Why Pattaya? and when?

[Londoner]

Thirty years ago,  a few months after finally expressing my sexuality following years of denial, I began experimenting with London rent-boys with limited satisfaction.  And I then  heard about the Amsterdam scene, a scene in which I could maintain my privacy and explore its "houses of boys".

In one of them, Blue Boy,  near the end of my one hour  allotted time my partner and I had a few minutes before the inevitable phone call  would end the encounter. He told me about Pattaya. Intrigued,  I explored the travel section in Foyles, London  and found  a guide; "Thai Scene "by MIchael Nottcut.

I immediately booked a stay at the Royal Garden Hotel and, if you can forgive the cliche, my life changed.

I began by travelling here for that  summer vacation.  I was able to add further trips, two of which were for only five nights owing to work commitments: I was more resilient in those days. Pattaya had become so important to me that I decided to take early retirement.  Three or four trips a year ensued. Once there were five. For nine years I revelled in the freedom and  the sheer excitement of the butterfly-scene. Older posters will remember the  lure of the Boyztown of that period.

Then my life changed again, totally unexpectedly, and I met someone. I had my doubts; my intention had been to continue my easy life of one or two night stands, responsibility -free, playing the field, different guys, new experiences.

That was in 2004 and since then, one person and one place has dominated my life.  Twice I have been close to relocation and twice I have decided to continue to be a traveler not a resident; I remain a Londoner.

I wonder; can other Pattaya-lovers on this forum recall why, when and how they "found" our city? What was it that called them back, again and again? or perhaps, they made the decision to remain here, unlike me?

I recall that Amsterdam meeting in Blue Boy as though it were yesterday. A handsome Black British guy in the space of five minutes  changed my life with a few  causal remarks to waste five minutes. And he'll never know how important it has been to me.

 

 

 

 

 

[Olddaddy]

I remember I found Pattaya through Bob my work colleague at that time ,

an Old straight red faced alcoholic🍻🍺 pommy  Cockney guy from London ,  although he had been in Australia for 30 years at that time .

"Get ya fookin self over to Pattaya mate" he would tell me , "I had a lot of pussy there "

Old Pommy Bob💂‍♂️ we called him , would take a weeks sick leave and head off to Thailand,that's when the airfares were cheap !

[bkkmfj2648]

My job had sent me on a work mission to Bangkok and Dhaka in 2012.  Prior to that trip I never had any interest in Asia.

That trip changed me.  1 year later, I discovered this gayguides.com forum as well as the https://sawatdeenetwork.com/ forum and by reading the gazillions of trip reports posted in these 2 forums - I just knew that I needed to change my vacation destinations from Europe to Asia (mainly Thailand).

I think by 2014 I had discovered Pattaya and it was on a particular walk on Dongtan beach - specifically towards the northern part after the gay volleyball area where there is a small pathway that straddles the very narrow beach road that ends at Yinyom Beach (where Phratamnak soi 5 begins) - as shown in the below image.  That narrow footpath underneath the trees with a stunning view of Koh Larn off in the distant - grabbed me and I knew that when I would retire that I had to live near Dongtan beach in one of the condos that overlook the Gulf of Thailand.

So, it wasn't necessarily Pattaya that I desired but more the Dongtan Beach area of Jomtien.  Honestly, I don't like Pattaya city very much - but it is necessary to us in Jomtien, as there is no good shopping in Jomtien and the bigger medical facilities are over in Pattaya city.

So, nothing exciting like @Londoner story - it was more a draw to that special moment on that narrow pathway that did it for me.  So, 8 years later I realized that retirement dream when I moved from Europe to Dongtan Beach in Jomtien.

[Ian here]

7 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

My job had sent me on a work mission to Bangkok and Dhaka in 2012.  Prior to that trip I never had any interest in Asia.

That trip changed me.  1 year later, I discovered this gayguides.com forum as well as the https://sawatdeenetwork.com/ forum and by reading the gazillions of trip reports posted in these 2 forums - I just knew that I needed to change my vacation destinations from Europe to Asia (mainly Thailand).

I think by 2014 I had discovered Pattaya and it was on a particular walk on Dongtan beach - specifically towards the northern part after the gay volleyball area where there is a small pathway that straddles the very narrow beach road that ends at Yinyom Beach (where Phratamnak soi 5 begins) - as shown in the below image.  That narrow footpath underneath the trees with a stunning view of Koh Larn off in the distant - grabbed me and I knew that when I would retire that I had to live near Dongtan beach in one of the condos that overlook the Gulf of Thailand.

So, it wasn't necessarily Pattaya that I desired but more the Dongtan Beach area of Jomtien.  Honestly, I don't like Pattaya city very much - but it is necessary to us in Jomtien, as there is no good shopping in Jomtien and the bigger medical facilities are over in Pattaya city.

So, nothing exciting like @Londoner story - it was more a draw to that special moment on that narrow pathway that did it for me.  So, 8 years later I realized that retirement dream when I moved from Europe to Dongtan Beach in Jomtien.

Nice story, how did your friend eventually end up with his start up small business( I think it was a florist).

Inquisititive minds need to know🤔🙂

[vinapu]

Opposite to Pattaya lovers I somehow was reluctant to go there, being firmly in big city i.e. Bangkok camp. My first visit to Thailand- 2001, my first visit to Pattaya , only in 2013 and I was not very impressed. Report from that visit is still somewhere in the forum - good that I posted it here because quite a few members asked me to ' give Pattaya a chance ". So I did and even managed to have one trip when most of my time in Thailand was spent actually in Pattaya. It was in times when I considered BoyzBoyzBoyz the best bar in Thailand. Sadly no more but I still try to visit city for 2-3 days every trip , even short one. 

[Ruthrieston]

Well Londoner, the readers can blame you for prompting me to relate my boring story! Here goes...

In 1998 I first travelled to Pattaya with a group of friends who had mostly been here before, nine people. My old flatmate, who worked with me on the Aids Ward in St Stephen's Hospital in London, insisted on laying for my flight, yeah right, it was a two for the price of one deal on Lufthansa! By the time of the trip my friend had Aids himself and he was so ill on the journey, I was worried about him. We stayed in a hotel near Beach Road at the start of Walking Street, and on the first evening my friend knocked on my door and insisted on taking me to a bar in what would become Sunnee Plaza, but it was a lot of dark streets, and the one bar was inside and had a few leather sofas and glass topped coffee tables and I was so concerned about him that I wasn't looking, until the young gentlemen were running past banging something hard on the glass topped tables and I turned to look and realised it was their hard-ons!! We flew back to London at the start of May and in July my friend died. His gift to me was the exciting world of Pattaya. After many years of travelling a couple of times a year I was kicked out of my job at the age of 53 and couldn't pay my mortgage and I decided to sell up and move to live in Pattaya. That was in 2011, and not for one day have I regretted that decision. 

[bkkmfj2648]

3 hours ago, Ian here said:

Nice story, how did your friend eventually end up with his start up small business( I think it was a florist).

Inquisititive minds need to know🤔🙂

In 2 short words = Total Disaster

It was a chicken noodle franchise business and he traveled around Thailand visiting various Thai festivals where he would purchase the rights to a food booth at said event for the duration of the festival (typically from 8 to 12 days).  In any given month, he averaged 2 festivals per month - as they are generally not back-to-back and you need time to disassemble the shop and move it to; either a waiting storage area, or in a rare case (if he was able to find a festival starting within a day or 2 from when the current festival is terminating) he could relocate directly to the next festival site.

After selling at 8 distinct festivals, where only 1 made a profit - he had to fold this business idea.  He did work his ass off and he did put all of his efforts into it - as he is a very good cook (Thai food - especially Isaan food).

The problem, after performing many financial break even spreadsheets for each festival - the average break even point was around 327 noodle boxes per day.  Only 1 festival managed to exceed 327 box sales - where at that specific festival many of the 9 days of sales - 500 noodle boxes were sold.

Unfortunately at the other 6 to 7 festivals - the average number of product sold per day was between 200 to 250 - thus operating at a loss.

The obvious solution was to lower the operating costs - but that was very difficult because:

• He did not own a car - so the other employee (his best friend) offered his car but it had a loan on it for 10,000 baht per month,
• Since they were using a car instead of a truck with a secure back storage area - they had to hire a shipping company at the end of each festival to move his store and its possessions to either the franchise owner's house in the outskirts of Bangkok or to my friend's home in Sukhothai.  After the beginning of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, fuel costs dramatically increased and consequently this fixed operating cost became more difficult to plan out properly for budgeting purposes.

I simulated various financial outcomes where, if he owned a truck with a secure back storage area - he could eliminate some of these fixed costs:

• no more need to pay the 10k car loan each month,
• no more need to pay a shipping company to move his store from one festival to a temporary storage holding area (until the next festival starts) and then onto the next festival destination,
• choosing festivals that had larger flows of people who would attend them - but also in regions of Thailand where the local population has more disposable income,

thus resulting in the lowering of the break even from 327 daily products sold down to near 230 daily products sold - thus resulting in creating a profit situation and thus avoiding that the working capital fund gets constantly raided.

There is no money to buy a truck with a secure back storage area - so this franchise business had to be sadly abandoned.

 

 

[Londoner]

I suspect that "failed businesses" deserves its own  thread. How many of us have subsidized one?