A Short and Dubious History of Pattaya

What’s in a name? Guest blogger John Borthwick takes a light-hearted look at Pattaya’s possible origins.

On 29th June 1959, or 29 April 1961, four — or five — US Army trucks rolled into a snoozy fishing village on the Gulf of Thailand, east of Bangkok. The village was Pad Tha Ya, aka Pattaya.

The trucks disgorged a cargo of GI's on leave from fighting in Vietnam. Or perhaps 100 marines from an upcountry base at Nakhon Ratchasima. Or American sailors from nearby Sattahip naval port. Or possibly US fliers from the also nearby U-Tapao airfield. Choose the internet-published creation myth that suits you. Like most assertions made about, or in, Pattaya, the truth is mutable.

On arrival in Pattaya for R&R – rest and recreation – the grunts, Green Berets, swabbies or top guns, rented houses along the palmy southern end of Pattaya Beach. Having stayed for a week or so they returned to kill or be killed in ‘Nam. Soon they were replaced by more of their kind arriving in Pattaya. R&R became synonymous with I&I – intercourse and intoxication — and Pattaya’s locals never again had to worry much about the price of fish.

Alternatively, Pattaya’s name might derive from the arrival there of Phraya Tak (later King Taksin) in 1767. The place became known as Thap Phraya, meaning the Army of the Phraya. This morphed to Phatthaya, or Pad Tha Ya. Which can also mean (or so we are told) “the wind blowing from the southwest to the northeast at the beginning of the rainy season.”

Any way the wind blows (which doesn’t really matter, as Freddy Mercury noted), Pattaya today hosts over six million visitors a year. Regardless of its origins, Pattaya — aka Sodom-by-Sea or the Gomorrah-of-Tomorrah — now spells “Nightlife”. In fact the town doesn’t really get going until early evening when hundreds of beer bars thronged by chirpy hostesses start to pump up the volume. For a walk on the mildly wild side, stroll down the famous, neon-blazing Walking Street, the heart and groin of Pattaya after dark. Many visitors just pull up a pew and a beer at one of the street-front bars, there to contemplate the nocturnal human zoo in all its beauty and bawdiness.

As Thailand’s largest resort town, Pattaya reportedly produces annual tourist revenues of around US$1.5 billion and has 35,000 (and growing) hotel rooms. Time magazine described it as “arguably the birthplace of mass tourism in modern Asia and still its undisputed capital.” Not a bad growth spurt for a little-known village that welcomed its first foreign visitors just over 51 years ago. Or was that 53?

(pics John Borthwick, 2012)

Sleepy Koh Phayam

Guest blogger John Borthwick shares another of Thailand's hidden island treasures...

The little Thai island of Koh Phayam floats just south of Burma, seemingly in the waters of amnesia.

A dot in the Andaman Sea 30 km from Ranong, Koh Phayam (pronounced “pie-am”) has no cars or roads, few bars, no condo towers or squealing paragliders. “We have nothing like that yet,” a Thai man tells me. “And I hope we don’t get.”

Phayam’s accommodation consists mostly of bungalow resorts. I’ve booked at Bamboo Bungalows on Aow Yai Beach, that’s run by a mellow Israeli, Yuli and his Thai wife, Nut. Yuli paints a picture of when he arrived here 15 years ago: “Foreigners were as rare as hornbills. There were only five resorts then – now there are 35.”

I grab a kayak and paddle out into the lazy blue swell. A small wave breaks there all day long — hardly classic surf, but still it’s a wave. On Phayam you take naps, long walks, longer reads and perhaps a trip to “town” for cinnamon buns or a few beers.



The island’s two main west coast beaches — Aow Yai and Aow Khao Kwai — are backed by low, forested hills, while the east coast is mostly mangrove shore. I hire a motorbike and explore Phayam’s two “roads” — just 2.5 km of narrow concrete pathways — aiming for the isolated beach of Aow Kwang Peeb. A precipitous track drops me down to its perfect emerald bay with a fingernail of sandy shoreline. I dive right in.



Among the more upmarket accommodation is Payam Cottage Resort. At the other end of the scale are low-rent cabanas where the pathway borders are formed, tellingly, by empty beer bottles.

Phayam’s appeal is still defined by what it lacks: discos, ATMs, beer bars and taxi mafia. However ... back at Bamboo Bungalows I do lap up the cold beer and Nut’s delicious tiger prawns. Yuli jokes, “Guests complained when there was no internet, so I got it. Soon they complained it was too slow, so I installed free wireless. What’s next?”

“The younger backpackers go to the ‘bar islands’,” he says, referring to already demised “paradises” like Phi Phi and Koh Tao, places now awash with tattoo shops and pizza parlours. Phayam is frequently described as “Like Koh Samui or Phuket 30 years ago” — a cliché that’s loaded with troubling prophecy.



Come late afternoon, Koh Phayam’s cicadas crank up the volume and the dusk lightshow begins. Above the ghost islands off Burma thunder clouds are stacked thousands of metres high, grey phantoms of vapour twitching with lightning. The sky slowly burns down from purple haze to darkness while along the beach a party bonfire flares up and a conga drummer kicks in.



(pics: John Borthwick)

What Goes Up...

It’s that time of the year again, when the skies above Thailand twinkle with floating lanterns, drifting on the thermals along with a million hopes and dreams...

Lighting hot air lanterns is a traditional part of the Loy Krathong celebrations all over Thailand (which this year falls on November 28). In the northern Lanna city of Chiang Mai, this beautiful ritual is taken one step further with its own festival, Yi Peng (held on the full moon of the second month of the Lanna calendar, which this year is celebrated November 25 to 29). During this festival, hanging lanterns adorn every house and public spaces in Chiang Mai, while thousands of khom loys (as the lanterns are called) are released into the air en masse, creating a Milky Way of floating lights.

It’s truly a breathtaking sight, and a thought-provoking, spiritual experience. Releasing of the lanterns is said to represent worries and fears floating away on the breeze, and the ritual of lighting the inner fuel cells, waiting for the balloon to fill, feeling that tug as it morphs into life, then gently releasing and watching it drift away is a wonderful, euphoric moment.

But what goes up must come down - and there is increasing concern that the khom loys create an environmental hazard as the lanterns disintegrate and the metal rim falls back to earth (or even worse, into the sea.) And of course, there is also the ever-present danger of fire, with many a lantern misfiring and plummeting to the ground via a tree or wooden house.

The key to a guilt-free Yi Peng festival is to maybe seek out environmentally-friendly versions of the lanterns, made with a bamboo rim; alternatively, perhaps share your khom loy with a friend, thereby minimising the waste.

The same applies for anyone releasing a krathong, the floating offerings released into rivers and waterways. Avoid styrofoam floats at all cost; all-natural materials are not only biodegradable, but far more beautiful anyway.

Bangkok Literary Festival Opens

Damn! I’m a little late for this event - the very first Bangkok Literary Festival. But definitely something I’ll put in the diary for next year - both as a writer and a fan of good literature.

The inaugural event has just begun in the City of Angels, bringing together more than 100 writers, translators and publishers from around Asia and the Pacific in conjunction with one of Asia’s longest-running and most prestigious literary events, the South East Asian Writers’ Award.

The four-day think-tank for writing professionals - with the theme ‘Reaching the World’ - kicked off today with a two day summit exploring the value of literary prizes and the need for quality translators to take Asian manuscripts to the world. The event will also feature author showcase readings by Thai writers, creative writing workshops by international authors, and the gala ceremony for the SEA Writers Award.

Special guests include Australian writer Matthew Condon, author of A Night at the Pink Poodle and The Trout Opera, and Hong Kong author and satirist Nuri Vittachi, who is a great champion of literary prizes, having been the driving force behind the (recently axed) Man Asian Literary Prize. Mr Vittachi will host an ‘open mic’ event called The Storytellers’ Soiree at Q Bar, 34 Sukumvit Soi 11, from 6pm on Wednesday, where writers can read their work and share it with the public.

The literary festival takes places as Bangkok gears up for a year in the literary spotlight, having been designated World Book Capital in 2013 by UNESCO - a title given to a city in recognition of its contribution to the book industry. The committee said it chose Bangkok "for its willingness to bring together all the various stakeholders in the book supply chain and beyond, actors involved in the publication chain for a range of projects proposed, for its community-focused and the high level of its commitment through the proposed activities."

Another notch in Bangkok’s cultural crown, and another step towards it becoming a major player in the world literary scene.

For more information and a list of events at the literary festival, visit http://apwriters.org/home/asia-pacific-writers-supports-s-e-a-write-festival/

A Crappy Cup of Coffee

One of the great things about living in Sydney is its coffee - it really is the best in the world (praise be to Buzzzbar, Newtown, for my morning fix). Or is it? It’s certainly not the most expensive - that honour goes to ... drum roll ... Thailand, where my friends from the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation have produced a brew worth its weight in gold.

Trouble is, it’s shit. Quite literally. Or at least, derived from shit. Pardon my French.

Called Black Ivory coffee, this exclusive drop - offered to guests at Anantara resorts in Thailand and the Maldives - is made from Thai Arabica coffee beans digested by elephants, dispersed in their dung, then recollected and sun-dried before being roasted and brewed using an antique ‘balancing syphon’ method developed in Austria in 1840.

Two cups of elephant poo coffee cost US$50; a kilo of digested beans sells for $1100. Only 50 kilograms of the beans are currently available for sale, while the eles work on creating more.

According to elephant guru John Roberts, enzymes in an elephant’s stomach break down coffee protein, subsequently reducing bitterness. He describes it in his blog (www.elephant-tails.anantara.com) as “very light coffee whose aroma puts you in mind of returning to a proper jungle after a long absence... the sense of steam and vegetation that a well inhabited jungle just has.” Think that means it’s hot, pungent and steamy ... as all good coffee should be.

Of course, elephants aren’t the first animals put to work in the creation of coffee. In Indonesia, beans digested by civet cats were once the most expensive in the world, at $340 for a pound. Mind you, I’d rather drink beans that came through a vegetarian mammal’s tract rather than a stinky carnivore that’s been eating rat guts...

And of course, the elephants get something back - a percentage of all coffee sales goes back to GTAEF, which cares for 30 rescued street elephants, along with their mahouts and families. Which doesn’t leave a bitter taste at all.

www.anantara.com

contemplating a good cup of coffee on an Anantara elephant

Whitewater Rafting in Pai

Out on the water, deep in the jungle ... but just don't expect peace and quiet when you're rafting in Pai, writes guest blogger John Borthwick!

First we hear them, then we see them. As our raft bounces down the stairs of a river rapid in northern Thailand, the following raft starts shrieking with terrified delight. And they’re still on flat water. Noi, Cherry and their Bangkok office pals are at large, hooting all the way from Pai to Mae Hong Son.

Our put-in point on the Nam Khong River is well past Pai, west of Chiang Mai. Ahead of is a day and a half, 45-kilometre journey. With six passengers per raft and a Thai boatman, we drift down a water alley colonnaded by giant bamboo, mango and teak. Silence is a concept admired in the abstract by Buddhist Thais, but in practice it is much less sanuk – fun – than making noise, lots of it. So we stroke and holler through both rapids and calms.

The water is clear and warm. Which is good because water fights with other rafts are always part of rafting. We drip dry, only to be drenched again in the rapids. The thrill is amplified for some of the Thais by knowing that they can’t swim. There are 15 rapids on our run but as this is January and the rapids are moderate. In September they were raging.

Come late afternoon we stop at a jungle camp to pass the night. We’re deep in the Lum Nam Pai National Park but on the bank there’s a sheltered sleeping platform with bedding and mosquito nets. Stoves are lit, pots simmer and soon there’s a feast. After dinner, with a million stars snagged in the trees and frogs burping in the blackness, we share that true wilderness pleasure — sitting around a campfire, yarning with friends.

Next morning we’re back into the boats, stroking through the river mists as the jungle’s stained-glass ceiling closes over us. “There’s a hot spring — pull the rafts in,” says our guide, Pu. We hop ashore and dig troughs in the sand, trapping the hot water. Soon we are wallowing in warm, muddy baths, happy as pigs-in, with me slowly turning into tom yam farang soup.

We paddle on, reaching the confluence of the Nam Khong and Nam Pai. From here, the rapids double to around one-and-a half metres. So to does the squealing from the Bangkok Ladies Boat. We dig deep now with our paddles, slamming and slewing and broadsiding. And then, mid-afternoon, we round a bend to see a building. No! Hong Son already! There are sobs of mock despair, and not just from Noi, Cherry and their crew.

Chonburi Buffalo Festival

Guest blogger John Borthwick visits one of Thailand's craziest and most colourful festivals, the Chonburi Buffalo Festival.

They’re getting set to race again at the Chonburi Buffalo Festival. That humble farm beast of burden, the water buffalo, or kwai, is about to have its brief, annual day in the Thai spotlight. The buffalo is the star of a unique event that’s held in mid-late October each year. Here you’ll see buffalo being preened and polished, watered, fed, decorated and admired like at no other time or place. That done, the buffaloes are then raced furiously against each other, being ridden like the bejeezus by skinny jockeys who somehow manages to stay perched on the thundering beasts as they tear down a 150-metre course. 

Just getting the four beasts competing in a race to point in the right direction at the starting line is a wrangling event, if not slapstick comedy, in itself. Then they’re off! Clouds of dust rise as the buffaloes stampede down the course at breakneck speed. The jockeys, riding bareback, are bounced mercilessly during the sprint, and sometimes bounced right off. The crowd goes crazy. The winning buff gets a bucket of water, but so do the losers. 

This year will be the Chonburi festival’s 141st year. It is a quintessentially Thai celebration rather than an event that’s tailored to the international tourist market. Foreigners of course are warmly welcome at this fair that also features Thai music, food stalls, handicrafts and other, non-bovine contests like hoop takraw, greased pole climbing and kite-making.

This being Thailand, naturally there are beauty contests — for both buffalo and farm girls — not to mention lots of betting. Prizes are awarded for the healthiest buffalo, the most splendidly decorated buffalo and also the most humorously decorated one. 

As well as racing, there is a parade of 13 carts that portrays the Vessantara Jataka, the story of one of Buddha's past lives. According to Buddhist tradition, the celebration is held at the time of the full moon in the 11th lunar month. This year it runs from October 16 to November 1, with the highlight being October 29 — the day when more than 140 buffalo will race madly down that track, jockeys bouncing, dust churning and thousands of Thais cheering them on.