| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
Originally Pattaya was a small fishing village until the rich of Bangkok discovered it as a beach resort in the 1960s. Not much later, American soldiers from the air force base U Ta Pao in the Rayong province began to use the area for "Rest and Recreation" (R&R). The city grew quickly, mostly due to go-go bars and other nightlife. When the Americans left after the end of the Vietnam war the city fell into crisis, but with the rise of mass tourism especially from Europe the tourism buisiness grew again. In 2001 more than 24,000 hotel rooms were available in Pattaya. Even though sex tourism is still quite prominent, the city has recently attempted to present a family friendly image and all-inclusive tourism now makes up the bigger part of tourism.
The excess tourism business gave Pattaya many unique problems such as water pollution, child prostitution and so on. These were out of the central governments's ability to handle. Thus, in 1976, the Pattaya City Act passed the parliament, and Pattaya became a self-administrating municipality governed by a Council-manager government. However this administration system has some problems such as that the mayor may disagree with the city manager, so critics have suggested to abolish the system.
Pattaya's sex tourism gives rise to some criminal and mafia activities. The local newspapers announced in June 2004 that the current police chief intended to crack down on all mafia activities, including the extortion of protection money from taxi drivers.
In 1996, a six-member gang was arrested for repeatedly robbing tourists that had been drugged by prostitutes. Some of the tourists died; the police was investigating some 150 suspicious deaths of male tourists that occurred in Pattaya hotels from 1994 to 1996.
In 2004, a British national with connections to organized crime was killed in Pattaya, and another British national was arrested as a suspect. This gave rise to worries that the area might serve as a hideaway place for foreign criminals.
Pattaya can be reached by aircon coach from Ekamai Bus terminal (Ekamai Skytrain Station) for 90 BahtThe baht (, symbol , ISO 4217 code THB) is the official currency of Thailand. Paper currency includes 1,000 (grey), 500 (purple), 100 (red), 50 (blue) and 20 (green) baht notes. The brown 10 baht banknote has become rare. Ten-baht coins are brass disks in, from Morchit bus terminal or directly from Bangkok's International Don Muang AirportDon Muang International Airport (also Don Mueang Thai ) is an airport in Bangkok, Thailand. The airport was officially opened on March 27th 1914, although the field had been in use earlier. The main field before the opening of Don Muang was the Sa Pathum. The ride is about 2.5 hours and is available every 30 minutes from 06.00 till 23.00. Busses back to Bangkok leave untill 20.00. Advance reservation is not necessary. Taxis from Bangkok will often agree to take passengers to Pattaya for a negotiated price off around 1200 Baht.
Within Pattaya pick-up trucks known as songtaew serve as the public transportation system. The songtaew drive on several routes throughout the city. When you stay within the Beach road and second road area the official price is 5 baht. For longer distances the price is 10 baht or 15 baht to go from the centre of town to Jomtien or Naklua. Some songtaew drivers ask foreigners for more money, but paying the official fare and walking away solves this. Destinations that ar not served by the routes have a fare that is negotiated with the driver within the bounds set by the Pattaya city administration. A white and red sticker should be in every Songtaew with maximum prices for negotiated fares.
Its entertainment offerings are wide ranged, from the about 4 km long beach and its watersport activities, over golfThis article is about the sport of golf. For other meanings, see Golf (disambiguation). Golf is an outdoor game where individual players or teams play a small ball into a hole using various clubs. It is defined in the Rules of Golf as playing a ball with, kart racingKart racing (as the word is so spelled by enthusiasts) or karting is a variant of open-wheeler motor sport with simple, small four-wheeled vehicles called karts go-karts or gearbox/shifter karts depending on the design. They are usually raced on scaled-do, shootingThe shooting sports include those competitive sports involving tests of accuracy and speed when shooting various types of guns, including airguns. Shooting with bows and arrows is not treated in this article, but at Archery. Sometimes hunting is also cons, cabaretCabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting around the tables (often dining or drinking) watc shows, shopping, elephantThis page is about the animal, see elephant (disambiguation) for more meanings. Loxodonta Loxodonta cyclotis Loxodonta africana Elephas Elephas maximus Proboscidea is an order including only one family, Elephantidae or the elephants with 3 species: the Sa riding, and a close-by country-park to the Phra Tamnak heights. The area in and around Walking Street is home to a majority of the nightlife, which is very much focused on gogo and outdoor beer bars.