Sitting on the beach - Pattaya, Thailand

This is one of the beach areas in Pattaya. We got a hotel room pretty close by and walked over to find a good spot to sit and relax. I went with my girlfriend, her mother, one of my girlfriend's friends and her boyfriend. We left late morning and got to the beach by about 1:30PM.

Here you don't really see it, but when we got to the beach the entire area was covered with umbrellas to the point where the sun wasn't getting down to the sand.



Here's a perfect example of what I was talking about. Umbrella on top of umbrella. Now the reasoning that there is this heavy a concentration is that culturally, Thais don't want to get suntanned. My girlfriend wanted nothing to do with sitting out in the sun. I'm not a big sunbather either, but if I was going to go to the beach, I was going to sit in the sun. My chair was on the end in the sun and everyone else was in the shade (and thought I was crazy for doing so).


You can buy food from the various vendors and here is a table of grilled squid, crab, and green lipped mussels. I loved the mussels and the squid, but didn't really want the crab. It's too much work for too little payoff. We had to go get the beer (the bottle of Leo that you see in the photo), but you could buy ice there. For the entire day the cost was about $20, which I think is a pretty decent deal.


Here's the sun just getting ready to go down. Sunset is fairly early here around 6:00PM, but I just love getting photos of the sun setting behind the waves. The last time I had the opportunity to catch a sunset in Thailand, I was going to take a boat trip to the setting side of Koh Samui. Unfortunately, that trip was cancelled because a weakening typhoon was passing by.




Pattaya is a true beach resort with a lot of hotels and high end hotels going up. Because it is only 1 1/2 hours away from Bangkok is is a very popular destination with foreign tourists and Thais alike.






The sun is just about out of sight.


And it's gone until tomorrow...



These are all of the photos from my recent trip. It was a good, but busy time and I have a few ok photos and even better memories. I'm going to head back in 43 days to see my girlfriend for her birthday and for our wedding in Mae Sot a few days afterward.

I'm really excited for this trip and a bit nervous as I mentioned to her the other day. I'm very familiar with weddings in the West, not so much in Thailand and don't want to make any cultural gaffes. I'm sure all will go well when it is all over. After our wedding, we'll be going to the Adaman Sea (Indian Ocean) side of Thailand to Phuket.

I'll be putting up a couple videos as time permits in the next couple days. In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.