More to see.....Pattaya

Thailand is one of the most visited countries in South East Asia region because of its culture and the beauty of the nature. I have been to Thailand before with my twin brother, we visited Krabi, a nice, small city in southern Thailand.

I felt that I have not seen much on my last visit so I decided to come back to Thailand and go to the other part of the country. Pattaya is the destination I chose because it is quite famous tourism destination and second, it was a special request from my wife to choose a city near the beach for our honeymoon. So, on July 2012 i came back to Thailand.

We got up early in the morning and took the first flight from our hometown Yogyakarta ti Singapore. Then, after had some breakfast we took the Tiger Airways flight from Singapore to Bangkok. We took the bus right from the airport to Pattaya because we thought that it was the easiest and cheapest way to go based on many travelling websites we’ve visited. Just go down to the first lowest floor of the airport and you can find many bus or other types of transportation ticket sellers to many destinations near Bangkok.

It took about 3 hours, i forgot the exact number, in a bus from Suvharnabhumi Airport to Pattaya and the view quite boring, because the bus passed the toll road plus, when we arrived there it was already dark and we fell asleep. My wife and I, both don’t like to make too detailed plan, so we just only knew that we should take the bus from the airport to Pattaya and we did not do research of how we can reach the hotel after the bus come to Pattaya.

The suddenly the bus made a stop, we thought that we have reached our destination and all passenger should get off the bus, but we were wrong. We did not know that the bus had 3 stopping point and at that time we did not know where to stop and started to freak out. But, it did not take too long because i remembered that our hotel is located in Southern Pattaya near the Jomtien Beach and Bangkok is practically in the north of Pattaya, so we need to stop at the last stopping point and we were right.

We didnt know where the hotel was, plus we also didnt ask he hotel to at least give us direction, and we ended up with another confusion. Because it was already late at night, then we asked a song taew driver to take us to our hotel with a quite expensive fare but for apparently not too far distance. It was only about 1 km when the song taew stopped and, there we were, in front of the hotel we booked earlier.

The hotel name was Inn Place, and it was a standard hotel with nice room and it was not too far from the beach. I think we chose the deluxe room, se we got more spacious room and bathroom than the regular room but no breakfast. We took a shower, ate any food left in our bag as dinner because we were too tired and went to sleep.

We made another mistake on our second day. We though that the pattaya city is not too far and we decided to go there on foot. As the result, we are soaking wet because it was raining and we didi not find anything to see or visit, so on our way back to hotel at about 12.30 pm we went to supermarket and buy some bread and other food and drinks.

After some short break, we hit the road again and now we decided to take the song taew or baht bus to the Pattaya City. We still didn’t have any clue where we were going to visit in the city until we saw a mall with Ripley’s Museum and we made our stop there. We visited the museum, went to the beach located at the back of the mall and went back to the hotel. Before we reached the hotel, we stopped at local street food vendor near the hotel and had dinner.

we learned how to choose which song taew that will bring us to our destination and it was so easy actually, You can just take any song taew that passes in front of you, then when you are arrive in a road intersection, wait. If it goes to the direction where you want to go, then stay on it, otherwise, get off the song taew and take another song taew.

The third day we planned to visit Sri Racha tiger zoo, which from the map we had we saw that it was not too far from Pattaya and it was located near the main street, so we thought that it would be so easy, but again, we were wrong. After obtaining a new skill in taking the song taew, we felt quite confident to go further with song taew. Right after buying breakfast from 7-11 near the hotel we set off and took our first song taew. We kept changing song taew to get to Sri Racha tiger zoo until the song taew took the direction go back to the city and we got off.

Nearby there was a quite big temple and we could not find the way in, so we just took some photos from the outside and we walked for a bit to find a place to take our next song  taew and we found the way in to the temple. We entered it and of course took some pictures before i realized there were so many people coming by bus. We thought it was just the tourists who wanted to visit the temple, but then we knew that they were coming to the temple for praying, there were no tourists except my wife and I. We just went out of the temple complex and took some pictures again. The name of the temple was Sawangfapruettaram.

Then we took our next song taew for about more than hour in a highway and seemed that the song taew was going to another city. We believed that the tiger zoo was at the other side of the road and i did not know how we can get cross the highway. Before i could figure out how can we cross the highway, my wife ask a local student in the song taew about Sri Racha and she did not give any reply except smiling and nodding. Great isn’t it?

The song taew reached its final stop in some kind of a market complex and still we did not any sign of the tiger zoo. Then the school girl suddenly made a gesture to follow her, well, we did not have any choice except to follow her to the other song taew. We sat in the front, besides the driver, while the student sat in the back and we told him that we want to go to sri racha, the driver was nodding his head and say nothing. The song taew started moving and we tried to enjoy the trip.

The girl got off the song taew and left us with the driver and the other passenger, but before she left, she pointed her hand and told us to follow the direction of the song taew. Then we continued our trip until we saw a big sign of Sri Racha tiger zoo. The driver did not stop at the side of the road, but he drove us through the parking lot and stopped near the ticket booth. Right after gave extra payment to the driver, we bought the ticket.

The zoo was not to clean actually, and poor the animals there, some of them need to do something they are not suppose to do like fish that drinks milk from baby pacifier and pig racing. But there were many small shows like the tiger, elephant and crocodile shows. Long story short, after watched those shows and of course taking some pictures, we went to the hotel again by song taew. Oh, i almost forget, the time we took from Pattaya to the tiger zoo was almost 3 hours by song taew.

The next day, right after grabbed some breakfast at the nearby 7-11 we went to the Jomtien Beach for a while and took some pictures. We were not intended to get wet, so we just went there for a while, feel the sand in our hands and went to Pattaya Hill. Pattaya Hill is Pattaya’s highest view point from which you can see the Pattaya city plus its beach and also the Jomtien Beach. The view was quite stunning and you should go there when you visit Pattaya. On the top of the hill, there was a radio station and the statue of HRH Prince of Jumborn the father of Royal Thai Navy. We took some pictures here and went back to the hotel. Nothing Special happened on that day, we just got back to the Pattaya city to buy some souvenirs and went back to hotel.

The next morning, we did our ritual of having breakfast with some –microwave cooked rice - from 7-11 and went to the hill which was near the Pattaya Hill. The difference was, on the top of this hill was a temple which has so many Buddha statues. It was quite interesting actually, because we can see many stories related tu Buddha, including the story of Magic Monkey and his friends, along with a monk who travel to the west in order to find Holy Book. Plus we can also see a quite nice view from the top of the hill.

The next destination on that day was the Sanctuary of Truth. To get to that place again we took the song taew and after a few times of map misreading, walking for more than 30 minutes and took the wrong turn, we found the sign of this place but still had to walk for more. Luckily they had some kind of shuttle truck which would take us to the sanctuary for free.

It was a massive, full of sculptures, woodcarving building built near the ocean.  I must say, it had a unique shape if you see it from a distance. It was not an old building, it was built in 1981 and the building process is still ongoing up to now. The main feature of this building is to reflect the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism by using contemporary arts. Not just Buddhism and Hinduism but also reflect the history of the nearby countries and also some lessons about life.By taking the same shuttle truck, we asked to be dropped at the nearest song taew stop, to catch our song taew back to hotel, but this time we had to pay.

We had booked a tour that will take us to the Nong Nooch Tropical Garden, but we were late and the bus, the guide and some of the guests were waiting for us of course with their angry faces. Then the bus started moving and apparently there were still more guests to pick.

Long story short, after an hour we arrived in the Nong Nooch Tropical Garden and we were welcomed by hundreds of plants and trees from so many different species. We took some pictures as always and the guide asked our group to move to the next spot. It was a huge garden with multi shaped plants plus there many sculptures of animals. The main show was the brief introduction of Thailand’s culture show which showed many dances, traditional games, including the Thai Boxing and singing and, again, the elephant show.  

Right after that, we went back straight to the hotel and went packing, because it was our last day in Pattaya and in the next morning, we need to catch the first bus to Bangkok, spent a half day there and flew back to Indonesia at the same day.

In Bangkok, there was not much to see because of the time we had. We only visited the Grand palace, took some pictures there and we tried the Chao Praya Express boat. Quite scary for the first time but it was fun.

Definitely will go to Bangkok and explore some more.......