Living in Pattaya

Ideally positioned along the Gulf of Thailand approximately 93 miles south east of the Thai capital of Bangkok, the country’s most famous seaside resort Pattaya is one of the kingdom’s most popular holiday destinations. With its enjoyable surroundings featuring great beach areas, booming nightlife, superb dining and wining, and outstanding shopping amenities, living in Pattaya is by many considered as the best life possible.

Attracted by the Thai laid-back way of life and the comprehensive tourist infrastructure of the resort, many westerners, including Europeans and Americans, have chosen Pattaya as the most ideal place spending their retirement years. The very affordable living cost is another huge benefit. In addition, compared with the west, the crime rates here are much lower and the year-round enjoyable climate is an important factor for settling down in Pattaya as well. 

Whether your choice of accommodation is a condo, bungalow, villa, or single detached house, Pattaya offers a wide range of property options. Particularly apartment units are popular among foreigners, which is the sole type of accommodation allowed to be owned by non-Thai citizens. However, there are a few demands, which are explained in the Condominium Act (1979). Pattaya propery guide

Hiring or buying a condo in Pattaya isn’t a tedious procedure anymore, since numerous of real estate project developers, consultants, realtors as well as property agencies are eagerly trying to provide the most satisfying services. Some of the well-established companies run their own websites on the internet, providing details including: facilities, expected prices, and several photographs of the condo, making it less complicated buying the apartment of your choice in Pattaya.

Especially around the resort’s prime areas, a large number of the apartment units are already sold before the completion of the building activities. Bang Saray, Tawonron Beach and Jomtien are examples of much wanted living areas. Today, many different styles of condominiums are available in Pattaya ranging from the most spacious and luxurious to more budget-friendly options. Styles include: townhouses, single units, single detached properties and multi-roomed apartments. Usually standard facilities feature: equipped kitchen, spacious living room, sleeping room with one or two beds and comfortable bathroom.

Pattaya condos are quite popular among western retirees

Several of these apartment complexes come with amenities for residents such as car parking, swimming pool, sauna, fitness room, laundry service, game room, meeting rooms, tennis court and a convenience store. In addition, the units are well-secured. Also, buying an apartment in Pattaya might be a good long-duration investment, yielding significant profits. Compared with other properties such as villas and houses, the apartment unit’s prices are particularly high. The unit’s expenses for exterior maintenance and interior costs are rather low also. Living in Pattaya

Before buying a certain condo you should first check some issues that might be important for you. Usually apartment units are operated by a condominium association, which have their own rules and restrictions. Some condos do not allow pets, while other things like car parking, maintenance fee and additional services should be checked as well. 
  
 

The five-star Sheraton Resort in Pattaya

Visitors in Pattaya looking for the finest first-class hotel accommodation will definitely not be disappointed if they choose to stay in the superb five-star rated and internationally acclaimed Sheraton Resort. As soon as you enter this luxurious establishment you’ll be amazed by the blend of Thai traditional architecture and modern guest comforts.

The Sheraton offers its guests an exotic backdrop of Thailand’s most popular seaside resort packed with the booming nightlife scene and gorgeous coastline stretches along with stunning city views. This glitzy resort year-round welcomes many international guests. The hotel can easily be reached from Bangkok as well as from other destinations in Thailand. It is positioned next to the well-known Exhibition and Conference Hall.

The Sheraton Resort Pattaya boasts 153 fully-equipped, spacious, tastefully furnished and air-conditioned guestrooms. Some of the resort’s amenities and recreational facilities include: three swimming pools, poolside bar, beauty salon, laundry service, small beach area, restaurants, lounge bar, souvenir shop, fitness centre, spa, dedicated features for physically handicapped guests, business centre and massage service.

 Sheraton offers the finest dining and wining options. You have the option to relax in the lounge, meeting new friends while sipping on one of the many available tropic cocktails. The restaurants serve a wide range of, professionally prepared by reputed chef cooks, Thai dishes as well as international cuisine.

The enchanting and wonderfully located Sheraton Resort in South Pattaya

 After sightseeing Pattaya City guests may relax in one of the swimming pools while absorbing the beautiful environment. Golfing enthusiasts will appreciate the excellent golf course located nearby the resort while enjoying a revitalising spa treatment at the on-site Amburaya Spa is another great recreational option.

 The Sheraton Resort Pattaya also provides extensive amenities for the business traveller. There’s the availability of high-speed wireless internet along with banquet and conference rooms and a business centre facilitated with a comprehensive set of the most advanced dedicated features. The Sheraton in South Pattaya offers the highest standard of lodging for leisure travellers and business people alike.

 You can pre-book your room at the Sheraton Resort as well as at many of the coastal city’s other best resorts including more budget-friendly hotels via this long-established and discounted rates offering online Pattaya hotel booking service.    

Enjoying a healthy balanced menu at Chiva-Som in Hua Hin

The distance between Hua Hin and Pattaya is about 304 miles.  Many holidaymakers drive from Pattaya to much more laid-back Hua Hin. This royal seaside resort town isn’t too difficult to reach by car and the ride from Pattaya should take about five hours.  

The internationally acclaimed Chiva-Som health resort in Hua Hin is reputed for its spa cuisine created by the inventive and award-winning chef cook Pasarn Cheewhinshiriwhat. Especially today, with the emphasis on living a healthy life, spa gastronomy could become very popular in the future.

This kind of food is called spa cuisine because spas were the original places where it was served. Since then the cuisine’s concept has been developed and the dishes availability spread throughout the country.

Spa cuisine

Pasarn’s dishes represent Asian twists and are based on healthy balanced fresh ingredients. Some of the chef’s most popular dishes include: jasmine tea-smoked salmon, bean-curd salad and green mango, and stir-fried lamb chops with oyster sauce. A balanced menu should contain plenty of fruits, vegetables, minerals, vitamins, good fat, exact proportioned lean proteins and complex carbohydrate. Spa cuisine must never feature preservatives, chemicals and refined processed ingredients.

Pasarn is skilled in preparing “life food” and raw cuisine and worked in many prestigious hotels all over the world including: Switzerland, Monaco, France, Dubai, Hong Kong and Japan as well as serving menus on a Silver Sea Cruise from Bangkok to Hong Kong.

Vegan and raw food is getting more and more popular, especially now that the people’s concerns about global warming are increasing. About a decade ago foods such as foie gras and caviar were the luxury cuisine’s main ingredients. Today the concept of luxury cuisine is focused more on healthy, organic foods. Guide to Thai food

With a few recipes and little knowledge you might even try to prepare some spa cuisine at home.

Mind-boggling underwater experiences off Koh Chang

Scuba diving and snorkelling off Thailand’s second largest island, Koh Chang in the southern province of Trat, located about 205 miles (330km) from Bangkok and within a 60-minute drive from Pattaya, has become a thriving business with many outstanding dive agencies catering to the demands of both beginning and advanced diving enthusiasts.

The DiveKohChang website provides a list, which contains all of Koh Chang’s reputed dive trips organisers. In addition, they usefully compare the rates for you.

 Awesome underwater scenery

The price for a one day lasting diving tour off Chang Island usually ranges from 2,000 baht to 2,700 baht. These trips include two stops at different top-class dive sites.

Complete Koh Chang travel guide

Koh Samet and the oriental pied hornbill

Koh Samet is appreciated by many Bangkokians as the tiny island provides an ideal getaway from the hectic metropolis. Sipping exotic cocktails on a perfect beach is only three hours away from their front doors.

However, Samet offers much more to those visitors willing to learn more about this paradisiacal island’s unique ecology, which many environmentalists try to protect. It isn’t very hard to spot one of the beautiful oriental pied hornbills, but if you not really know where to look, the Koh Samet skies’ king often remains invisible.

Not that long ago these birds including the great hornbills could still be spotted everywhere on the island. Today, only a small number oriental pied hornbill is living on Samet and therefore the Hornbill Conservation Society was recently established. Representatives of this society are happy to take visitors out searching for the handful of remaining birds. And truly, what a magnificent sight these birds are, sitting atop a fig tree or gently gliding through the blue skies searching food for their families.

With a little bit of luck you might even spot one of their unique nests. The female hornbill uses plant material, droppings and mud to construct the nest, which usually is located high up in the tops of the largest trees. The male bird will find the food and feeds mother and her newborns via a small slit until the day the youngster is going to fly.

Recently the country’s most renowned hornbill expert, professor Poonswad and some members of his team visited Koh Samet. They were invited by Samet Resorts, to educate the locals on how to protect these majestic birds. Koh Samet National Park’s luckily still boasts sufficient huge trees for the birds to nest in. In addition, nutritious food (native fruits) for the hornbills could still be found throughout this environment as well.

The migrant construction labourers’ poaching activities on the island are the real problem. When a bird is looking for food nearby these workers and spotted by them, the animal isn’t very difficult to shoot. An anti-poaching campaign has already been launched, distributing stickers and putting up signs across Koh Samet in a serious attempt to stop killing the few remaining hornbills before they’ll entirely disappear.

Concerned islanders and resort owners said that they would be glad to offer the poaching workers a free chicken instead. “Ask is the only thing they have to do. After all, the meat of the hornbill tastes horrible, so why do these workers even want it?”

Shooting these majestic birds for their meat is truly a shame, and this useless killing must be stopped!

Annually Koh Samet receives about 300,000 visiting tourists and there are several other problems on the island, which need to be solved. There are over-filled trash dumps, noise pollution caused by too many hired motorbikes, wastewater over-spills and overpriced taxis. Business operators still need to be convinced to act more responsible. After all, laid-back Koh Samet is also offering the more traditional holiday facilities, and positioned so close to Bangkok, it would be great to keep it that way! 

Koh Samet tourist guide         

Protesting nightspot owners in Pattaya

The owners of bars and pubs in Pattaya are destined to defend themselves against the government’s restricted rules on opening hours. The business owners claim that the government’s crackdown already resulted in major income losses.

By the end of this month more than 130 owners and their staff members will unite and attend several crisis meetings to discuss, protest and create a strategy fighting the newly appointed Interior Minister’s order of closing all of the pubs and bars in Pattaya at 02:00.

Previously night spots throughout the “Capital of Fun” were allowed to run their business until 04:00 or even later. A group of night entertainment venues representatives is planning to establish a meeting with Chalerm Yoobamrung, the Interior Minister.

They would like to discuss the minister’s measures, which according to them severely restricts their businesses and also will has a negative effect on Pattaya’s image among visitors who travel to the seaside resort to mainly enjoy its famed nightlife.

Many tourists are not amused by the new crackdown on the bars’ opening hours…  

The Pattaya City Council fully agreed with the business owners and is backing them up by announcing that the town draws large crowds of foreign visitors from all over the world, which provide a significant amount of Pattaya’s tourist-related income, but the new crackdown by the government is certainly jeopardising this. The nightspot representatives will definitely demand a return to Pattaya’s previous opening hours. 

Complete up-to-date online resource to Pattaya hospitality       

Brief Pattaya tourist guide

Without a doubt one of the top tourist destinations in South East Asia, Pattaya is ideally located within driving distance of Bangkok on the pleasurable Gulf of Thailand. The wide and varied range of attractions on offer in this seaside resort is the reason why huge crowds of holidaymakers, coming from each part of the world, arrive in Pattaya year-round.

Pattaya is mainly famous for its naughty nightlife. However, there’s so much more to see and do in Pattaya! The information below might help you decide whether or not staying for some time in the place during your next holiday in Thailand.

 Pattaya by night

The resort’s most popular beach area is known as Pattaya Beach. The beach is conveniently positioned within a short walking distance of hotels, guesthouses, pubs, bars, shops and eateries. During the high season the beach often becomes overcrowded making it sometimes rather difficult finding a nice place on the sand.

Jomtien Beach is quieter and here it won’t be a problem to find a relaxed spot on the sand. Nearby this beach are also several good accommodation options and fine restaurants. Also within easy reach is a big family amusement park (next to the Pattaya Park Beach Resort Hotel) featuring a monorail, exciting water slides, a rollercoaster, and many kid’s activities. The Jomtien area offers great vacations for the entire family.

Pattaya is also a fantastic golf holiday destination boasting several exceptional courses. Nearby Pattaya attractions such as the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo, Elephant Village, Underwater World, Sanctuary of Truth, Koh Larn Island, and the Million Years Stone Park and Pattaya Crocodile Farm offer exciting daytrips.

Well, hopefully you’ve seen by now that Pattaya isn’t solely a destination for single men looking for adult nightlife entertainment! Pattaya in Thailand has become a travel destination which deserves, by each type of traveller, to think about visiting.
  

Exploring culinary Pattaya

The information below on the best dining & wining establishments in Pattaya might be very useful for true gastronomists. Several times I’ve enjoyed some excellently-prepared Thai and international dishes alike. Visitors in Pattaya who appreciate now and than quality food instead of a daily cheese burger with French fries at McDonalds should definitely not miss these superb restaurants in Pattaya:

The Alibaba Restaurant is a well-established establishment serving mouth-watering Indian, Mughalai and Punjabi cuisine along with a selection of the finest vegetarian dishes. The restaurant’s eye-pleasing architectural style was inspired by the world-renowned 14th century legend: “Alibaba and the 40 thieves”. The Alibaba Restaurant is located opposite the Nova Lodge Hotel on Pattaya Lang Rd and offers the most ideal setting for a romantic dining and wining evening. Alibaba is open daily between 11:00am and midnight. Tel: 038 429262

The Queen Victoria Inn is a groovy English pub where you can meet new mates, hold your private party, play darts and pool, enjoy some tasty food or spend the night in one of their 22 air-conditioned en-suite guestrooms. “Queen Vic” is located in Pattaya City in Soi Yodsak. Tel: 038 425418

A well-known logo in Pattaya

Café New Orleans Restaurant enjoys the reputation having the most delicious steaks and barbecued baby back ribs! This establishment is authentically decorated in a distinctive New Orleans style. Café New Orleans is a popular Creole and Cajun restaurant serving delicious pastas and seafood as well as authentic Jambalaya and tender and juicy imported steaks while they also offer a hotel and home delivery service. It is positioned in South Pattaya between Walking Street and the Royal Garden Plaza along Soi Pattayaland 2. Open daily from 3pm till 12am. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons the restaurant offers “All you can eat” food. Tel: 038 710805

The Jomtien Boathouse is Jomtien’s most reputed wine & grill restaurant. This popular boutique hotel’s atmospheric outdoor restaurant overlooks the beach. Each night at the pub guests may enjoy listening to live music performances. The Boathouse serves superb and reasonably priced food along with an outstanding selection of red and white wines. This hotel, wine & grill is open daily from 7:30am till 2am and located on Jomtien Beach Rd. Tel: 038 756143

Up-to-date internet guide to Pattaya restaurants

The best Thai kickboxing school near Pattaya

Now he’s almost 70 years old but Erawan Sriwaralak (Sityodtong Payakaroon) was just four when he started to get fascinated by the fighting sport of Muay Thai. At first he observed the fighters and enthusiastically studied their skills as Muay Thai then was considered too hazardous for young boys. However, when he reached the age of 14 he eagerly started to practice his beloved sport at the Detrprasit Muay Thai boxing facility.

It didn’t take long for the instructors to discover the teenager’s natural talent. To show the respect he had for the Muay Thai training camp, he decided to nickname himself ‘Erawan Detrprasit’. About one year later he had his first real fight and at the age of 17 Erawan went training at the acclaimed Senanan Muay Thai boxing school and was active for six years in the competition before working as a coach during various Muay Thai championships.

Though there are numerous boxing facilities across Thailand that specialise in teaching all the fighting skills, the distinctive success of the champs coming from the Sityodtong Payakaroon Camp is based on training on the fighting sport’s refined basics.

‘Sityodtong’ is most famed for his complete instruction in all of the basic Thai kickboxing techniques. In addition, his school is particularly reputed said for teaching the decent skills for the use of knees, elbows and kicks. The sport’s age restrictions in the time Yodtong was teenager have since been changed, allowing enthusiastic young talent to start training much earlier.

In fact, a large number of the teenage boxers at the training camp are orphans, and a few even juvenile delinquents. These kids not solely are taught the fighting skills but during their training the camp provides a home to them as well. Yodtong’s most important advice to these young boys is to be a diligent student, become a skilled teacher and avoid getting involved into drug and alcohol abuse.

Located within a short drive from Thailand’s most popular seaside resort, Pattaya the Sityodtong Muay is about 90-minutes by road from Bangkok. The camp provides training for more than 40 years and delivered many Champion fighters such as Samart Payakaroon, Daotong Sityodtong, Yoddamrung, Khaosai Galaxy, Gongtalanee Payakaroon and many others.

Pattaya online travel resource

Active holidays in Pattaya

Besides the world-famous nightlife, beach areas and shopping malls, Pattaya also represents a wide range of exciting sports and other leisure options for tourists, particularly those who planning to stay longer than two weeks in the seaside resort. Some of the interesting activities which will keep holidaymakers certainly busy include: swimming, boating, snorkeling, scuba diving, sailing and parasailing.

Parasailing, an awesome experience!

From the Bali Hi Pier boats pick daredevils up, who want to experience the excitement of parasailing. You’ll be transported to the pontoons, where guidelines to beginners as well as advanced persons will be given. The weather conditions need to be suitable as during windy days, parasailing won’t be an option.

Sailing and boating has become extremely popular among tourists in Pattaya. Today, the place hosts even several international and national regattas. Koh Larn Island is a beloved daytrip sailing destination. Many sailors arrive here in the morning and return in the early evening.

Divers will find a number of specialist agencies providing supervisors and professional instructors. The dive spots around Pattaya’s waters boast a rich marine life along with an abundance of coral. Diving here isn’t expensive and the ocean’s temperature is pleasurable, around 27C. This explains why more and more international divers choose Pattaya as their next dive destination. 

The Western as well as the Thai tourists love to swim. You’ll probably notice that the Thai bathers go into the ocean while still wearing most of their clothes. They’re still shy about showing too much of their bodies and they don’t really mind as their clothes will be dry again within a short time.

The Kart Speedway in Pattaya features one 800m long track. Go-karters can make a choice out of a selection containing several different kart types. The karts are well-maintained and therefore maintain in a good condition.

Pattaya is also a great golf holiday destination. Each day of the week it is possible to play a round of golf at a different course! Some of the resort’s world-class courses are designed by Trent Jones, Dye, Wolderidge, Nicklaus, Thompson and Faldo. Courses are usually facilitated with recreational features such as a massage services, spas and fitness centres.

Other things to do in Pattaya include; strolling along the renowned Walking Street, which is crammed with girlie and go go bars, beer pubs, restaurants, cabaret and music venues. Daytrips to the Tiger Zoo are popular among families while elephant camps, alligator farms, orchid gardens, and sapphire mines are all located within the surrounded area as well.

Complete info on activities in Pattaya