Sunday, September 23, 2012

WILD-WATER rafting in Pattaya – a new face for Pattaya once again



Once again Pattaya has proven it has a place amongst the world’s most innovative world travel destinations. Last night a few of us where down the beach, and radar believing individuals as we are, we were not at all concerned by the thunder or lightning. We knew the radar does not lie – well it bloody well did. It bucketed down. Far from being distraught or unhappy about it, I am actually glad it did. 
The deluge that was released from the heavens made me, for the first time, become familiar with the term wild-water rafting in Pattaya. The Pattaya City Council being as foresightful as they are, and having fixed all the flood problems now, allowed me to be part of a very rare thing indeed – Niagara falls on the beach of Pattaya. Any adventure company would have gladly been a sponsor of the event and would have, I am sure, sold tickets for this by the hundreds.

As the pictures show this was really a lot of water, sadly I had no way of recording the smell of it all. Being a bum I am also just too lazy to put the video footage up on youtube to give you an idea of the noise it made as it was cutting its way through the little bit of beach we have here. Anyway, this was one of the rare occasion when the Pattaya sea water was actually clean in comparison and the safest environment to be in. The roads, footpaths and all surrounding areas were submerged by what appeared to be not the cleanest of all water in the district. The bottles, plastic bags and odd dead rat floating past didn’t really worry me but the turds were a little disturbing when they rubbed up against your legs. Anyway, all this stinking mess aside it was a spectacular sight to see. All along the Pattaya Klang part, a number of wild rivers of run-off were coming from the road, cutting wide gorges into the beach and then turning the ‘clean’ seawater into a mess of broiling sewerage where the rivers and the ocean mixed. Made me feel like I was being part of the creation of the world, present at some ritual to renew the face of Thailand (or at least Pattaya). Now, I have heard people call Pattaya a Sh…hole but I never quite made this connection.
On a side-note a dark blue hat was seen floating down towards Jomtien – I hope the wearer is still alive.




Previous to this deluge we noticed the local farang tourist police walking along the beach,  leaving the girls alone and just concentrating on the pickpocketing ladyboys and shining their torches all around what appeared to be Yabba dealing individuals. ‘Good on you guys’ – finally somebody is taking care of the real rats here in Pattaya.
A note to our beloved head of Pattaya Council – The Jetski scammers were busy again during the day as well.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

NEW face for Pattaya Beach today - good weather and sexy girls

Haven't been writing anything lately as most of us were confined to our rooms during the recent rains. Not that the rains were that bad but one does get soaked and its just no fun hanging out on the beach when one is dripping wet. So went out today and thought how nice beach road is after the recent rains - the footpath is clean, it doesn't stink of pee everywhere, the weather is great, a gentle breeze was blowing and pretty girls were out hunting. The trees have 'sort of'' recovered from the butchering by the city council and even the people on the beach seemed more relaxed and were almost smiling ( I said almost).
At times like these I realise that this is a little corner of paradise. Here in Pattaya we have no freezing temperatures like in most places, I can get a cup of iced coffee or tea for 50 cents, an ice cream for 30 cents, eat a meal for a dollar, have a pretty girl walk with me for 15 and get pissed for 3 dollars.
Truly, today all bad thoughts left me and I really enjoyed the walk on the beach. Passing by the Jetski scammers, it looked as if even they were having the day off. Walking home I heard the relaxing chitter chatter of the guys near Walking Street whispering Ganja, Marijuanaaa, Ice ... and rubbing their noses as if they had a fly crawl up there. I suppose it is allergy season and although it was on the warm side today I didn't really feel like any ice cream so I just declined. Actually, I have always wondered where they keep the ice as I have never seen them walk around with the little cooler boxes like the guys on the beach itself. Oh well, all in all a perfect day on the beach; so much so that I felt almost serene when I came home.
Now, I am not a pessimist by nature, but my feeling tells me this is just too good to be true, so lets see what happens tonight. Today, the day was 5 Star on the beach though.  Soon more at PattayaBeachBum.com
Oh, also noticed that the apartments I was trying to sell on beach road must have been sold. Oh well, can't win them all, may be they got flooded or washed out to sea.

Friday, September 14, 2012

PATTAYA and China - the new bilateral era

 I read with interest that the Japanese found that some 'Chinese surveillance ships' were cruising around their islands. They seemed somewhat worried about this and that reminded me of something that we had noticed on the beach a couple of nights ago. Although most likely of similar importance and of strikingly similar appearance, no single news agency reported anything about it so here we go.
The story from Reuters ran something like this "Six Chinese surveillance ships entered waters near disputed islands claimed by Tokyo and Beijing on Friday, raising tensions between Asia's two biggest economies to their highest level since 2010 over a long-running territorial row. . . " Well in the local Pattaya story although not concerned with 6 foreign bodies in their waters, there were 4 of these wet surveyors. The story went on about the tensions and human rights abuses (not dissimilar to us here in Pattaya really but that's another story), just to lead to Japanese citizens being mistreated or at least facing mortal danger from China. 

Well that's were the stories differ in a long way. The local Chinese on Pattaya Beach at 1 AM seemed quite nonthreatening (unless you are one of those 100% no nudity freaks from some hicktown in ....). Just the opposite, to the casual observer they seemed to be having the time of their lives, no human right abuses here. But what did they do swimming in the middle of the night near the doughnuts on Pattaya Beach road?  Did they jump ship from one of those surveillance ships of the coast of Japan and swam all the way here?
Were they the first wave of invaders and just stripped off their scuba gear? Did they miss their tour bus and in the absence of someone telling them what to do just decided to go back to just having a good time? Where did they have their clothes, did they sell them to support their Whiskey habits? I am still not sure if the guy raising his hand high in the air is trying to threaten us and wants to show his superiority or whether he's just a happy little ducky away from his days work at the factory. I suppose Romney would call this some sort of invasion and would condemn their blatant ignorance of local standards by flaunting their semi-naked bodies on beach road at night. I myself felt it quite refreshing to see people on the beach at night that aren't trying to sell drugs, bash, pickpocket or are trying to extort money from me.

So in the absence of Terrorists, the Russian enemy picture having dissolved into thin air, and no clear evidence of invading Aliens (currently) we need a new enemy picture - lets make it the Chinese. They destroyed the US and all other world economies (it wasn't greedy bankers or the capitalist attitude of 'money talks - shit walks'), they want to control all of us and will probably eat our children once they have full control. 


Not sure how I got here but it sounded good when I started :)

Thursday, September 13, 2012

WAS that Stickman Bangkok I saw at McDonalds Pattaya last night?



I have been wondering what the renovations at McDonalds in the Royal Garden shopping center had been all about for a while now. I mean, they were closed for about two weeks and when they reopened you got your Hamburgers with the added bonus of the smell of all kinds of glues and paints, Xylenes and Toluenes thrown into the deal for free. Just when they had reopened and customers did not have to trot over to Hungry Jacks anymore should they want to visit the toilet, they pulled the back section out again to remodel it with glass partitions just to change it once again the next week to be replaced with 60’s theme psychedelic partitions. Anyway, I had wondered why this timewasting remodelling was done. Was it the long bench that now had power plugs in it, one presumes this was done so that McDonalds could finally join us in the 21st century and offer computer users a way to surf the web without sucking the last bit of juice out of  their batteries. Although, as Blacky pointed out, the bench would be useful to boil the kettle or for the real enterprising individual these could be used to heat up cold rice to be sold on the street, offer a mobile phone recharging service while you treat yourself to a Bigmac Happy meal (Come to Maccers, charge your phone and get a Gutful -  could be a great slogan). Anyway, just last night I finally realized the real reason why we had to suffer two weeks of abstinence from Happy Family Meals and chlorinated Cokes, it was Stickman Bangkok. Yep that’s right, the guy that runs one of the StickmanBangkok website, the bloke that the old ladies at T…. V…. despise because he actually says what he thinks and speaks about what’s really out there (sorry SB no pissing in your pockets intended, just coincidental). I am not sure how he did it but somehow he got McDonalds Thailand (or is it even a world wide thing?) to think there is nothing cooler than to run free ads for him in their family establishments. Or didn’t they realize? Well he’s got there anyway so that’s all that counts. T… V…. eat your bloody heart out, I know I am :) Well done mate, would love to have your initiative.

But mate, what is that thingy that you are throwing into the rubbish bin there???Ps. I wonder if I could get a free hamburger for this little plug for McDonalds? That way I wouldn’t have to scour the tables at Maccers for some leftover chips.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

PATTAYA beach deodorized – the end of an era



Pattaya is seriously changing but not always for the worst.
It does seem like the Pattaya City Council is taken its job of  ‘re-inventing’ the hooker-capital of Thailand more serious this week. Not only have they talked a lot about the need to finish the Jet ski scam (which they have been for years), the absolute imperative to make Pattaya girly free and family friendly, and the top priority of providing a healthy and wholesome destination for all these high-end tourists and film makers (yes, Pattaya is going to be the Hollywood of Thailand – or so they told us this week) but they have actually gone all out and provided us beach dwellers & lurkers with shiny new (and clean) rubbish bins. Gone are the days when you would walk along beach road wondering where the sickly smell that just took your breath away was coming from.
Was it the Ladyboy that just walked past you, did the Indian looking guy not use the right 2 week protection deo last week, had the hooker that reached out and grabbed your arm just now come back from short time in some toilet or was it yesterday’s Som Tam in the green bin on the side of the road. Well now we can say with a feeling of pride and certainty that it was either of the first 3 options (probably the ladyboy as they seem to be ever increasing on the beach) because the bins ARE CLEAN. One would think, a thing that will not happen again for the next 4 to 5 years. So if you want to enjoy a de-smellified environment and be part of this once in a lifetime experience get down to the beach tonight and enjoy - it won’t last.




Tuesday, September 11, 2012

PATTAYA sees the return to the dark ages




A photo from last night – the wild man from Borneo.
This creature seems to be a Farang of some denomination. The picture was taken as it was ambling towards the Russian market near Soi 10 - the one with the Shoping center sign above it.
He does have a nice smile so that’s pretty cool and I do like his wrap-around, just a pitty its not a girl.

As to returning to the dark ages, has anyone been to a particular establishment near the front of Walking Street lately?
Nice place just a shame about the toilets in there. Me, being a bloke, doesn’t really care so mush as I don’t have to get anywhere near the toilet seat to relieve myself, but pity the Russian ladies that frequent the joint. I hope that the staff have their private little toilet somewhere in between churning out hamburgers.
The whole toilet was just covered in Pee (hard to see in the photo), it was all over the floor and presumably all over the walls, doorhandle etc. I could go on about the pigs that did this but I suppose it is really up to the management to get someone to clean it. Makes you wonder if peeing on the beach (straight into the water) is not a better option after all. It does carry a fine I am told and one may get hit over the head from behind though. :)
The picture doesn't really show the extent of the discoloration all over the toilet.

Monday, September 10, 2012

PATTAYA Beach Road Appartments for RENT or SALE 350,000 Baht



THE BEST SPOT IN PATTAYA AT A BARGAIN PRICE – DO NOT MISS OUT

These well laid out apartments are located right on the beach at Beach Road. About 2 steps to the beach and you can swim or frolic in the sun to your heart’s content. They have been newly built to the highest Thai Standards and finished with very durable materials.

Because of their superior design and layout you have windows on 2 sides of the 'condo'. The windows are constructed from very durable anodized aluminium and the interior has been finished with the finest synthetic material on the market  (in Thailand) today. Due to these feature these units are uncomplicated to look after as well as Ultra stain resistant Should a spillage occur they can be cleaned very easily.
As mentioned previously these cosy (about 10 by 6) apartment are in the best location on Pattaya Beach Road and we only have 2 of these available.
One of them is conveniently located near the entrance to Walking street and the other at Pattaya Klang near soi 10. Due to their structure, quality Thai design, as well as location (in Thailand), both units are a little bit noise receptive but a couple of sleeping tablets could fix this very easily.

Electricity has not yet been connected to the units but as there are cables everywhere in the vicinity we are sure that a temporary (and possibly free) connection could be very easily oarranged. The units do come unfurnished, which should be seen as an added bonus as they offer great business potential and can therefore be fitted out in any way the owner sees fit. The businesses that could be started are in no way limited but one would think there is an obvious use for these not only because of their location but also due to their size.  As this business would really only require a bed and a wash basin, the outfitting of these units would be very cost effective indeed. Sorry, currently running water is not connected (unless it rains and beach road floods) but one could just meander down to the beach as there is plenty of opportunity to fill a bucket right there.


BARGAIN RENTAL AND SALES PRICE
The price is negotiable and could start as little as 200 baht a night but could be subleased on a short time basis for about 150 baht an hour (possibly even 30 minutes). A long term tenant could get a price reduction off this price. We are willing to sell these at a price of 350,000 Baht for a quick sale as the ownership of the structure and especially the ownership of the land is at best unclear and at worst a 'squatting type' lease which is really not that unusal in this part of the world. One would imagine this can be turned into a fixed squat for some years by the greasing of the right hands.
All interested parties are welcome to contact us at PattayaBeachBum.com and apply for either short term, short time, or even a long time lease (girls are NOT included).