Places like Pattaya, Bangkok, Hua Hin are now to expensive, to popular and less friendly.
There are many other countries in SE Asia that offer better value for money.
Try Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Philippines, Malaysia for example.

2012-2013 was getting 40Baht to Ozzie $, with the collapse of Ozzie$ and Pound along with prices there going up Thailand has become unreasonable, yeah its great if you don't drink don't smoke don't screw but wheres the fun in that, had its day in my book( but the Chinese will keep it going), compared to the value in say Vietnam, Philipines.

One place I’ve been looking at that doesn’t get a lot of mentions is Penang. Used to be the default visa run place when I first came to Thailand, years since I’ve gone back but it looks like they’ve made a real effort to jazz up the traditional areas and there has also been a controlled degree of modern development. Not a bad place for us Brits as you get 90 days without a visa, great street food and street life and beaches as well. I like the multi-ethnic aspect to the place. I believe costs are more or less on a par with Thailand, but probably an alternative I will check out in the future.

Pattaya is expensive certainly for the night time entertainment scene, that's just my opinion.

The quality and service has gone way down also. Even if the exchange rate went back up to 50 baht to the pound Pattaya would still be expensive. I realised 10 years ago when the pound to baht exchange rate reached this amount, there was more to see in SE Asia than just Pattaya. That's why these days I use Suvarnabhumi Airport as a hub to visit other parts of SE Asia. The reason for this is flights to Bangkok are very cheap compared to other parts of SE Asia.

Tourists who have been coming to Pattaya for many years would treat it as their comfort zone. Sure, its so easy to get to, just 2 hours by bus from Suvarnabhumi Airport, and there are still many low priced hotels. And yet each year their experience is directly related to the shrinking baht. They are afraid of being adventurous, trying something new. Pattaya is just a tiny speck in the country of Thailand. I was just comparing land areas of countries in SE Asia to England and came up with the following data -
England -130,395 km²
Thailand - 513,120 km²
Cambodia - 181,035 km²
Laos - 236,800 km²
Vietnam - 331,210 km²
There are hundreds of places to visit in all these countries.

If it wasn't for the Americans service men using Pattaya for R&R during the Vietnam war, this place would never have existed.
What puzzles me the most is why Pattaya attracts so many families ? it makes no sense.

^
I would say for the upstanding Thai people. Having their countries tourisam reflected around the world based on sex may have something to do with it. They have been trying to change the outlook of Pattaya for years by promoting the family holidays. But there you go! Sex means money, and the Thais enjoy their money, or rather they enjoy yours more. Anyway they can always blame the Americans for bringing sex trade to the country.

Just wait for the next Asian financial crisis like 98.

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:Just wait for the next Asian financial crisis like 98.

Yeah not really the same though is it.

Besides which, the main instigator Thailand, let their banks go nuts on lending and charging huge % on loans (at the time they were the most profitable banks in the world) and Thailand was investing in land and buildings not in infrastructure or any particular sector of the market that creates jobs/exports etc.

That’s partly the reason. The main reason was their FDI (Foreign Direct Investments) was a paltry 15% in comparison to Malaysia at 90%, which weathered the impending shit storm.

Can anyone tell me what the GBP to THB was in 1994? I can’t seem to find it.



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