The view from Otter’s balcony of all that’s happening in Pattaya and beyond Welcome to the first edition of the Pattaya Otter Newsletter for 2005. In this, the first edition of 2005, it had been our intent to focus on the just past Christmas and New Year festivities but as everybody now knows, it was only on Boxing day that the earthquake and tsunami disaster struck Thailand and this region of the world. In the circumstances, such a focus would, we feel, now seem inappropriate and in any case most of the official celebrations were quite understandably cancelled or curtailed. An alternative would have been to simply not publish at all for the time being, but that would be to ignore an event that has affected us all, and also we have a story that took place shortly before Christmas that we wanted to give you. So we have compromised with an abbreviated edition simply focusing on this, the Pattaya City Expats Club visit to the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya, plus a (for once) more serious ‘Otter’s Tail’ giving a personal view of how news of the disaster unfolded and how it affected us here in the relatively safe haven of Pattaya. We do still however wish all our readers wherever in the world they may be:- Sawatdii Bpii Mai Happy New Year Expats visit Ayutthaya - Day 1 The first day of two visiting the ancient capital of Thailand including a spectacular ‘Son et Lumiere’ show Click here for full report and pictures   Expats visit Ayutthaya - Day 2 The club continues its tour of Ayutthaya province visiting various religious, cultural and scenic locations Click here for full report and pictures   The Royal Summer Palace at Bang Pa-In As part of the tour of Ayutthaya, we visited the palace and grounds at Bang Pa-In. We give here an outline of its history as well as a look at some of the fascinating architectural mixture of the various buildings Click here for full report and pictures Otter’s Tails The Pattaya Otter forsakes his usual light hearted look at events in Pattaya to express a personal viewpoint on the recent disaster that has struck Thailand in general and Phuket in particular. Click here to read his report   In future editions. The Pattaya Otter Newsletter will return when it has assembled a sufficient number of stories concerning the lifestyle here in Pattaya. We trust that you will understand that we feel that is all that we are competent to report on and that other news media can much better report on the continuing serious matters affecting the region.   Missed a previous edition? If so or you just want to read it again, all of the past year are still available; just click on the link labelled ‘Previous Editions’ above or access them via the link on the Home Page And we did of course only two months ago devote an edition to our visit to Phuket then in happier times, and this can still be viewed by clicking here.   Interested in finding out more about life in Pattaya and Thailand ? If so, you may like to try the following websites for which the Pattaya Otter bears no responsibility.  Pattaya Mail   Pattaya Today   Pattaya City Expats Club   Pattaya A to Z   Shenanigans   Bangkok Post   Bangkok Lifestyle  and for live web cam views of Pattaya:- Pattaya Live Cam Interested in purchasing jewellery in Thailand? Why not have a look at Blackstar Jewellery Just click here -> Want to know the weather in Pattaya (it doesn’t change much) - check it out at yahoo weather   Back to Top of Page