As Seen by TV

A busy, but wonderful day… sand, sun, beach, temples, views, amazing culinary treats… all climaxing to the New Years Eve parties on the beaches of Pattaya, Thailand!

Drove the motorbike to Jomtien Beach, on the opposite side of Pratumnak Hill for the better part of the day.  Then meandered back to Pattaya Bay via the top of the hill where the Big Buddha calls home at Kao Phra Yai Wat temple.  Then a lookout point and back to the beach… only this time in the center of crazy Pattaya.

I didn’t know what I was in for with Pattaya… words describing it that I had heard from other travellers included: crazy, ridiculous, seedy, disgusting, not-to-missed, and fun.

And… well, holy shit, what a crazy place! Sorry for cursing, but it truly was all those words described, one of the party places on the planet. If you think Vegas or Amsterdam or Ibiza or whatever is crazy, well then you haven’t travelled far enough!  Put Pattaya on your to-do list.

For me, there was no better place to welcome in the year 2012 the following night………………

Located 145km from Bangkok, the trip is easily taken by bus or van that leave hourly, we actually took one straight from the airport.  Pattaya itself has some decent beaches, not as nice as the ones in Phuket, Phangan and Samui, but certainly a step up from home.  The city itself is located mainly around Pattaya Bay, divided into two parts by Pratumnak Hill (where the Wat Khao Phra Bat temple is located; pics to follow), north of which is Pattaya proper and to the south Jomtien.  Jomtien is where we spent our days, lounging on the more family-friendly beaches, away from the mayhem that is Pattaya proper.  Our hotel was also located about a 10min motorbike ride from the center, which was definitely a smart move.

Pattaya.  Allegedly the second most visited city in Thailand (after Bangkok), it is a hotspot for Bankokians seeking a weekend retreat from the big city.  It is mostly known for being bananas.  The Walking Street is, as the name should suggest, is a walking street literally littered with ALL KINDS of bars (some had mini boxing rings inside, where you can watch or join kickboxing fights), clubs, gogo bars, massage parlors and some restaurants.  It is a complete sensory overload.  No pictures can do it any justice, especially if ‘no photography’ signs adorn pretty much every establishment.  And for good reason.

Another hectic day… taxi to ferry to bus to another bus to plane to bus to taxi…
(Ko Samui -> Surat Thani -> Bangkok -> Pattaya!)

Pattaya, oh holy hell, what a crazy place!

Full day of Ko Samui, driving clockwise around the island to the south coast, then up into the mountains at the center and then back the way we came…  what a stunning island!

View Koh Samui trek in a larger map

Beaches, waterfalls, elephant trekking… what more could I possibly ask for in day… everything was so beautiful.

…oh yeah, and it should go without saying that the night was met with more street food (from yet another night market!) and Long Islands Ice Teas!!

Luckily the trip from KP to KS was pretty easy… we took the fast ferry too, because someone got a little sick on the 3hour slow ferry from the mainland to Koh Phangan some days before.

Koh Samui… I didn’t really know what to expect.  I know that, second to Phuket, it is the tourist hot spot Thailand.  That being said, we were staying in Mae Nam, slightly away from the mayhem of Chaweng (which in my opinion should be avoided).  Once again, right away rented a motorbike and hit the road… which was a nice paved one, with a fair amount of traffic (although, not at all that bad), very much unlike the past couple days on Koh Phangan.  KS has one major “highway” that circles in the island, doable full-circle in a couple hours, to give you a rough size of the island.   But yeah, I had expected way too many tourists and that I’d be apalled by the ran-sacking thereof… but I actually fell in love with the place.  As great as a Koh Phangan was (it really was), for a city-boy like me, I can’t be too remote, Samui offered a nice mixture… easily a place I could live for years.  Although I wouldn’t get much done.

This first night we tried to go inland up into the mountains to take some night photos, but the roads got really bad… pretty much impossible for 2 people on a small motorbike (piles of bright red mud… and it had recently rained, a lot), so that idea was scraped.  Instead, we went to the area between Mae Nam and Bo Phut, where to our great surprise there was a lively street market going on.  I bought some t-shirts, stuffed myself with mystery street food and 50baht Long Island Ice Teas, after some evening photography of course… easily one of the most pleasant nights I’ve ever had.

Final night on the wonderful island of Koh Phangan… in the little village of Thong Nai Pan… another spot that will surely be missed (but I’ll be back!).

A good friend of mine had a spare ticket to the F1 Chinese GP, so it was off to the races for me!  Even as a fan of F1 this was only the 3rd race I’ve ever witnessed in person… the last one was Monaco several years ago… so I was excited to having 2 days of INSANE engine noises (those F1 engines are seriously out of this world, if you’ve never heard one, make it point to hit up the nearest GP now!).

And here’s a video I took from the start…… that voice yelling is not me, then again while filming I couldn’t hear a damn thing anyway!

This day was spent cruising around the northern bits of the island… checking out a couple waterfalls and heading down a treacherous little path to Bottle Beach.  It was however meant to be a day spent chillin’ on the beach, but as you can see in the photos, the weather wasn’t very much in our favor.   Added to this treachery were of the storms that had passed the days before we arrived, the currents were treacherous and it was strongly advised not to head into the water (and when the nearest hospital is several hours away on another island, you tend to listen).

(click image for larger version)

I had read about Bottle Beach prior coming to the island, and that it was only reachable via a 3hr hike… but I saw a sign pointing in its direction and went for it.  Of course the ”road” was rather unpaved and filled with mean gullies up and down the steep slopes and even had to traverse some streams (hey, the motorbike was a rental after all!) into the tiny cove that protected the small and serene beach.

“Bottle Beach” got its name as prior to the path we took, the only way to find it was a rocky hike with bottles on sticks as markers that pointed the way down to its shore.  On the last stretch coming near the beach I even had to blaze my own trail, as the road had been swept out by flooding… 2 other tourists left their bikes there, waddled across and walked the last stretch… not me!  Where there is a will, there is a way… so I blazed my own path through the swampy land and luckily made it to the beach (the 2 others asked how the hell we had managed, haha!).

What an amazing little beach.  I could easily spend 2 weeks here with a couple good books, a couple cases of beer and a tub of sun screen.

The first couple waterfalls weren’t all too spectacular, but the last one I thought was out of this world.  Not the falls themselves (“Phu Dang”), but the vegetation and remoteness of it was amazing.  I found that the tree in that last image was something straight out of a Hobbit novel.