How Pattaya Adapts to Changes by Pattaya Kids

If there is one thing that Pattaya is very good at it adapting and reinventing itself. It is always something that makes me smile when I hear the old timers saying it is “a lot quieter now than it was 20 years ago” which is quite frankly rubbish. You don’t have to me a genius to work out that Pattaya clearly has a lot more people here now than 20 years ago when you look at how the city has grown. What they actually mean is “the cheap shack where I used to drink in isn’t as busy as it was 20 years ago” – probably not because there are now bars that are infinitely better!

From my experience you tend to find that the people who complain are the ones who have maybe been here too long or came when the Thai Baht was significant weaker than it is today. This usually means that they have to reduce their beer intake to 10 bottles a day rather than the previous 12 and reducing his number of bar fines as he now has the addition cost of Viagra to take into account. The hardship that these guys are now facing makes you realize how much they must be suffering!

It is quite funny listening to these people’s prediction for the future of Pattaya. “It’ll be a ghost town in 2 years” saying this 3 years ago, “they are going to close all the bars and ban gogo bars” – hard to believe when new ones are opening all the time. Let’s face it Pattaya is changing but will bars close and gogo bars get banned? Of course not, they are a key part of the economy for a city like Pattaya. OK they may get moved to certain areas and I personally don’t have a problem with this. The city needs to evolve, there are more families here plus there are lots of people here who don’t come for that side of things.

In the future I can see Pattaya carrying on pretty much as it always has done –by adapting and reinventing. The Brits are starting to increase in numbers again, the Chinese are coming in droves and I think it will only be a matter of time before the Russians are flocking back again. The future for Pattaya is still very bright and those that think otherwise are probably just being very negative or maybe shouldn’t be here first place.