Pattaya Tourism and Information Blog

Pattaya24seven is the only online guide to Pattaya to be mentioned in the new Lonely Planet Thailand book!

The best-selling guide is now out, with a great new-look feel and dozens of new places to visit. The Pattaya section has been completely revamped, with new restaurants and places to visit. And we have to say it’s looking very good.

Lonely Planet was also kind enough to mention our site as THE place to go if you want to know all about Pattaya.

So many thanks to Lonely Planet and, if you haven’t yet seen our main site, head over here and have a browse!

Feel free to send in suggestions and comments to contact@pattaya24seven.com.

More than 140 million baht will be used to develop Pattaya’s cluttered beachfront – and create a new traffic lane!

According to a report in Pattaya Mail, new trees and gardens and other related work will kick off in March. All this will be broken up into five zones, with the main one running from Soi 6 to Central Road.

The approach to Walking Street will be spruced up, with several gardens set to appear to offer a backdrop for visitors who want to take photos of the city. Smaller details will include making sure all beach umbrellas are the same colour.

Perhaps the most radical move is that a new traffic lane will be added along Beach Road. Where, you may well ask. It seems they are going to remove 3 metres of promenade all the way along, meaning the footpath and ‘Coconut Bar’ will be made considerably narrower.

All this is on top of a huge 380 million baht scheme to rebuild Pattaya Beach by refilling it with sand from Rayong. That plan still needs approval though and so won’t start for a while.

It’s a mightily ambitious project so we await with interest to see how it develops. We can probably look forward to a fair bit of disruption (presumably they’ll wait until the rainy season to do the bulk of the work) but if it all goes to plan it will certainly give the beachfront a much-needed facelift. Well done, Mr Mayor!

Education in Thailand is supposed to be free. However, sending your child to a local school can turn out to be an expensive issue.

To ensure your child studies where you want, it’s often necessary to offer a ‘donation’, or tea money, to the learning establishment. It’s a dubious practice but it’s also a widespread one.

Despite it being commonplace, we were still stunned that Education Minister Suchart Tadathamrongvej suggested that paying ‘tea money’ should be legalised.

According to The Nation, Suchart told an education conference: “I am not going to call it ‘tea money’. I will call it ‘a donation’”.

Schools that weren’t given enough government cash could make up for this by collecting donations from parents. Now if that’s inviting trouble, we don’t know what is.

Ever the optimist, Suchart said he was sure children with poor academic results would not be able to get in top establishments just by paying money. He perhaps should also ask what schools will do with able students whose parents won’t pay a little extra.

The new minister of education also said demonstration schools should support some of the 10,000 schools that were found to have quality problems. Somehow we can’t see the principals of such schools being keen on parting with their hard-earned ‘donations’.

Several educational experts have already slammed the comments.  Some asked what happens if too many parents all offer donations – how would schools decide who gets in (think we know the answer to that on already). And can we really believe that every baht that is donated will always end up in school coffers and not in someone’s back pocket.

In a way at least it is refreshing for a minister to admit what is going on, rather than try to deny any wrong-doing. However, while Suchart may be winning friends among school leaders, he’s unlikely to win over those concerned about quality – and not cash.

Music lovers will be heading to the Hard Rock Pattaya this weekend to hear soul singing star Burin.

Burin and a few special guests will be playing at the Hard Rock on Saturday February 18 from 9.30pm onwards.

Entry is 500B, which includes a free drink, or it’s 2,000B for a four-people bottle package. The ticket includes 20 per cent off restaurant and bar prices as well.

Email rsvp.pty@hardrockhotels.net to book a ticket. Or if you want the chance to win free tickets, head to their Facebook page.

Having lived in Thailand for some time, there is still plenty that amazes us.

Take advertising, for instance. Usually the problem is that companies spend thousands of baht on good advertising, only to screw up the English. That’s why we’ve seen signs for the ‘Strwaberries Bar’ and ‘fried crap’. The one below caught our eye today. Check it out if you’re at the Outlet Mall, along Sukhumvit, Pattaya. We rather assumed that shops were ‘stationary’ anyway, but it’s good to be reminded now and again.

In our middle pic is an old classic. Years ago there was a toothpaste in Thailand called ‘Darkie’, featuring a black and white minstrel for its logo. Presumably the marketing tag was that the chap’s teeth looked even whiter when compared to his skin. Now who could possibly be offended by that? It seems that some were, as the toothpaste-makers decided to have a dramatic re-think – and called their product ‘Darlie’ instead. The minstrel logo still remains, showing how race relations still have a way to go in Thailand.

The photo immediately below is our favourite though. A friend offered me one of these last week – and I had one of those classic double-take moments. It’s a chewing gum designed to look like a cigarette.The kind of thing that was a bad idea 20 years ago. Nevertheless, it’s still on sale in Thailand, complete with a box that looks like it contains cigarettes.

We’d like to collect a few more of these, so if you do see anything truly bizarre in Pattaya, please take a pic of it and mail it to contact@pattaya24seven.com.

Hundreds of tennis fans made it to the Dusit Thani Hotel Pattaya for a smashing PTT Pattaya Open Tennis Tournament.

Some of the world’s top-ranked female stars volleyed and smashed their way through the competition, which ended on February 12. Below are some pics from the first semi-final between Sorana Cirstea  of Romania and Russia’s Maria Kirilenko, which Kirilenki won in three sets. In the other semi, Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova overcame Hsieh. In the final Daniela Hantuchova retained her title in three sets.

This was the 21st year the Pattaya event has been held. As well as tennis, visitors were treated to live music and a range of tennis-related games and activities, including tennis Wii. Below are some pics from the tennis tournament.

The 15th annual Pattaya Burapa Bike Week roared into town this weekend. Hundreds of Harleys, Choppers and customised machines made for an impressive, and noisy, festival.

The event was held on February 10 and 11 at the Pattaya Sports Arena in Jomtien. Although you didn’t have to be there to enjoy the bikes; many amazing machines could be seen roaring along Sukhumvit and throughout Pattaya.

As well as bikes, there were performances from top Thai singers, including Carabao and Job to Do.

While it was an amazing show, it was interesting to go down there post-festival and see the rubbish that had been strewn all around. No fault here with the organisers – we spotted many rubbish bins on-site. It’s also not just the biking community that’s to blame; sadly this kind of mess is left behind at many major events. It’s a shame that people can’t take a moment and take their trash with them, especially when there’s a bin yards away.

Aside from that, it was a great event – well done to the organisers for another cracking show.

With love in the air and Valentine’s Day approaching, it’s time for roses, chocolates – and a police curfew.

That’s the case if you live in Thailand, at least. Thai police are worried that love-struck teens may be up to no good on February 14 and so have ordered a crackdown on, well, love.

In a bid to stop drug taking and other inappropriate behaviour, police will be sent to keep an eye on public parks, theatres, karaoke bars, nightclubs and hotels. Seriously, we’re not kidding, they really will.
According to this report in The Nation, they are also asking mums and dads to ensure their offspring are safely home and tucked up in bed (alone, presumably) by 10pm. No reports yet on whether they’ll be turning off the taps for Songkran or draining the lakes for Loy Krathong, just to be on the safe side.
Any under-18s out after 10pm could be taken to police stations and have to wait there until their parents come to collect them.

Shops selling alcohol to under-aged folk will also be in trouble. In a remarkably sexist comment, the police also told women not to wear sexy clothes of high-value ornaments, as criminals could take advantage.

• In more uplifting news, couples are invited to register their marriages on the back of elephants in the gardens of Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens in Pattaya. About 100 couples are expected to attend this annual activity, which will involve the park’s 42 elephants.

• Also, the dusitD2 baraquda Pattaya will have a food and drink promo called ‘Drink Dine Desire’ to celebrate Valentine’s Day. A four-course set dinner at the Rooftop Sunset Lounge will come with live music, two glasses of sparkling wine, a rose and a free “Just D2 of us” photo frame. Nice name. The menu features Beluga caviar for starters, followed by French onion soup, then a pan-roasted snow fish and strawberry shortcake for dessert. All for 2,222B per person. Email d2pa@dusit.com for more.
• Hilton Pattaya is having a similar offer. You can look forward to ‘Cocktails for Couples’, ‘Cookies for Couples’ and even a heart-shaped bar. Head to Drift on level 16 from Friday Feb 10-Tuesday Feb 14. A romantically-themed dinner will also cost 2,222B.

Pattaya is hosting several major events this weekend, so it’s a great time to be in town.

First up, on February 10 and 11 it’s Pattaya Burapha Bike Week, when hundreds of bikes of all shapes and sizes will roar into town. As well as dozens of stalls and tattoo shops, the main stage will host Thai musical legends Lam Morrison, Carabao, and New Reggae Man.

The event will be held at Pattaya Sports Arena. If you don’t know where that is, just follow any choppers or Harleys  that you see at the weekend. For more on the event, go here.

As well as bikes, some of the world’s top female tennis stars will be in town. The PTT Pattaya Open is on from now until February 5 at the Dusit Thani Resort Pattaya. Tickets go from a reasonable 300B up to 1,200B, with one ticket getting you entry for the whole day’s tennis.

After a day of tennis or bikes, you can then head to the Centara Mirage Resort for another Lighthouse charity networking event on Saturday night.

If that doesn’t appeal, the Pattaya Players are staging their comedic mystery, “Dead to the Last Drop”, from February 10-11, 2012 at Eastern Grand Palace Hotel. Dinner service will begin at 6pm and the show will commence immediately at 7:30 PM.  Tickets are 1,000 Baht per person and include an all-you-can-eat buffet along with the show.

If you have ever worried that sitting in the cheap seats on a plane could be bad for your health, you can sit back and relax.

A new study shows that there’s no link between flying economy-class and the chance of getting a blood clots, says a report in the Huffington Post.

Some have dubbed the potentially lethal clots as “economy class syndrome” but this could be misleading. You don’t get a blood clot from sitting in economy; you get it from not moving about enough – regardless of where you’re sitting.

However, if you sit by the window you could be at greater risk as the chances of you bothering to shift from your seat is less.

Dr. Gordon Guyatt, chairman of an American College of Chest Physicians’ committee behind the report, said that if your flight is four hours or less, you shouldn’t have much to worry about. Fly for more than eight hours and there is a greater risk of a problem developing.

The group represents more than 18,000 physicians whose specialties include lung disease and critical care.

If you sit for too long, muscles place pressure on leg veins, which can ultimately form clots. If a clot forms and then travels up to your lungs, you can be in serious trouble. The chance of getting a clot also increases if you are overweight, elderly and have had surgery in the recent past.