COSTS (Excluding Hotel):

Most budgets will vary, but here is what I spent.

DAILY
Daytime massage, avg’d 2000- 2500 bhat
Foot massage 300 bhat
Sightseeing shopping Avg.1000 bhat
Food & water Avg. 600 bhat
Taxi and subway 200 bhat
Evening action 2500 bhat
(Incl. Bar Fine & a few beers)
________ 7,600 bhat
(about $130-$150/day)

HOTELS:

OMNI. An excellent hotel in every respect. I stayed at the OMNI for 4 nights. The package deal I received was about $171 US for 4 nights, airport pickup, breakfast, and a huge one bedroom, deluxe apartment. This place was awesome. The room and the living room area were huge, very nicely furnished with some classy furniture. There was a separate large bathroom, with a spacious bathtub, as well as a separate, full kitchen. The OMNI is a serviced apartment with typical hotel services such as laundry maid bellboy etc. But since this place is an apartment, I actually ran into many executive and residents actually residing at the OMNI on a long term basis.

The breakfast was pretty good and they were charging 650.00 for roundtrip airport pickup.
The OMNI is a tall skyscraper with a commanding view of the City. There is a well equipped gym, sauna, large pool.
The service and attentiveness of the staff were outstanding – they really went out of their way to present a good image.
The distance to the main Sukumvit Street (main street with all the stores and Mongering area) is about a 5-10 minutes walking or a few minutes by Taxi or Moped (costs 10-35 bhat). I walked to Sukumvit at all hours of the night and day and had no problem and actually timed myself at 4-6 minutes. It is a safe walk and the street is relatively uncrowded with good sidewalks (compare street in front of President, see below).

GRAND PRESIDENT: Upon returning to BKK from PATTAYA, before departing for home, I also stayed at the Grand President for 2 nights and was charged 3900 bhat for 3 days and 2 nights. The GP also included breakfast and roundtrip pickup to and from the airport. The walk to the Sukumvit area is about 5-10 minutes also, but the sidewalks are narrow or congested and you are dodging motorcycles, touters, and taxis. The traffic even gets backed up so it can be frustrating and/or dangerous. There are many buildings and shops around the GP.
The Grand President is also inconvenient as it consists of 3 separate buildings, two of which are on one side of the street and the 3rd (mine) on the other side of a busy street. This was a pain in the ass to do all the check in stuff in one building and then literally have to dodge cars with my luggage in tow to get to my building. Also, night check in/check out is at different building than day check in/check out. Overall, a very inefficient system.

Grand president had all the usual amenities, but I just didn’t have the time to explore them. Grand President charged about 1800 bhat per night for the Topaz, executive studio. But this room was cramped and claustrophobic compared to the Omni. The room was about 50 by 30 feet and the restroom and kitchen area was in a very narrow hallway. Service was subpar I thought. For instance, my Topaz packet included airport pickup, but I had to argue and raise hell for them to acknowledge that it was included. Otherwise it would have been an additional 500 bhat ($11.76). I would strongly recommend the OMNI and that is where I’ll be staying from now on.

SIAM BAYVIEW HOTEL (PATTAYA)

I originally had confirmed reservations with the Flipper HOUSE for 900 bhat per night, but they gave the room to someone else because I did not call them the day that I was going to arrive. I told them in 3 different emails that I would be arriving and that I would try to make it before 3 pm, but when I showed up at 4 pm due to traffic, they had given the room to someone else. ALWAYS CONFIRM AND RE-CONFIRM your reservations.

So I then lugged around my luggage and made my way to a beautiful, beachfront hotel called the Siam Bayview Hotel. I paid 2800 bhat ($70 U.S.) for an ocean view room (I was too tired to look elsewhere) and thoroughly enjoyed the stay at this hotel. This place is equivalent to a 4 star hotel, something along the lines of a Marriot. It is centrally located to all the action in Pattaya, yet far enough so that you can forget that you are in Pattaya. There is easy access to the Mongering areas by just hopping on a truck/taxi that comes up in front of the Hotel (towards the beach side). The restaurants were all very good (b-fast was included in the fee) and the service was excellent. The best part was that this Hotel, along with every other hotel in Pattaya, are all girl friendly. No fees, no hassles.

MISCELLANEOUS TIDBITS AND OBSERVATIONS


The Europeans and Aussies were everywhere, with few Americans around. Only thing about the Europeans is that they are loud and they smoke – in the elevator, in restaurants, and in the clubs. After living in the States, where they persecute smokers every which way, it was very strange and not appreciated, especially when eating. They gathered around the TVs during the World Cup and basically raised a Royal Ruckus.


BANGKOK

Bangkok is a huge, word-class City and offers every service, amenity and cultural thing that a large U.S. city could offer. Tall, glittering skyscrapers intermingled with grasshopper and fried maggots being sold on the streets. The thing about BKK is that it is immensely crowded with motorcycles and mopeds everywhere. The pollution and traffic are just horrendous. There are street vendors everywhere selling everything from fried roaches to luggage. Every so often you come across a surreal scene of an elephant and its handler walking down the main street – this is when you know you are in a foreign country. Everyone drives on the leftside of the road, and the sheer number of motorcycles also makes it difficult for the uninitiated. BE CAREFUL.

SAFETY.

BKK, like elsewhere, requires that you exercise a certain degree of caution. Although I never felt insecure or threatened, you obviously need to use your commonsense. All the Hobbying areas are safe, just some pickpocket or other minor personal property crimes.
Safety wise, the mongering area, SUKUMVIT Street (which branches off to the big entertainment plazas such as Clinton Plaza, Nana Plaza and SOI Cowboy -- is generally safe. I felt much safer than I did in CR or in many parts of Mexico. I walked the streets at night with no problems, and there were no gun toting guards at banks, nor were there crime watch warnings as I often receive and see in Costa Rica. Most of the people I met were not concerned at all.

The other danger was that I saw 2 bar room fistfights from obviously drunken Europeans during the World Cup soccer matches. These ended quickly with other patrons and employees intervening. There were reports that English “Hooligans” had invaded Pattaya beach to use it as Hooligan base camp for the World Cup. Don’t know how much truth there is to that but there were dozens of very rowdy and proud “football” fans and most were just partying away like crazy.

Biggest danger obviously is the traffic. As noted, there are thousands of motorcycles,

DIVERSITY OF BANKGOK

The majority of the people are Thai, but there are quite a bit of Laotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese. There is obviously quite a bit of European EX pats because they were all over the place and there were French and German TV stations. A lot of American Ex Pats as well. There are also some Koreans and Japanese. About of residents 1/3 Sikhs and Hindus from Indian subcontinent.

There is also an area near SOI 4 (across from NANA, across Sukumvit, on 4th ) where there is an exclusive Muslim area populated by many middle Easterners with their own restaurants, water bong bars, clothes etc. Very interesting if you get a chance to visit. I also noticed a lot of Africans and African Muslims in this area, and some of these guys looked out of place but they spoke THAI and were doing quit well.


THAI AIRWAYS:

The trip from LAX to BKK was horrendously long, a total of 20+ hours. This is easily the longest flight I have ever taken, despite my status as a seasoned traveler who logs well over 50-70K per year for business. But the many prior flights got me a very good perk – Bus-Class on THAI AIRWAY to BKK. The added seat room and the absence of crying babies, made it worthwhile.

Thai is, relative to others, the most direct flight to BKK. It makes one brief 1 hour stop over in Tokyo or Osaka. You are forced to de-plane and go through security at Japanese airport. They will ex-ray your bags again and run you through the metal detector. Within in an hour, you are back on the plane and headed to BKK. From Tokyo/Osaka to BKK was 5 – 5 ½ hours. From L.A. to Tokyo/Osaka was 11 hours. From Tokyo back to L.A. was 10 hrs.

Since all posters make references to their stewardesses, I will also. The THAI stewardesses were very good looking. Tall, slender, and very pleasant. They wore these tight, traditional THAI outfits that really showed off their bodies.


On THAI Air, you arrive in BKK at 11 pm and you can get to your hotel by midnight. Within 1.5 hours after I got off the plane, I was banging my first Thai gal from ANGEL’s disco and staying up into the wee hours with her. The next morning I slept a few hours and went strong for another 12 hours before sleeping.

CALLING THE USA and INTERNET

Calling the U.S. is easy and cheap. Purchase a Phone Card at any convenience store, I bought one called the “PhoneNet”. 500 bahts = about 35 minutes to the U.S. or 14cents per minute. Very easy to use and the reception was consistently good and clear. The Hotel phones are a ripoff as is the case everywhere.

Internet café’s abound, practically one on every corner and they are very cheap. Doesn’t make sense to try to hook up in the hotel room.

Merlin
This is what I call reporting. Thanks for putting the effort in writing such an easy to read manual for newbies.

Nice report Merlin,

I too have found the Drunken Europeans to be a pain. I was in LoS for Songkran "Water Festival" (Basiclly the Worlds Biggest Wet Tee-Shirt Contest) And it was these fellows that didn't know when to say when.

Merlin,

Very nice job on the report. Just got around to reading it now and learned a few things for my trip in September.

Thanks for the great report!