TonyT's 10th Thailand blog:
6 weeks in and around the country:
July - August 2026.
Page 4
The Road South to Chonburi
And on to PATTAYA
SATURDAY 1st AUGUST:
Early rise and started doing things we should have done last night; namely packing our cases for our intended true holiday. In the end our intended time of leaving by 9am was only late by 15 minutes.
Said our farewells to my in-laws (we'll be back in a couple of weeks) and along with brother-in-law, James we were on the road. We were giving James a lift back to Chonburi where he lived.
We only needed to drive 5 miles initially as we had a stop to make in Phanom Dong Rak village. The stop was to give my old Toyota pick-up truck a birthday present in the form of a mega car-wash.
Because of the issue with the meandering deeply rutted, mud filled track to the house the car was absolutely filthy with hard-baked thickly caked mud. This must have added about 40kgs to the weight of the car.
This car-wash was incredible in the way the two guys went about the big clean up. Suffice to say that after 4 different treatments including jet-washing and waxing the car looked almost showroom new. I say almost because no amount of washing could hide the dents and scratches.
The car washing took about 30 minutes and cost the princely sum of 120 Baht (£2.66) after which we hit the road proper on the 390km drive to Chonburi. The journey was largely uneventful with a couple of food and convenience breaks.
In many ways driving in Thailand's roads is a dream in that it reminds of driving in UK 30 years ago; mile upon mile of empty roads which allows one to chew up the miles. This only failed when we hit the AH19 where the roads became congested with wagon after lorry after truck; a bit of a nightmare 20 miles with dozens of traffic light junctions.
The Car wash at Phanom Dong Rak.
After nearly 6 hours driving we entered James's estate and dropped him off; I don't think we'll see James again for at least another year.
For us it was another hours driving up to Pattaya where we'd planned to stay over for a couple of nights. I got Aom to drive this bit which was a bit unfair as we got caught up in the winding congested inner-city sois in error. Fortunately, because we had lived in Pattaya for 3 or 4 months back in 2012 we recognised many of the roads and found the hotel car park easily.
Checked into The Bayview Hotel and were given a slight room upgrade on the 6th floor. Shower and a change of clothes for all 3 of us and we were out onto Beach Road to sample some ice-cold Changs in a bar we used to frequent back in 2013.
Jumped onto a Baht-bus (any of you who've been to Pattaya would know what these are) down Beach Road to Soi13. Here is a restaurant which used to be called The Hoffhause; now called Hops Brewhouse.
It was absolutely heaving with customers and we were lucky to get a decent seat upstairs. Jack and had enormous pizzas with Aom sticking to a traditional Thai dish.
It was actually our 14th Anniversary so it was a special night.
Retired to our room fully full of beer, wine and food.
|  |
|  |
Photos of the inside of the Hops Brewhouse in Soi 13/Beach Road.
Panoramic View of the city from our hotel room and a second panoramic from Pattaya Viewpoint or Khao Phra Tamnak Viewpoint on Pratumnak Hill.
SUNDAY 2nd:
Good nights sleep and awake by 7am. Coffees and showers and down to one of the pools for a swimming session.
Nice hotel and great large pool with plenty of shade from big trees and parasols.
Swims in said pool followed by breakfasts in a nearby restaurant on Second Road. I'd promised young Jack a Burger King so we set off in the hot-heat of the day to find one down on Beach Road. Ordered his colossal meal which he tucked into whilst Aom left to find a nail salon. Bought some big bottles of water at a 7-11 and then back to the room to wait on Madam's return.
|  |
|  |
|  |
Photos of the main pool area and the grounds of the Bayview Hotel.
After freshening up, Aom & I popped out for a few beers on Beach Road. she spotted a street seller hawking 6kg bags of Dragon Fruit (also known as pitaya or pitahaya) for 100 Baht. Pics of Dragon Fruit below:-
|  |
Sunday 2nd (continued):
Back to our room to collect Jack and then down into Beach Road and catch a Baht-bus down to the end of the road at Walking Street.
The intention was to dine at the Pattaya Beer Garden but I thought this would be an opportunity to show Jack another side of this sometimes sleazy city; he's nearly a teenager anyway. Walking Street was eerily quiet with none of the hordes of people which normally makes headway difficult. The street was open and with some big changes.
Back in 2011/2012 when I first roved the street it was very different to now. Gone are many of the bars and clubs; in particular the old Peppermint a go go at which I was regular customer back in the dark days before I married. The glitzy lights and pounding music had increased 10-fold even if it was low season it was impressive.
Back down again and into the Beer Garden out on it's pier over the sea. We ordered an impressive banquet which all but overwhelmed us. We did it a lot of damage to it with only a few scraps leftover.
Staggered up to Second Road and jumped a Baht-bus bck to the Bayview to a relatively early night as we were leaving tomorrow and back on the road, this time it was the 1½ hours to Rayong and then a ferry to Ko Samet.
MONDAY 3rd:
Up and about at 7am to do a quick re-pack. Went down to Second Road and crossed to a restaurant for a tasty breakfast then back to our room to dumped the cases downstairs to our car.
A quick stop-off in Pattaya Klang to the BigC supermarket for some coffee and apples to take over to the island
Arrived at the Ban Phe pier in good time only to be intercepted by a guy who wanted us to follow him to a car-park. Not the one the hotel advised but it worked out OK and we got a decent service as our bags were taken on a motor-bike sidecar contraption (very familiar in Thailand). Very hot on the pier and we embarked onto the speedboat like sardines for the 20 minute crossing.
Above is a short video of the very helpful and freindly motorbike taxi lady.
Also photos of the family shoe-horned into the bike ready to be taken to the pier with the speedboat ferries.
Arrived on the island and climbed aboard a Baht-bus taxi to the Tabtim Resort. Checked in to our villa and was quite impressed. Nice beach view.
