Pattaya (Part 1) – a road to nowhere

Wait did you read it right? Yes! Like many other companies, India’s renowned commercial speakers and pro audio manufacturer ‘Clarion’ took its dealers and selected employees to a Thailand trip in 2022. My company was working with them as a digital agency at the time, and Mr. Uppal, the owner invited me and my colleague Anindam to this all expense paid short trip to Pattaya along with the 200 dealers group. I sat with my team and decided, although we haven’t been asked to do anything, we wanted to pay the brand back by making a cool video of the trip with video interviews and capturing the fun that they had planned for their best performing dealers from all over the country. They could make use of the video for internal circulation. So we carried out camcorders, mics and other portable accessories.

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Every second person who flies to Bangkok from Kolkata knows about this flight. This has the longest baggage-drop / checkin queue at the airport. Anindam and I decided to fly a day later. Most of the other people on the trip were already having fun in Pattaya. The main event was supposed to take place on the next day. So we chose to make optimal use of our stay there. It was strictly business!

Pattaya and business

Are you kidding me? Believe it or not, we were grateful that it was a sponsored trip and we wanted to give our best shot at giving some value back in terms of our work. Although we missed the Coral Island tour because some random uncle from Delhi who was also supposed to join us in the trip, misplaced his luggage at the Bangkok DMK airport after landing, when I reached the Golden Beach hotel, I realised I had 14 missed calls from Mr. Uppal. He was trying to reach me so that they could wait and take us along to the beautiful beach. Honestly I was too tired and fell asleep as soon as I went inside our room. Anindam and I were sharing the room which had this view of a dead market place on the left and the ocean on the right.

We left for lunch and eventually were taken by a tour bus to a place which apparently looked like a hotel and we were told by our trip leader – a lady in her middle age, “no money no honey!”. Everyone laughed. At first I thought she was cracking a joke. We got off and were led to the entrance of the hotel where a guy was tagging us with the trip leader’s name on our wrist. Anindam and I were confused. While we walked up the stairs, I read the signage “Honey 2”. “They must have another hotel by the name Honey” I said to myself. What happened next was an experience I would never want to have again!!

Bangkok and Pattaya are places which are infamous for being called the Las Vegas of Southeast Asia. From walking street to night clubs to massage parlours and go-go bars, Pattaya thrives on adult entertainment and intimacy as a service. Biggest revelation for me was – most of the tourists were Indian men in their 50s and above. I had been to Singapore before this and I honestly didn’t like the city as far as my expectation of a metropolis would be. This came from my memories of Singapore. I expected more. But it turned out to be all about something else; apart from the sea which was definitely a beautiful thing to look at. I had never seen the ocean so blue up close.

In Singapore they have beautiful beaches but the sea has restricted waters. You can’t enjoy it as much as we have done from our childhood growing up near water bodies in West Bengal – not by the cleanliness and beauty aspect but by the sea-water experience, you could do more here.

No money, no honey!

To this day I do not know if they were women or men dressed as women! We entered Honey 2 and we saw a well lit gallery with ‘women’ on display! They had numbered tags pinned to whatever little piece of cloth they wore. And then in front of that, there were sofas where wolves were sitting and bidding on the numbers they liked. A man dressed in suit came up to us and made us sit in one of the sofas. Apparently they fine people with 2000 Baht if they catch anyone clicking photos. A few men from our group were caught!! Fortunately they were left with a warning. I saw few wolves winning the bids and taking the ladies up through an elevator. Their eyes looked like vampires. I started imagining the greedy wolf from my childhood story of the Red Riding Hood! I felt as if I was going to throw up. Low lives – I said to myself and urged Anindam to leave. We both walked down the road towards the ocean to grab some fresh air and called home.

Later that day we didn’t take the bus. We kept walking and exploring the other parts of Pattaya. Visited this beautiful mall called the ‘Terminal 21’ which actually has a few planes parked outside of it, and the mall is designed like an airport terminal.

More than Alive

Remember the dead marketplace on the left of my hotel’s balcony? After returning to the hotel and taking a shower, we went to the balcony and could hear loud music from all over the place. The market was not dead, in fact it wasn’t a market! It was an entire area with go-go bars and pubs. We were at the fifth or sixth floor and couldn’t grab a detailed view but all we could see was a crowded arena with loud music, girls in bikinis and people enjoying drinks. We decided to take a stroll at night after dinner.

We had spotted a local eatery for dinner while our way back to the hotel. By the time we could leave, we got a call from our client. An Indian dinner invitation was waiting for us. We had to go.

Where the road leads nowhere

We grabbed a dinner that was not the best version of Indian food. Later that evening we took a stroll to the famous Walking Street. I had my DSLR with me but honestly I didn’t have the guts to take my camera out to click photos in the alley. We were a group of five people walking down the street. A small Indian guy jumped ahead of us with a menu in hand. He said “what do you want good sir? British, Mexican, Russian…p***y… only 100 Baht”. The menu literally had photos on it. We didn’t wait to grab a detailed look, ignored the guy and kept walking. I came across a magician showing magic in front a girl in bikini dancing on loop inside a glass case with the same music repeating. She was beautiful but I felt bad looking at the glass cage she was in. I think the walking street is more like a carnival of the human greed for flesh. It is colourful but not in a good way. There’s a much darker side to it. If you are a human, you can see smiling faces calling you out and inviting you to satisfy your darkest desires; but if you are a human with a heart, you can see the scars that these women hide behind their makeup and the tiring process of selling themselves every night. This might be a very normal thing for people who have been there but for me it was a reflection of the unmasked face of the so-called civilised society.

Read PART 2 of the journey: