Can't wait for low season
It was one of those crappy mildly frustrating Saturday nights in Pattaya last night. I parked my bike near Soi 5 in Jomtien and took a fully packed baht bus (all the baht buses now are packed to the gun whales) from there to Soi Diana on 2nd Rd in Pattaya; then walked east to Soi Buakhao and further east to a restaurant on Soi Len Kee I like for dinner. Afterward I walked over to Soi LK Metro and visited The Office a-go-go where there were only 1 or 2 cuties out of about 30 girls, most of whom are old and chunky. As usual I was approached by one of these and waved her off. That's what to expect during the early evenings in that area.
After 1 beer I walked back to 2nd Rd and through Mike's department store to Beach Road intending to catch a baht bus from there to Walking Street. As luck would have it though, the entire length of Beach Road had been closed off for the whole weekend to all traffic and turned into Disney World with stalls from end to end selling street food, trinkets and other crap to families of tourists there for a fireworks festival or something. There was no room anywhere for hookers and I didn't see a single one on my long walk to the entrance of WS. Guess they all had to take the weekend off.
Anyone who had taken a baht bus north bound to a destination on 2nd Rd last night would have had to walk a long way if they wanted to go back south to WS as there was no transportation on Beach Road and all the side Soi's from WS to as far north as the Dolphin Circle were closed. It was a nightmare. It's happening in Pattaya now with ever greater frequency. The zombie tourist families are taking over.
It was hot last night and by the time I got to WS and Happy a-go-go after dodging the huge crowds of tourists I was sweating like a pig. As I sat cooling off with a drink while watching the nice line up of girls, suddenly at least 50 or more Chinese tourists started stampeding two and three abreast through the front door like a giant herd of wildebeests. There were whole families of them; all ages; mom's, pop's, white haired grandpa's and grandma's, cousins, uncles and aunts. It took a seeming eternity for the whole group of them just to enter the bar.
When finally seated all together of course, every last one of them ordered a draft beer; and 15 minutes later the entire migrating herd left the bar en mass for greener pastures the same way they entered each leaving their nearly full glass of beer behind. It was like a bad dream – a Beijing family reunion go-go bar crawl. Now the tourist families are taking over the bars. Soon there will be no room for punters, the girls will wear full body leotards, and the shows will be rated PG. All the raunch will be gone and families will rule.
Now I can't wait for low season.