A trip to Pattaya, Thailand

They say workplace is your second home and whoever has said that, let me tell you – it’s damn true, it’s like home away from your home! Knowingly or unknowingly, we spend more time at workplace as compared to our home and if we have a good family there, it’s like cherry on the cake, isn’t it?

This post is about my recent trip to Pattaya organized by my current employer @IsobarIndia and this wasn’t the first one. Last year, it was Bangkok and prior to that, it was Dubai. You can call it a good retention strategy or whatever but I really like working here. Yes, it’s just my second agency to work with and I’ve already spent more than 3 years here. Ahh…honestly, I didn’t think that I would be spending this much time at my second agency considering the frequent job hopping which is normal in the early part of one’s career in my industry. But, when you get so many good people whom you can learn, unlearn, bond so much…you can’t leave until the next opportunity is too good! 😛

Coming straight to the post –  it was a 3-day trip starting from Delhi to Bangkok and then to Pattaya for the conference as well as the leisure. We took the Air India flight in the afternoon and reached Bangkok by 7:30 pm. Then we went to Pattaya by bus which took around 2 hours. The stay was arranged at one of the luxury 5-star hotels Dusit Thani Pattaya. Fortunately, I got a sea-side room and let me tell you – the view was simply amazing. Do take at some of the pics that I clicked from the room:

We checked-in around 11 pm at the hotel, so there weren’t much places to go except one at this point of time. Yes, you guessed it right, we straight-away hit Walking Street. If you don’t know anything about it, check here and here for more details. 😛 I won’t go into much details what we did here, but anyone visiting this part of the world doesn’t miss going here once.

Pattaya is also famous for its spa and massage. Just outside Dusit Thani, there were two spa/massage centres i.e. Savanna (just opposite the road) and Let’s relax (on the left side). Both are good for all the services they provide. And here are their rate cards:

 

 

 

 

From the looks of it, I think – let’s relax is comparatively better than Savanna.

I won’t go into much details of what else can you do in Pattaya, because there are tons of websites which can give you that kind of information. Some of the other things that I liked about this place were:

a) Songthaew buses: You can even call them autos with cheap fares and high speeds. Don’t forget to take a ride of one of these at-least once as it’s a really good experience. But do check the internet or even from your tour guide on tips for dealing with Pattaya’s Songthaew buses as it can turn out to be a bad experience.

 

 

b) Tesco Lotus Mall: It is at a walking distance from the Dusit Thani hotel, just 10 minutes walk from there and is known for its low prices. Here’s how I came to know about it – It was around 7:30 pm and we were thinking of going to a good market where we can do all the shopping and even all the good bargaining 😛 Fortunately, we met our tour guide just at the exit gate of the hotel and he advised us to go to the lotus mall which not only was a big hypermarket but it was very nearby. One of the things I bought from there was a car freshener for around 50 Bahts, not sure the size of the same but the minimum one you have to buy here in India is more than INR 200, so it was a good deal and I latched onto it 😛

c) FamilyMart and 7Eleven: These are 24 hours open shops in Pattaya that are indeed the lifeline of the city. They have everything starting from cookies, chocolates, cold drinks to even the hard drinks. We bought a pack of beer and chips from one of these. Just remember you can buy alcohol only between 11AM to 2PM and 5PM until midnight. This is because of the reason that it should not be available to school kids when they just leave school.

d) Street-food: Apart from this, if you’re a lover of thai food or seafood and don’t mind indulging yourself in tasting the so-called unhygienic street food, do try it. Managed to find a relevant blogpost here that has more details about the same.

I would leave you with some of the nice pics that I clicked on this memorable trip. If you’ve been to Pattaya or thinking to go there and want to ask something, do drop-in a line in the comments section below and I would be happy to discuss. Till then, Happy Travelling!

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Top Image Courtesy: gemtravels.com