Out and About

A look in brief at some other recent events in and around Pattaya

Featuring in this edition:-

Loy Krathong Festival

If all had gone according to plan this would have been this edition’s leading feature, but as is often said ‘The best laid plans etc. etc.’

Just to backtrack briefly, for those of you not familiar with Loy Krathong, this is the  festival held here in Thailand annually on the 15th night of the 12 lunar month of the Thai calendar.

It is a festival held beside any suitable water, sea, river or lake where people gather to launch home made or purchased little boats called Krathongs each beautifully decorated with flowers and candles, the tradition stating that as the boat floats away on the water so do all the problems of the person launching it.

It is also an occasion for dressing up and the two combined usually produce a very beautiful and moving spectacle. Many regard it as the most delightful event in the Thai calendar.

Last Year we celebrated it on the local reservoir near Pattaya, but this year we decided to do something different.

The idea was good, go to Bangkok and celebrate Loy Krathong with an evening cruise wining and dining on a boat cruising the Chao Phraya river watching the various firework displays from riverside hotels and whilst on board together with the other guests, all launch our Krathongs there.

Although the journey to Bangkok was conducted without incident unfortunately once there all the plans fell apart due to a series of unfortunate events which have no place in this report, but the nett result was no boat and no river cruise.

So by way of a substitute we proceeded to the riverside and whilst there took some photos of the large crowd that had assembled there below one of the many bridges, all buying, and launching their Krathongs.

We also managed a very short trip on a couple of the standard river ferries and whilst on board viewed many people launching their Krathongs from the ship sides.

So all was not totally lost and we did still manage to enjoy the flavour of this event.

Some of the photos taken now follow here, as usual these are in thumbnail size and to view any full size just click on the appropriate image.

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Miss International Queen at Tiffany

The Miss International Queen contest was held for the first time at the Tiffany theatre in North Pattaya.

So what you may say, beauty contests are 10 a penny and in any case nowadays regarded by many as ‘politically incorrect’.

But this was not quite a normal beauty contest as there was not one true female amongst all the 24 contestants from 13 different countries.

Unfortunately the actual contest clashed with our visit to the Horseshoe Point so our only view of this bevy of beauties was the previous afternoon where as part of the show’s promotion they were paraded around the main roads of Pattaya each astride a Harley Davidson motor cycle and being driven by a member of that club.

Our good friend Allan however did attend the event and sent us some photographs which we now print here. Again these are in thumbnail format and to view them full size just click on the appropriate one.

Again as you look and admire the contestants in these pictures, remind yourselves that there is not a single true female present.

The final photo is of  the eventual winner, Miss Thailand, Khun Treechada Petcharat, also known as Nong Poy.

Whilst showing you these, it also seems a good opportunity to pay tribute to Allan who is currently recovering from a serious illness. We thank you for all your invaluable assistance, your photographic and journalistic skills a little of which we hope has rubbed off, and wish you a speedy and full recovery.

.

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Happy Diwali

Friday November 12th was a major date in the Indian calendar, the Festival of Diwali otherwise known as the Festival of Lights.

We were invited by our good friends Richard and Janet to celebrate this at the Indian by Nature Restaurant conveniently located next door to Otter Towers.

There on arrival we were wished (and wished our hosts in turn) a Happy Diwali and were presented with garlands and also had our foreheads daubed before being seated.

Naturally we selected a number of traditional Indian dishes all freshly cooked and whilst waiting for these we were enjoyed by a pair of musicians on sitar and tabla.

Later during the course of the evening these were added to by couple of dancers performing in the traditional Indian style.

From time to time outside the restaurant windows we were able to see a number of fireworks being set off in honour of the festival.

Our hosts made sure we enjoyed our evening there keeping us ably supplied with food and drink and at the end giving each of us a small memento of our visit.

A Happy Diwali to our friends, our hosts and all our Indian readers.

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Pardorn Plays in Pattaya.

On the evening before Loy Krathong, The Royal Cliff Hotel celebrated the opening of it’s new ‘Centre Court’ tennis facility by staging a evening of exhibition tennis featuring Thailand’s two top International stars, Paradorn Srichapan and Tamarine Tanasugarn.

This, for those of you in the U.K., would be the equivalent of a front row seat watching Tim Henman  playing at Bangor (or even Bideford).

In fact there are many similarities between Tim and Paradorn, both are worshipped by their national fans, Britain has Henmania - Thailand has Paramania, both play a similar style of serve and volley tennis, both excel on grass courts and unfortunately both although extremely talented share the knack of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

This however was purely an exhibition event with Paradorn playing a best of 3 set match against Nicolas Keifer from Germany and Tamarine (or Tammy as she is popularly known) playing against a relatively unknown young Russian, Anna Chakvetadze.

A near full house seated on both sides of the newly constructed court welcomed the first two players, Paradorn and Keifer shortly after 6 PM and after a short knock-up the match commenced.

Although an exhibition event with nothing at stake, nevertheless both players, closely ranked to each other in the world, played some serious and quality tennis albeit interspersed with some comedy and cheerful banter indicating the friendly nature of the event.

After a closely fought first set which Keifer won in the tie break, the second was more one sided with Keifer taking it 6-3 to win the match by two sets to love.

After a short interval, the two ladies then made their entrance, the Russian looking remarably like another of the many ‘Kournakova clones’ that have emerged from that country to dominate ladies tennis over the past couple of years.

And she played with similar determination to overwhelm Tammy in rather one sided contest with the Thailand favourite appearing to be the one playing for fun and the Russian not having read the script that this was supposed to be only a friendly, although both still played with good spirit.

So another 2 love win to the Russian in rather short time concluded the evening’s entertainment.

In spite of this, it was a most enjoyable evening, and another important step in placing Pattaya on the world stage as a major sporting venue.

Unfortunately due to camera problems and restrictions on using flash during play, our pictures here are limited to a single one of Paradorn taken prior to the match..

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Motor Bikes at Bira

We paid another of our regular visits to the Bira Motor Racing Circuit just outside Pattaya.

This time the meeting featured a mixture of Car and Motor Cycle racing (not at the same time) with the main car event being the season finale of the Grand Touring Car Championship.

However as we have featured photographs of cars racing here several times before, this time we illustrate our brief report with a picture of bikes rounding the final corner.

As usual it proved a very pleasant and enjoyable way to spend a Sunday afternoon in Pattaya, not least due to the excellent sandwiches provided by our good friends Foo and Graham.

To view any of the above photos in full size, just click on it..

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