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An occasional series looking in detail at the main roads in Pattaya and Jomtien.
I readily confess that my inspiration for this series of articles has been the column in Pattaya Today by its contributor Neil Hutchison entitled ‘Up your Soi’, so much so that I toyed with the idea of heading this ‘Down your Sai’ (Soi being a side street and Sai a main road), but decided that would be too plagiaristic.
Whereas Neil’s excellent column is aimed at the more experienced ‘Pattayer’, a serious imbiber looking for new establishments to visit in the myriad of side streets, I shall, given the more International flavour of the average Pattaya Otter Newsletter reader (I hope) instead concentrate on what can be of interest to the new or newer visitor whilst passing thorough its major thoroughfares, a view that can really only be taken as a pedestrian or as a vehicle passenger, drivers having to keep their eyes studiously on the traffic around them.
Firstly let’s get our geography. As can been seen from the series of maps in the website section ‘All about Pattaya’ there are 3 main roads all running North to South in Pattaya and according to the maps these run mainly in straight lines parallel to each other. In practice they are not quite that straight but for all practical purposes this image will do.
In order then from West to East they are ‘Beach Road’, ‘Second Road’, and surprise, surprise ‘Third Road’.
Crossing these at right angles and therefore running West to East are again 3 main roads roughly evenly spread apart.
These in order from North to South are named ‘Pattaya North Road’, ‘Pattaya Central Road’ and ‘Pattaya South Road’
We shall deal with what comes before Pattaya North (Naklua) and what comes after Pattaya South (Jomtien) in later episodes – if we ever get that far.
So where better to start our series of explorations than ‘Beach Road’ and seeing as how the traffic flow on this is one way (for most), North to South, we too will travel in that direction (saves bumping into large buses).
But just to confuse things we will commence our tour not strictly on Beach Road itself but at the ‘Dolphin Roundabout’ which most people take to be the start of beach road even though it is actually at the top of the short stretch of Pattaya North Road joining Beach Road to Second Road and as such forms the junction of 4 major roads, one coming from Second Road (one way) one going down to Beach Road (one way), one heading out to Naklua (two way) and one heading up Pattaya North Road to the Sukumvit Highway (two way).
 In addition there is a small minor road between roads 1 and 2 above leading into the Dusit Resort Hotel complex.
Mercifully this is the only roundabout in the whole of Pattaya, as at best it is traffic mayhem and at worst total gridlock. The rule of the road at such junctions in most countries is ‘give priority to those on the roundabout’, in Pattaya the motto of the SAS is more appropriate – ‘Who dares wins’.
The current structure of the roundabout is a carving of dolphins swimming round a pool in the middle of which is a small fountain. It has had several previous images in its short history, each lasting until demolished by an errant vehicle, including a series of diamond encrusted rotary wheels (donated by the Rotary Club) – these for obvious reasons remained intact for a very short time.
Heading down from here towards the bea ch we pass on the left (sandwiched between the line of parked Baht buses and an even longer line of parked tourist coaches) the entrance to the Amari Orchid Resort, formerly just the Orchid Hotel, one of Pattaya’s major tourist hotels (the aforementioned Dusit Resort grounds bound the right hand side of this short stretch of road).
Just after this we pass under an arch straddling the road with the name ‘Pattaya Beach’ embossed across it in Thai and English. The supports for this arch are in the form of lighthouses, all very pretty.
Rounding the corner onto the Beach Road itself (take care here as the road lane markings lead two lanes into each other, and it is also a sharp bend as the recent motorcyclist who embedded himself into a tree on the corner can testify, or could if he were still alive), we find running the entire length of the actual beach side of the road a wide promenade tastefully decorated with trees, shrubs and flowers with winding paths both along and leading to the sand (am I doing well he re Mr. Tourist Information Officer?). Seriously this is actually one of the pleasanter aspects of the Pattaya view and in daytime or early evening is a very pleasant place to stroll or take ones leisure – later at night it can be less hospitable and is in places home to a number of ‘katoeys’ or ‘lady boys’ known to pester tourists or even assault and rob them, but by day this is not a problem.
There are in theory three lanes of traffic running one way the length of beach road. In practice this becomes two, one or sometimes none due to parked vehicles.
 The lane furthest from the beach is a permanent car park for its full length, and I would not recommend trying to find a vacant spot much after 10 AM. Further down the parked vehicles are in fact often jeeps or motor bikes for hire, but at this top end they are mostly cars, bikes and delivery vehicles.
The second (middle lane) is the prerogative of the many tour buses that travel round Pattaya. These in this part of the town, park in this middle lane (because the inner lane is full) to disgorge their passengers, mostly Asian tourists from varying destinations, for a visit to the beach or a boat trip out in the bay, and to collect them afterwards.
These passengers in order to reach the safety of the aforesaid promenade therefore have to cross the remaining outer lane of Beach Road. This is usually accomplished by one of their guides holding up the traffic whilst his flock scramble across. The process is later repeated for the return trip.
Also often parked in the middle lane are delivery vehicles, cars dropping off passengers and Baht buses picking up or dropping off customers.
The lane nearest the beach is therefore often the only one with traffic that is actually moving, but it too is subject to blockages. These range from dustcarts collecting rubbish, pickup trucks delivering barrels of fuel for motor boats, and on public holidays picnickers who have decided this is a very convenient place to leave their vehicle (saves them crossing the road).
There are actually some pedestrian crossings painted across Beach Road in various places but these are purely decorative, no one neither pedestrian nor driver expects any vehicle to stop or even slow down just because someone is standing on one of them.
However due to the fact that there is usually only one moving lane of traffic and often that is moving quite slowly, crossing Beach Road is usually not too difficult for the reasonably agile and aware – certainly not the ‘take your life in your hands’ usually experienced by anyone trying to cross Second Road.
So with the beach side and the road covered, that just leaves us to see what is to be found on the other side of this main thoroughfare and this we shall now proceed to do.
The Amari Orchid Resort grounds continue round the corner, passing their renowned ‘L a Gritta’ restaurant and onto ‘Henry J. Beans’ aka ‘Hanks’. This is also part of the Amari complex but is a stand alone restaurant cum bar whose interior is decorated to resemble a 1920’s American saloon with its walls plastered with various American billboards from the pre-war period.
This is in fact the meeting place on Sunday mornings for The Pattaya City Expats Club, and is also famous for the sign it once displayed on its huge neon billboard outside stating ‘Ladies Night – Buy One, Get one Free’.
 This section of the beach road is in fact mainly hotels and next we come to the Regent Marina Hotel which has its own side street usually referred to as ‘Soi Regent Marina’ or sometimes ‘Soi Zero’ because it doesn’t have a number. You can actually cut through here to Second Road (security guards permitting) a convenient way out if the beach road is jammed.
Next landmark is the Green Tree Restaurant where the ‘Pattaya Expats Club’ (a different club – confused?, so are many) meets on Saturday M ornings.
And this brings us to the first proper road running between Beach Road and Second Road, Soi 1. Subsequent Sois are sequentially numbered (more or less) and run mostly one way traffic in alternating directions (motor bikes and errant cars excepted).
On the corner of Soi 1 is one of the best condo blocks in Pattaya, Markland Condotel, so called because it is partly a owner occupying block of condos and partly a hotel.
Some good friends of the Pattaya Otter own an apartment on the 23rd floor of this building and the view from there over Pattaya Bay is quite stupendous.
 Passing one of the ubiquitous ‘Family Mart’ small mini markets (of which there are many), we come next to another hotel, the Beach View a fairly anonymous building, which can certainly not be said of the next to hover into view, The ‘A One Cruise Hotel’. No that is not a ship that has gone seriously aground in the photo, it is in fact the hotel. It has two huge blocks each shaped like an ocean liner complete with mast, funnel and a lighthouse beside. I haven’t yet been inside but reports of its recent extension opening speak quite highly of it. It is certainly one of the landmarks of this part of the Beach Road.
After this there is a rather dead section with just a few rather tatty bars and a couple of small hotels, plus the backyard of the new outdoor shopping mall ‘The Market- Pattaya’.
So this seems a good point to end this part of our trip and continue a little way further down next time.
To view any of the above photos in full size, just click on it.
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