Pattaya for Digital Nomads

If you've spent any time in Thailand, and perhaps even if you haven't, you'll be aware of Pattaya's rather sordid reputation. And it's fully justified. The breadth of bars here is mind-blowing and numbers somewhere in the thousands, with some being open 24 hours per day. The number of massage shops isn't too far behind.

While the foreigners who choose to call Pattaya home are generally elderly men who prefer to fraternise with women who would be far too young and attractive to be attainable almost anywhere else in the world, temporary visitors to Pattaya come from far and wide and from all walks of life. It's a city so overrun with tourism that little here has any semblance of Thailand. If you've come to experience local culture, then forget all about coming to Pattaya.

That travellers so inexperienced flock to Pattaya goes some way to explain the Pattaya Flying Club, whose innumerable members made up almost exclusively of men, come to Pattaya and commit suicide by jumping off their hotel balconies. Naive men of all ages thinking they've found the perfect girl who's fallen in love with them.

Newsflash: You haven't.

The women here will say and do what they have to so that as much money as possible in your bank account, ends up in their bank account, and when the money is gone, so are they. With no money left and no girl either, it's time to join the Pattaya Flying Club.

This seems very obvious to me and I think would be to anyone who's travelled a bit. As sad as this sounds, I treat any girl who approaches me in South-East Asia as only talking to me for money. There are some guys who just don't understand the game being played, fall in love, and then fall off a balcony. It's the dark-side of Pattaya that the tourist brochures don't mention. Don't come here and become one of the statistics.

While Pattaya's reputation is for sex tourism, and you won't be able to avoid that happens here, a lot, if you just want to go to the beach and drink in the evenings, you can still have a great time. There are some nice beaches and you won't be approached by working girls in every bar (just most of them).

If you don't plan on drinking or partying at all, then I'd suggest that Pattaya isn't for you. That doesn't mean that you won't find anything here of interest; some local people come to Pattaya for family holidays. It's just that you'll likely find whatever it is you're looking for in other cities in Thailand, but without all the parties and sex tourism.

Usual rules of physical contact don't apply in Pattaya. Walking alone as a man you will be grabbed everywhere by girls with concerning regularity in the busier areas. In the gay area, men do it, so that was a fun surprise.

If you do come here though, just be aware of what you're coming to. You won't find any Land of Smiles bullshit. It's the sex tourism capital of the world, and whether you wish to partake or not, you're not going to be able to escape that fact.

While Pattaya's reputation is all about its bars and partying, and rightfully so, don't ignore the fact that it also has some nice beaches, like Yinyom beach in Jomtien.

Who is Pattaya suitable for?

When I go somewhere as a digital nomad, I typically like to stay there for a while so I can really get to know the place. I don't recommend doing that here. I've been to Pattaya three times, each for roughly two weeks, and on every occasion I've been very glad to again leave.

Coming here and not partying is a little futile, and after two weeks caught in flux between drunk and hungover, you need to get away, sober up, and start working on losing the bitch-tits. You'll have spent way more money than elsewhere in Thailand, and will have probably been far less productive.

I'd really only recommend it to anyone, particularly men, who wants to let loose and have some fun for a bit.

Don't come here if you're trying to get into shape, because there's a lot of beer to be drunk. Don't come here if you need to be productive, because even if you're not drunk you're going to be hungover. Don't come here if you have no interest in partying. I can't imagine how awful Pattaya is sober. Just come here, for a short amount of time, when you need to just say fuck it, I'm going to have some fun.

How affordable is Pattaya?

You'll find Pattaya to be slightly cheaper than Bangkok, but not by much. The beer is a little cheaper - roughly 80 baht for a 330ml bottle of local beer, although walk around and you'll find all night happy hours where it'll be 60 baht or less. I've paid around 1,200 baht per night for my accommodation each time I've been here, always staying in one-bedroom apartments. At tourist-focussed restaurants, expect about 150 baht for a plate of food.

Is it easy to get by with English in Pattaya?

Yes, little in Pattaya represents Thailand. People speak to you in English and all signs and menus are in English.

Is Pattaya safe?

Pattaya attracts people, mostly men, from many different cultures, and they're all drunk. You'll likely see more than one bar fight when you come here. Other than that and being or being landed on by one of the many flying club inducties, it's a perfectly safe place.

How is the Internet in Pattaya?

Utter shit. I don't know if it's just the places I've stayed or if it's a city-wide phenomenom, but in a country known for its fast Internet, it's staggering how bad the Internet is in Pattaya. If a fast connection is important for you, then I'd spend some time researching the speeds of where you plan to stay before booking.

Understanding the layout of Pattaya

In terms of Pattaya's geography, there are two main areas to be aware of where all of the 'action' happens. The centre of Pattaya stretches roughly from the south end of Pattaya Walking Street, approximately three kilometres until the Terminal 21 shopping mall. From the water's edge to roughly a kilometre inland, these three kilometres are little but bars, clubs and massage shops.

Much less notorious and I think technically not part of Pattaya, Jomtien can also be fun and is easily reached from Pattaya town centre by walking or by baht bus, and is a much more relaxed, less in-your-face alternative, very popular with Russians. It has a good night market and some nice beaches, with a much more sightly waterfront than Pattaya, and as I found out the hard way (not literally), Jomtien Walking Street is Pattaya's very gay gay area.

These are the two 'town centres' in Pattaya, but it's a city so overrun with tourism that by wandering down random side roads, you can often stumble upon little known clusters or even entire streets of bars.

As it's a town that exists basically for partying, if tourists are present in a particular area then you'll usually find bars catering to them.

How to take a baht bus in Pattaya

Baht buses, also known as songthaews, are named as such because back in the day they only cost one baht. They're those pick-up trucks with a bench on either side of the truck's bed for passengers to sit on, a roof, and a platform at the back for extra passengers to stand on.

You find them all over Thailand, but in many places they're only really used by locals because foreigners can't figure-out where they go. In Pattaya they're more common than any other place I've been and are used by everyone. Particularly if you want to travel between Pattaya and Jomtien, you'll find yourself using them a lot. During the daytime you'll be passed by roughly one per minute on this route.

I believe they run twenty-four hours per day. I've definitely used them to get back to my room after way too many drinks in the middle of the night on multiple occasions. If you're not used to taking them though they can be a little intimidating, so this is how they work.

From the front it can sometimes be a little hard to differentiate them from regular pick-up trucks. It's also hard to tell if they're full until they're stopped next to you, and the driver will happily load-up with as many passengers as are willing to get on. If you're standing on the road looking like someone who might be about to take a baht bus, the driver will typically slow down anyway (which is a bit annoying if you're actually trying to cross the road). And when you want to flag one to stop, you stick your hand out, palm facing down (not like that), and flap your hand up and down to notify the driver that you want to get on.

Once the baht bus has stopped you jump in the back, sitting down if there are seats available or hanging off the back if there aren't. Four people can comfortably stand on the rear platform, but if a baht bus pulls-over and there isn't space, don't feel obligated to get on. You can wave the driver away again.

What will happen occasionally with empty baht buses, is that you'll flag it down, the driver will stop, you'll go to get on, but before you have the driver will speed away again. This happened to me on a couple of occasions, and I was all like... the fuck? I then realised that some of these baht buses also operate as taxis, and if they have no passengers then they're looking for someone they can charge a higher fare to by taking them to a specific location, rather than plying a specific route. So don't be disheartened, it's almost certainly not because you're so repulsive that they don't want you in their truck. Just wait until the next one comes along and try again.

There are nine different routes plied by the baht buses in Pattaya, but most of these operate in the downtown area where everything is in walking distance anyway. Going to Jomtien is when they're most useful, and on Thappraya Road (the road that connects Pattaya to Jomtien), there is only one route, so hail a baht bus here and you know where it's going.

There are no stops. When you want to get off you ring one of the bells and the driver will pull over to the side of the road. Get out and walk to the passenger-side window. Baht buses cost 10 baht per journey, which you hand to the driver (or passenger if there is one) through the window. They have small amounts of change, but I'd recommend avoiding trying to pay with large bills.

That's it really. Because of their price and regularity they're a really good way of getting around Pattaya, particularly when going to Jomtien. If you want to take a baht bus on a road there are multiple routes, you can ask the driver where he's going before getting, but I normally don't bother. For only 10 baht it's easier to just get on and if at any point he starts going somewhere you don't want to go, get off, pay, and take another baht bus that's going the right way.

Click here for a map of Pattaya's baht bus routes. I stole that from someone else, so if the routes are wrong, blame them.

Typical capacity for a baht bus is at least fourteen people, with five sitting on each bench, and four standing on the platform at the back. There are many overweight foreigners in Pattaya so that won't always be true.

Being sociable in Pattaya

There's nothing I found in Pattaya in the way of events designed to meet new people. That's the bad news, but the good news is that you don't need them. Especially if you're a man and you're alone, you are not going to have a hard time meeting people. So long as you're the one buying, this is an entire city of girls (or guys) who're willing to drink with you. Just try not to fall in love and join the flying club.

While Pattaya does have distinctively-named areas, such as walking street, the truth is that all these areas blend into one. There are bars all the way between them, so where one area ends and another begins is very subjective.

Personally I don't like the walking street area. It's very money-grabby and feels very scammy. This is the best known bar area so is the first place that most tourists head to, and as such has a lot of gullible fools ready to be parted from their fortune. Honestly though, there are good bars and scammy bars all over the city, so I'd suggest you just have a wander until you find what you're looking for and somewhere that you feel comfortable.

Don't discount Jomtien either. It's the one place that does have a bit of distance, which means it's a hair more relaxed than the rest of Pattaya and you don't get bothered so much.

Shopping in Pattaya

I'll be blunt, I hate shopping. If you ever meet me and notice all my clothes have holes in, it's not because I'm too cheap to replace them, I just hate shopping so much that I'll wear them until they fall off so I don't have to.

That being said, even I need to buy new things occasionally, and Pattaya is quite a good place to do it if you like things to be cheap and easy, which you probably do if you're here.

In amongst all the bars and massage shops, you'll find little shops and markets all over the city and these are all perfectly good places to shop. With so many tourists, there's a lot of competition to part them with their money. But I'm going to recommend two places specficially.

Central Marina

Central Marina is a short walk from Terminal 21, but seems to get largely ignored. Every time I come here it feels pretty much empty. It's got a strange layout, because when you walk in the front entrace you're in this semi-deserted area with a few cafes and not much else. The reason it's so great, is if you go through this area and across a little forecourt, you get to a bigger building that has several factory outlets where you can pick-up some discounted brands.

For example, there's a Nike factory outlet that focusses mainly on shoes, so if you want to get a pair of Nikes for half the price you'd pay elsewhere, come here.

There's also a shop for Puma and one for Adidas and one for Skechers etc.

Mike Shopping Mall

I'm not sure who came up with the name for Mike Shopping Mall. Probably Mike. Regardless, the stupid name doesn't detract from the fact it's a good place to come if you want to find some cheap clothes somewhere with air conditioning.

If you've ever been to MBK in Bangkok, it feels very similar. Lots of individual sellers, selling fake or unbranded items. So if you need some new shorts or t-shirts, but don't want to pay designer prices and also don't want to shop in a hot, outdoor market, then come here. You'll probably be able to get what you're looking for.

When I was in Pattaya in February I bought a pair of shoes from the Nike outlet in Central Marina. By the time I came back in November, they were looking a bit worse for wear, so I went back to the Nike outlet in Central Marina and bought the exact same pair of shoes again. So if you want to know what wearing a pair of shoes everyday for nine months does to them, which I'm sure you do, then here you go. You're welcome.

Where to run in Pattaya

My experience of running in Pattaya is that the centre of town is too busy with pedestrians and vehicles to run comfortably, but once you get out of the centre it... could be worse.

Yinyom Beach

When staying at G Residence (below) which is between Pattaya and Jomtien, my typical run is to leave the building and run down some side roads to Yinyom Beach. From there you can either run along the beach, along the pavement, or along the road south-east until you're in Jomtien.

While this route does have a lot of beach-going tourists on it, it's not quite so busy that it's uncomfortable to run along, so long as you go sufficiently slowly.

Once in Jomtien you can continue along the beachfront as far as you want before cutting down any of the sois to get to Jomtien Second Road. While busy with traffic, Jomtien Second Road and Thappraya Road that it turns into, have pavements all the way along and not too many pedestrians so is relatively comfortable to follow back. It goes all the way back to the centre of Pattaya.

On the one occasion that I stayed closer to the centre of Pattaya, I'd typically run the same route, except I'd started running in the centre of Pattaya as soon as the pedestrians and traffic thinned enough that I could.

It's not an especially great route, you have to cross some busy roads, and there are a lot of gormless pedestrians in your path; certainly not suitable for doing sprint training on. If you just want somewhere you can get outside and build-up a bit of a sweat, then I've run worse. Once you're out of the city centre, most roads here are runnable.

A run from when staying near the centre of Pattaya, where I started and finished at the top-right of the map. The bottom part took me in a loop through Jomtien, including along Yinyom Beach.

Queen Sirikit Park

The one place that I explored as an alternative to running along the roads and the beach, was Queen Sirikit Park. If you view it on Google Maps Satellite view, you'll see that it's quite a big area of greenery stretching half-way down Thappraya Rd, all the way to G Residence (my accommodation in Pattaya on two occasions). Because of this I assumed it'd be great for me to go running in, and there must be an entrance somewhere nearby, right? Right?

Despite part of the park stretching to less than 200m from my accommodation, to get into the park I had to walk for 20 minutes, mostly down the side of a pavementless main road, to find an entrance.

Convinced that there must be a nearer entrance, I then started searching from inside the park. In the south-east end of the park you come across a rusted children's playground that's now home to a rather aggressive pack of dogs. It feels akin to a scene from The Last of Us. If you make it through the dogs unscathed and go down some steps, you make it to an abandoned car park.

There are a couple of new condo buildings between the car park and the main road, and my guess is that they built these condo buildings on wherever the entrance to this car park used to be, and consequently there's now no way into this park without going all the way around the other side. That kind of ruins it as an option for running if you're staying where I was, because it's a pain to get into.

If you're staying closer to one of its few entrances, then it's a slightly peculiar place. There are deserted roads through much of it, which I did see people running along, and they're a perfectly viable option. There's also a footpath, but this too includes some slightly aggressive dogs, it has collapsed in places, and I discovered what I can only describe as a toilet graveyard, which is always nice when running.

I didn't ever come back here to go running, and stuck to the roads and beaches, but it's an option if you can easily find a way in.

The footpath is quite pleasant in some places and makes for a decent running route.

Where to get vegan food in Pattaya

Pattaya attracts tourists from all over the world. There are many Middle-Eastern tourists, and even more Indian tourists. A consequence of which is that tourist areas of Pattaya are overflowing with Middle-Eastern and Indian restaurants. And when it comes to finding vegan food, that's a good thing.

Almost all Middle-Eastern restaurants have vegan options like hummus and falafel, and even non-vegetarian Indian restaurants offer curries, breads and rices that are or can be made vegan. There are so many of these restaurants that recommending any of them is somewhat futile. Unless you're averse to Middle-Eastern or Indian food, I'd suggest just wandering around until you find somewhere that takes your fancy. The staff typically speak good English and understand what vegan means.

If you're instead after vegan western or Thai food, then the offerings are a bit slimmer. I'll detail my favourites below.

This is the aloo palak from 3 Idiots The Veggie Hub in Jomtien. It's one of the weirdest restaurants I've ever been to, from the obscure design of the menu and the weird mix of food it contains, to the decor of the restaurant itself. However, the food I got here on my one visit was excellent. If it had been priced a little more reasonably I'd have certainly come back. However, 130 baht for the aloo palak and 120 baht for the jeera rice you can see here, plus a 10% service charge and 7% VAT not included in the price (one of my pet peeves) meant the cost here was way above other similar restaurants in Pattaya. I do recommend coming once though.

Yes Vegan

345/27-28 Thapphraya soi 12

By far my most-visited restaurant in Pattaya is Yes Vegan. Seriously, I've been here so much that it's embarrassing walking-in. My stays at G Residence are in part because Yes Vegan is nearby.

It's a fully-vegan restaurant, if you couldn't tell from the name, and the menu's pretty big, with a mix of western and Asian items. It's on a large premises down a peculiarly Russian soi, so there's little worry that there won't be any seating. The service is always fast and the quality is consistently good. Prices vary, but no item on the menu costs more than 185 baht, and you'll typically pay closer to 125 baht per dish.

If you're staying nearby, this will be your go-to for vegan food in Pattaya, and if you're not it's worth travelling to.

There's only one pizza on the menu; the Hawaiian pizza. It was as good as it looks, and costs 185 baht.

Apple Vegan Cafe

Chalerm Phrakiat 18

Apple was newly opened on my second stay in Pattaya. Being walking distance from Olympus City Garden was part of the reason I decided to stay there.

It's a fully vegan restaurant run by this very sweet lady. It's open Monday to Saturday, and on my first visit when I asked her what time they closed, she responded that the restaurant closes at 10pm, but I could order take-away 24 hours per day. She was the only chef so I quizzed a bit further, and it turns-out that she sleeps in the restaurant, and any time an order comes in, no matter what time of night, she has to get up and head to the kitchen.

I honestly couldn't think of anything worse, but that really is some dedication to making your business work.

The menu is a little limited, but does have some classics that you wouldn't really expect to find on a vegan menu in Thailand. Fish fingers with chips are a meal I can't have had for thirty years, and vegan tuna sandwiches were one of my go-to meals back when I had a kitchen.

It didn't seem to be attracting too many customers when I first came here, so I was glad to see it doing well when I came back to Pattaya nine months later.

The American fried rice costs 119 baht and includes a vegan fried egg and some vegan chicken nuggets. Now that's real food!

Five Star J Restaurant

313/37 S Pattaya Rd

Five Star J is a vegetarian, rather than a vegan restaurant, although the majority of items on the huge menu are vegan and are labelled as such.

The menu is honestly a book, it's massive. Perhaps it's dominated slightly by Asian offerings, but there's still plenty of western stuff on there, which I actually recommend a little bit more. I even had two decent pasta dishes here, which is rare. Definitely worth visiting while in Pattaya.

Five Star J has an absolutely huge menu. While it's a vegetarian rather than vegan restaurant, the vast majority of items on the menu are vegan and are clearly labelled as such. This is the soy burger for 199 baht.

Where I stayed

G Residence

378/148 Thappraya Road, Soi 15

A good general rule I have when staying anywhere, is stay away from the city centre. You can always travel in when you want to be around the action, but it's nice to be able to get away from it when you want a break. This rule definitely applies to Pattaya. Give yourself some distance from all the craziness.

It was partly just luck, as I mainly stayed here for the first time because Yes Vegan is nearby, but the location of G Residence is perfect. It's bang in the middle between central Pattaya and Jomtien. You can walk to Pattaya Walking Street in about 25 minutes, and you can walk to central Jomtien in about 25 minutes. The hundreds of baht buses that ply this route cut these journey times to 5 to 10 minutes, so everything is really, really accessible, but you're away from all the madness for when you want to avoid it.

It's quiet enough here that you can go running right from the entrance to the apartment complex, and Food Mart supermarket is about a fifteen minute walk away. It's about a five minute walk from G Residence to the nearest 7-11, and a ten minute walk to Yes Vegan; the best vegan restaurant in Pattaya. The street Yes Vegan's on also has a very good fruit stand that I'd often buy my smoothie fruit from, although there are many other options for buying fruit nearby.

The apartments here are pretty great. I've stayed here twice, both times in what's listed on booking.com as an 'Apartment with balcony'. At 47m² it's the mid-sized apartment that they offer (a studio is 35m², or a two-bedroom apartment is 80m²) and it feels very spacious.

The two rooms I stayed in had different layouts, and I would term neither as one-bedroom apartments. In the first, there was no proper wall separating the living area from the bedroom, and in the second there was a wall, but it only separated the kitchen and the bathroom from the rest of the room. The living area and bedroom were one big room. If you're alone then that distinction doesn't really matter, but if you're coming as a couple and like to be fully-separated from each other occasionally, be aware that won't really be possible. Consider these rooms as large studios.

The rooms have plenty of space to exercise, and a dining table with a couple of chairs that are good for eating at and to use as a workstation. The sofa in my first room was really comfortable and great for lounging around on (less so in my second room) and the king bed was comfortable both times. You have a balcony with a couple of chairs on it that, if you look to the left, gives you a view of the pool (the view straight ahead is just the side of another building) and the rooms are cleaned everyday. The provided kitchen equipment is a little lacking, but in a storage room downstairs they have a tonne of spare equipment, so if you need extra pans, utensils etc., just go down and ask.

There's just one major flaw to this place: The wifi is awful. Once you're connected it's mostly ok (a little unstable), but it has a login page where every time you put your device down, you have to enter a username and password to login again. This gets very tedious, especially having to login on my Apple TV every day to my workouts, to the point that I just didn't bother connecting to the wifi anymore and instead used my data.

The building has some communal facilities - most obviously the pool, which is pretty nice, but there's also a fairly well-equipped gym.

This room is a great place to stay. The location is great, or as good as it can be in Pattaya, the rooms are spacious and the facilities here are really good. Just be aware of how bad the wifi is. If that matters to you then look elsewhere.

G Residence offers studios (35m²), one-bedroom apartments (47m²) and two-bedroom apartments (80m²). This is the one-bedroom apartment that I stayed-in during my first stay.

Olympus City Garden

Soi Kho Pai 4

In the absence of availability at G Residence, I stayed at Olympus City Garden on my second visit to Pattaya. It's an apartment block, so don't make the mistake of thinking that you're staying at a hotel. You're not.

That can be a good thing or a bad thing, but know that through my stay, no one came in to make up the room, no one changed the bedding or the towels, the one toilet roll I was provided with wasn't replenished, the kitchen sink didn't include washing up liquid or even a sponge, there were no spare bin liners and no one came in to change the bins. You're responsible for all this stuff.

The positive is that if you don't like people knowing your business, Olympus City Garden is very private.

There are hundreds of apartments in this complex, and the security, while present, is very much out of the way. You don't have to walk past a reception or a security guard each time you go out and come back like in many places. Here, no one knows if you've come or gone, and no one cares.

I like that. Perhaps highlighting my own insecurities, I hate how in hotels the receptionists know exactly how often I go outside, because on some days, especially on days I'm working, I might only be out for an hour, but then get conscious that they think I'm spending too much time in the room. Here you are free, so take the lack of hotel services as a positive or a negative depending on what you like.

I dealt with someone who works here precisely once during my stay. A guy called Jack met me as I arrived, showed me to the room, and I didn't hear from him or see him again until I checked-out and messaged him to say the room was empty.

As for the room, it's listed as 26m² which makes it almost half the size of the rooms I've had at G Residence, despite being more expensive. The use of space for such a small room is both impressive and depressing, cramming a bedroom with double bed, living room and kitchen including a sofa with coffee table and a table and chairs, and a bathroom, all within these 26m. As impressive as it is to get all that in, it does feel cramped.

I had to move the coffee table next to the front door anytime I wanted to exercise, I had to move one of the chairs just so the other could tuck under the table properly and wasn't in the way, and I stored my suitcase upright just so it wasn't taking up too much of the floor.

The kitchen has the two essentials of a kettle and a (large) fridge, as well as a microwave. Beyond this it's very lacking. Lots of crockery, cutlery, and even a knife and chopping board, but the only pan was a large wok. Oddly enough there was a saucepan lid, there just wasn't the saucepan to go with it.

There are two TVs in the apartment on either side of the sliding bedroom door. Unfortunately they're the only TVs I've encountered since I bought it in 2015, that aren't compatible with my Apple TV. They have HDMI inputs which is what I normally use to connect my Apple TV, and the picture worked fine, but the sound didn't. For some reason I couldn't get the sound to work at all, which made these TV sets obsolete to me and I used my phone to workout instead.

The biggest frustration with staying here though, was that the Internet was slooooow. Unlike at G Residence, there is no login page thankfully. Once you're connected you stayed connected, it's just that the connection is not only unstable, it's too slow to do video calls. To make matters worse, my mobile data (AIS) had a very weak connection in the room.

When I had to make video calls I'd tether to my mobile and put it next to the window where it got the best signal. Even then they were some patchy calls. As a digital nomad, it's pretty damn annoying to be staying somewhere that you can't get a good connection in your room.

The other main difference from G Residence, is that Olympus City Garden is pretty centrally located in Pattaya. You're not quite in the midst of all the bars, but you're not too far away from them either. Take that as a positive or a negative depending on what you like.

There are definitely worse places to be, but no doubt in my mind I've preferred my stays at G Residence.

As apartments go it's very compact, but you get plenty of natural light, which is always welcome. Crucially, the windows include drapes that can be closed so that, during the daytime at least, you can let in lots of daylight without people seeing you walking around naked.

Summary of Pattaya

Final thoughts

Pattaya is a great holiday destination. It's a terrible digital nomad destination. It's a place you can come for a fun couple of weeks, but it's not a place I could ever imagine living or wanting to stay long-term. Bear that in mind before you decide to come here. And if you do come here, come with your eyes wide open. It can be very expensive to fall in love in Pattaya, and many pay with their lives as well as their wallet. Always remember that there's a game being played.

You have money. They want that money. Those are the only rules. Whatever is said and done that might be considered dishonest, deceptive, or even deceitful elsewhere in the world, is acceptable to that end. All is fair and love and war, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Do I want to come back again?

Not right now, but I still haven't lost my bitch-tits. I'm not sure anyone wants to come back to Pattaya right after leaving.

Once you've got yourself back in shape and the memories of the hangovers wear-off, a little voice in that back of your head says "hey, you know what we should do?" At that point you decide to come back, so you can regret it all over again.