble amongst the sewerage, but it sounds as though a condo swimming pool would be more apposite for that

[arsenal]

Still loving the daily reportage Marsilius although for me a tad stingy on the photos. They are after all, worth 1000 words. Same goes for gerefan2 and Dinagam. Get the cameras out guys.

I'm delighted also that all of you seem to be having a great time as it sometimes feels like I'm the only one who sucks Paytaya dry from the fun fountain.

I haven't been in the sea for years. Not, because of any issues with pollution; but because the beach is simply boring these days compared to what it was and besides, my hotel has a rooftop pool that is usually deserted and so is virtually mine alone.

[Marsilius]

Sunday 29 December

For reasons to be made clear later, this will be the last of my reports from Sodom-juxta-Mare this year, though I hope that, material allowing, they will resume publication after 2 January.

We began the third Sunday of my holiday by breakfasting once again at Casa Pascal. Once again, it was full of customers taking advantage of the great-value all-you-can-eat-and-drink option. It’s also an opportunity, of course, for the restaurant to use up uneaten items that had been on the dinner menu the night before so, if you so choose, you can find yourself consuming not just cornflakes, eggs, bacon and all the rest but a range of other items - from chef Pascal’s latest haute cuisine creations in rich French sauces to a selection of delicate little petit fours.

By 10.50 am we had finished and were ready to embark on a shopping expedition to Central Festival Shopping Mall. It’s a regular place of pilgrimage for my husband and I, even though he has to restrain his automatically-generated impulse to make a 75% lower counter-offer when asked for payment in the likes of M&S. Our favourites are the clothes shops. Sores such as Uniqlo and H&M frequently offer farang-sized items, ranging in design from the neatly conventional to the attractively wacky, at supposedly heavily discounted prices. Many other outlets are, if less extensive in their stock, equally likely to have something interesting on display – though at prices that don’t usually match those of the big chains.

In previous years it’s not been unheard of for my husband to buy, say, six new shirts, three pairs of trousers and numberless pairs of shorts on a single shopping expedition that he’ll treat more in the way of a Blitzkrieg style military campaign. Today, however, produced something rather more meagre in the way of spoils of war – just a couple of shirts. Two significant things seem to have happened in the past 12 months. On the one hand the fall in the value of the pound sterling, in parallel with, so I’m told, an increase in that of the baht, has reduced the competitiveness of Thai retail prices. On the other, the range of attractive designs (a quite subjective term in this context, I know) seems to have been cut back. There just weren’t many items on sale this year that my husband wanted to buy. As the poor bloody infantryman who has to carry all the bags while he scours the racks and shelves with the gimlet eye of Feldmarschall Rommel, I wasn’t, I confess, too disappointed. I wonder, however, whether Thai clothing retailers are starting to refocus their design and marketing strategies away from the tastes of westerners and more towards those of, let’s assume, the 10 million or so Chinese visitors – almost 10 times the number coming from the highest ranked western nation - who are reckoned to have visited Thailand in the first 11 months of this year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Thailand).

We walked back along Beach Road to catch a Jomtien-bound songtaew from the bottom of Pattaya Tai, giving us a prolonged opportunity on the way to see how, just as I detailed yesterday in the case of Dongtan beach, the main Pattaya beach area has also been spruced up in recent years. It’s not an area of sand that’s ever attracted me – quite apart from the proximity of endless heavy traffic, there aren’t the obvious and frequently attractive extras that you can find on the gay beach. It’s nonetheless undeniable that huge investment’s been made in improving the look of the south Pattaya beachfront. In particular, a “nourishment” project his successfully and quite dramatically increased the front-to-back depth of the sandy area so that it now has a more justifiable claim to the "beach" designation (there’s some interesting background to the story here https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand...ive-extra-sand).

By now, you’ll be familiar with the beach at Dongtan and all its regular characters - who does what, who doesn’t do what, and the like - so I won’t bore you with yet another repetition. I will, though, this time insert a couple of justified plugs. Firstly, I had a great pedicure from one of the senior ladies, # 72, and would happily recommend her painstaking and professional services to anyone with nails requiring a neat trim (what on earth is the point of toenails???) or an aging foot in need of a bit of TLC. Secondly, if you’re an ice cream fan – and aren’t just buying the odd choc-ice as a sly means of getting inside its seller’s pants – do try the salted caramel flavoured Magnum. I’ve never seen that variety on sale in the UK (maybe it’s specially made here for those 10 million Chinese visitors?) but it is absolutely delicious, even though, as with all ice creams in the hot Thai sunshine, you’ll never finish eating it before it begins melting all over you.

In the evening we ate at Magg’s Restaurant in Thepprasit Road. My husband thought the lab gai and the Thai green curry were the best he’d had so far this holiday. I, on the other hand, fancied farang food and enjoyed a generous and tasty plate of mixed grill that proved impossible to finish.

After the meal we caught a bus to Boyztown. Our first stop was at Cupidol. That has changed quite a bit, I think, in the past few years. We had first been introduced to it when one of the Dongtan beach manicurists told us that she was now also working at a bar and had invited us to try it out. It turned out to be Cupidol, an establishment that, at that time, appeared to specialise in boys from the more feminine end of the spectrum. Tonight, though, it was very different, with a far greater mixture of physical types. In fact, one of the dancers there - # 12, with the facial characteristics of someone from southern Thailand rather than from Isaan or the north – was rated by all our party as possessing one of the most attractively developed physiques of all the boys we had encountered so far on this holiday. The interior of Cupidol was attractively arranged and they’ve installed a very effective aircon unit. While we were there, about a dozen boys were entertaining roughly the same number of customers. In passing, it was also good to renew our acquaintance with one of its mamasans - a rare paragon of the profession - whom we’d known previously from Sunnee Plaza and, even further back, from the time when she ran an attractively modernistic bar in the same Bangkok soi as Nature Boys (sorry, but I don’t recall the name of either the bar or the soi).

From Cupidol, we moved on to Dreamboys in the hope that, like X Boys over the road, it might have a 10 pm show. From the design of a signboard outside, it looks like there used to be two shows nightly but now there’s just a blank space where the first had been listed and all that remains is a single performance, at 11.30 pm, of Thailand’s unique take on Sunday night at the London Palladium. We were all too tired, we decided, to wait for that but nevertheless (and entirely for the purpose of researching this report, you'll understand) went inside to enjoy a drink while checking out the boys on offer. The bar itself was well air-conditioned and, we all thought, a pleasant enough place to spend an hour or so engaged in minutely detailed observation of some attractive young men’s well-filled tighty-whities. There were maybe 12-15 go-go dancers on duty in the bar, with rather fewer customers. While all of the dancers were at the very least reasonably good-looking, none of them were enough to persuade any of our group to venture an off.

At 11.15 pm or so, we retired once again to Jomtien and even the detonation, an hour later, of loud firecrackers in the street outside did little more than rouse us very temporarily from the land of nod.

[Note: tomorrow, Monday 30 December I shall be travelling to Rayong where I will be spending a few days over the New Year at the Marriott Resort & Spa. I shall return to Jomtien – and resume normal broadcasting – on Thursday 2 January, although if, of course, I find anything worthy of note in Rayong, you will be the first to hear of it, here and exclusively, in a supplementary special report.]