Mercure Pattaya

What to know about traveling in Thailand

Traveling in Thailand

Thailand is actually quite inexpensive and you can stay in the best of hotels for a reasonable price. First travel tip would be to carry some cash on you when you reach the Bangkok International airport. There is no cash machine/ATM inside the airport, so if you want to buy something and the shop doesn’t accept credit cards, you’re in trouble. After that when you take a taxi, make sure the driver knows exactly where your hotel is otherwise it can be a long ride.

Thai food is good and if you drop some inhibitions and get into the casual mode, try even roadside Thai seafood which can be quite delicious, but of course restaurants have a great variety. In Bangkok, take the Skytrain and go to the Siam shopping area which is too good and has a huge collection of clothes and stuff, and many items are reasonably priced, so shopping can be a great experience in Bangkok, even if you’ve been to Paris, London and New York for that matter.The variety and price would be the positive points here.

A day trip to Pattaya and few days in Phuket can also be a very good idea and you can collect the unique Thai souvenirs, garments etc in these regions rather than in Bangkok. If you’re planning long term stay in Thailand and want a taste of the resident culture, visit Hua Hin which attracts a lot of people who want to buy property or stay long term. Enough for today….ciao

The Truth Of Sanctuary

The Sanctuary of Temple is a unique temple in a country known for these ornate, Buddhist structures. It is unique in that it is entirely carved out of wood by hand.

The temple is located in northern Pattaya, just a few minutes drive from central Pattaya. Tours can be booked at any hotel lobby or any street vendor hawking tours. You get to the site via a min-van that picks you up at your hotel. Our tour was from about 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon.

“The magnificence of heaven recreated on earth” is the temple’s theme. The idea for the temple was conceived by one very wealthy man who wanted to give something back to the community and remind them that religion, philosophy, and art need to be a part of their lives.

The temple is hand-carved completely out of wood and stands 105 meters at its highest point. Skilled craftsmen have been working on the temple for over 40 years and still have approximately 25 more years to go.

This is not just a tribute to Thai Buddhism, but also draws inspiration from China and India. The Sanctuary also honors the planetary gods, parents, children and the elderly.

Magnificent wooden statues, ornate pillars, and floors, walls and ceilings have all been created using rudimentary tools by hundreds of skilled craftsmen and women. You will literally stand in awe and ask yourself, “How did they make this?”

Once you get over your awe-inspiring tour of the temple, you can visit the grounds on horseback. A short 30-minute ride and it will be time for the dolphin show. They have two dolphins in a pool and you sit in shaded bleachers. They dolphins do the normal jumping through hoops and toss a ball back forth. When the show is over, you can go up and pet the dolphins and get your picture taken.

Time for a simple lunch and a relaxing beverage. We were served a hamburger, french fries and a cola. One more short visit to the Sanctuary for some more pictures, a short visit to the souvenir store, and it is time to head back to your hotel.

This half-day tour will set you back all of about $25 and that includes the temple tour, the dolphin show, horseback riding and lunch.

What I liked about this tour was that it was with a small group and was only minutes from my room. Once we arrived at the grounds, there were tour guides that asked where you were from to make sure that they had the correct language speaking guide. The young lady that toured us around spoke decent English and gave a very informative narration. The only complaint I had was that we had to wear a hard hat since it is still considered a construction area

Tips to keep adults and kids safe on the beach

Rumble of waves, puff of smoothly wind at the side of beach, sun shine, surfing, diving, volleyball, and many more. All of this make us remember how beautiful beach is. There’s a lot of beach around the world such as Malibu beach, Kuta beach, Pattaya beach, and many more beach.

When on summer, first destination for most people is beach, beach, and beach. From young people until old people love to go to the beach. At the beach, people can stay in from cheap hotels until expensive hotels located around the beach or just rent a villa. Make sure you make a booking to the hotel at least one month before you go because the price is getting increase especially when you go on high season such like summer.

The popular view that only at the beach is the beautiful view especially when sunset is coming. People love to see when sunset is coming. Go to the beach means have fun everyday, play around the beach. Usually, for young couples, they go to the beach for their honeymoon because they think beach is a romantic place for them and for family, holiday at the beach can increase family relationship, also parent can teach their child how to swim or diving to the sea. Lots of activities can do by parent and their child like shopping together, eat seafood at the edge of the sea waiting the sunset, and many more.

Of course there are some risk if you go to the beach like tsunami ( as we know, big tsunami that happened on December, 2005 which caused more than 100,000 people died ), dangerous sea animal like shark, jelly fish, sea snake, and other else that have to be watchful, on the land we also have to be careful because there are some dangerous animal too such as crab.

If the weather is not too good, my good advice, do not play near the beach because sometimes the waves suddenly can become a big waves and if it’s raining, do not go near the beach because you can be struck by the thunder.

At the beach, there must have a rescue team because if there’s no one rescue team, you have to be careful. Usually the rescue team always give warning to us to do not play too far from side of the beach and always watch the weather if it’s not too good, do not play around the beach. If you cannot swim, my good advice just play at the side of the beach and bring float to keep it while you go to the beach. Do not forget to bring medicine, if something happen to you such as if you get injured or your foot get cramp.

Well, go to the beach is very fun for us to refresh our mind with its nature atmosphere but of course we have to always be careful with its risk like I mention you on above paragraph.

The most beautiful places youve traveled to

Sitting by the fireplace, having a mug of hot chocolate I travel back in time often with my husband to Thailand. The land of beauty literally. It took us months to save up for the trip, plan endlessly, search the net for the places to visit, the weather, the customs, the dress code, oh god, i still have the print outs with me, that my husband insisted that we go over atleast 10 times before we leave ( he even made me take it with me on the plane…pheewww!) Finally the day of departure arrived, i was so excited, because this was our honey moon trip.

We could hardly wait to get to Thailand, finally we landed, the moment we got off the plane a gush of hot and humid air hit us hard, and the first thought in my mind was, ” Oh! crap, i didn’t bring my summer clothes ” Believe me , on the net we found out that it was winters in Thailand, but they have hot and humid weather all the year through. We got to our hotel, it was 12 in the night so there wasn’t much to see except the very long expressway. My husband couldn’t take his eyes off the road, he was in awe with the cars. We got to our apartment in Bangkok, stashed our stuff and went out to eat something. We got out, and all that was open around 1 were Seven Elevens, (seriously i believe there are more seven elevens in Thailand than America itself.) We had to call home and tell our parents that we have reached safely so we went in search of a calling card, the language barrier got the best of us there, we couldn’t find it so we decided to find an Internet cafe and just email. A very nice young lady who understood our desperate and persistent hand movements to explain to her that we need an Internet cafe. She left her shop, walked with us to a distance, left us at the Internet cafe and went back. We were touched by her gesture. We thanked her in our broken thai, did our email and decided to call it a day.

The morning started very early in Bangkok for us. We had to travel to the beach resort Pattaya. My god, we saw some breath takingly beautiful places in Pattaya. It was awesome, it was a two hour journey generally which took us nine. Believe it or not, we took so many pictures that our memory chip was almost full by the end of the first day.

By far, the most beautiful place in Thailand is the The Sanctuary of Truth, the wooden temple. The building project is for 50 years. We saw it at 20 years of age, but no words can describe the intricate carving done for that temple. We were left bewildered after seeing that. We could not capture the beauty in our camera, it was far far far better in real life. A real treat to see.

Your trip will not be complete without seeing, the Nang Nooch Botanical Garden, Mini Siam, The Sanctuary of Truth, Elephant village, Ripley’s museum, Thai human imagery museum, coral island and para sailing. The beauty of these things can’t be judged with writing. You have to see it in person. So get yourself a pair of jeans, shorts and 3 shirts and go enjoy a week in Thailand, you will fall in love with the place just like us.

A Guide to Buying a House in Pattaya

Pattaya is considered to be one of the best places in Thailand to buy a house. Not only is it considered to be an entertainment hub of Thailand but also its real estate market is booming. Foreigners usually have a preference to purchase land and construct a Pattaya house rather than live in condos or move into an existing house that might not suit their preferences. Building or buying a house in Pattaya is comparatively worthwhile and low-priced. There is always a geared up supply of skillful labor.

Most of the foreigners have preferred to buy houses in Pattaya. In contrast to Bangkok, property is readily on hand in Pattaya, giving property hunters prospects for buying reasonably priced individual houses or investing at any housing estate. In 2007 buyers started on taking waiting to buy any real estate property as the new government was formulating its policies. The recent trend moves towards bigger low rise condos as compared to houses and villas. Even though there are ownership issues for foreigners in real estate, city limits of Pattaya are rapidly expanding. This is due to the new Airport and a highway widening program presently in progress linking Bangkok and Pattaya.

Residential houses in Pattaya present the best price in Thailand; they are usually big, comfy, contemporary and endowed with magnificent furnishings and pleasant landscape gardens. Due to the cheaply available material and labor, it’s not out of reach to have the benefit of living in houses rather condos.

Houses in Pattaya are numerous, and long stay residents opt for these rather than condos, preferring the tourist-free peace and quiet further out of the CBD. There are plenty of houses for sale, old and new, with the current trend being ‘gated communities’. These appeal to the Thai middle class in particular and present a nice modern ready-made suburb.

Property agents can show you ample of houses in Pattaya for sale. Also checking around for ‘For Sale’ signs in residential suburbs is equally valuable and eliminates the agent fee. You’ll notice that there are an abundance of empty houses in Pattaya, many developed prior to the ‘97 financial crash, and although it may be a buyers’ market (the condo boom in the city hasn’t entirely extended to houses), often the owners will hold out for an unrealistic speculative price.

The major obstacle to foreigners buying a house in Pattaya is the possession status, and in view of the fact that only Thai citizens can acquire land in Thailand, simply those with Thai spouses can purchase land. Still after that they don’t completely have rights and have to depend on faith. Additionally still, you can make a pact where you rent the land and own the house for the period of its term.

It’s prudent to consult a lawyer and carry out due diligence. Many houses on the real estate market in Pattaya are owned as investments by Bangkok residents and the truthfulness in selling a covert defect-free house is missing.
In general, houses in Pattaya provide much better worth than condos and even provide more advantages of living in a cheap tropical country.

Where To Relex For Holiday In Pattaya Thailand

The following article covers a topic that has recently moved to center stage–at least it seems that way. If you’ve been thinking you need to know more about it, here’s your opportunity.

What do you do after a few days in Bangkok to get away from the traffic, pollution, noise and crowds of people? Head for one of the many resorts of Thailand. They provide a haven for you to completely relax in and forget the troubles of the outside world.

In Pattaya, there are a number of resorts that probably do that, but one that we’re sure about is the hotel Resort on Dongtan Beach, Jomtien Pattaya . Its large grounds provide wooded areas, a private beach and various recreational facilities so that there are plenty of options available for any visitor to relax and enjoy themselves. The site is large enough so that sounds from the outside world never make it inside the resort to distract one from the pursuit of peace and relaxation.

If your pattaya facts are out-of-date, how will that affect your actions and decisions? Make certain you don’t let important pattaya information slip by you.

Our own stay, on a recent weekend, left us rejuvenated and ready to face the world again after indulging in as many of the resort’s facilities as we could. After settling into our luxurious room on the main level of the hotel (which included a beautiful ocean view looking south down the beach) we first started with a workout in the fitness club.

This well-equipped club had everything we needed, including treadmills, exercise bikes, free weights and machines to get a good workout. This was followed by a visit to the steam room for some further cleansing of the body before we left the club. This is a great way to relieve tension and get in the frame of mind to enjoy the weekend and we heartily recommend it. We visited the health club each day we were at the resort so that our regular weekly exercise schedule didn’t suffer a bit even though we weren’t in the city. And, if you’d like to learn something new during your stay you can try one of the classes that are offered on a regular basis.

Of course, after a day of working out and swimming next to the clean ocean air of Pattaya, you’ll develop a healthy appetite and you’re in the right place for being hungry. There are three different dining outlets in the resort that offer three distinct dining experiences. For a more relaxed, casual type of meal try the Cascade Cafe which has recently been remodeled along with the main lobby. Here you’ll find a great buffet breakfast along with an international, Thai and Chinese ala carte menu.

There’s a lot to understand about pattaya. We were able to provide you with some of the facts above, but there is still plenty more to write about in subsequent articles. http://www.rabbitresort.com/

The East Coast of Thailand

Located within easy reach of the capital, the east coast resorts and islands attract a mixed crowd of weekending Bangkokians, pleasure-seeking expats and budget-conscious backpackers. Transport connections are good, prices are generally more reasonable than at the biggest southern resorts and, if you’re heading overland to Cambodia, the east coast beaches make challenging territory across the border. You’ll find the whitest beaches on the offshore islands –the five-hundred-kilometer string of mainland strands are disappointingly grey and the resorts here cater more for Thai groups than solitary horizon-gazing foreigners. In addition, the discovery of oil and natural gas fields in these coastal waters has turned pockets of the first hundred-kilometer stretch into and unsightly industrial landscape of refineries and depots, sometimes referred to as the Eastern Seaboard. Offshore, however, it’s and entirely different story, with island beaches as peaceful and unsullied as many of the more celebrated southern retreats.

The first worthwhile stop comes 100km east of Bangkok at the less than scintillating town of Si Racha, which is the point of access for tiny Ko Si Chang, whose dramatically rugged coastlines and low-key atmosphere make it a restful haven. In complete contrast, Pattaya, just half and hour south, is Thailand’s number-one package-tour destination, its customers predominantly middle-aged Western and Chinese males enticed by the resort’s sex-market reputation and undeterred by its notoriety as the country’s most polluted beach. Things soon look up, though, as the coast veers sharply eastwards towards Ban Phe, revealing the island of Ko Samet, the prettiest of all the beach resorts within comfortable bus-ride range of Bangkok.

East of Ban Phe, the landscape starts to get more lush and hilly as the coastal highway nears Chanthaburi, the dynamo of Thailand’s gem trade and one of only two provincial capitals in the region worth visiting. The other appealing inland city is Trat, 68km further along the highway and an important departure point for Ko Chang, a huge forested island with long, fine beaches, plentiful accommodation and a host of smaller, less developed islets off its coasts. East of Ko Chang lies the Cambodian border post of Ban Hat Lek, one of two points – the other being Aranyaprathet, a little way north – where it is currently legal to cross overland into Cambodia.

Highway 3 extends almost the entire length of the east coast – beginning in Bangkok as Thanon Sukhumvit, and known as such when it cuts through towns – and hundreds of buses ply the route, connecting all major mainland destinations. Buses from Bangkok’s Eastern (Ekamai) Bus Terminal serve all the provincial capitals and tourist spots; there are a few services here from Bangkok’s Northern (Mo Chit) Bus Terminal as well, and tourist minibuses run direct from Banglumphu in Bangkok to the ferry piers for Ko Samet and Ko Chang. One Eastern Line train a day runs in each direction between Bangkok, Si Racha and Pattaya. There’s and airport at U-Tapao naval base, midway between Pattaya and Rayong, served by Bangkok Airways flights to and form Ko Samui and Phnom Penh in Cambodia.

Highlights

Ko Si Chang – Tiny, barely touristed island with craggy coastlines and appealingly laidback ambience. more …
Pattaya – Away from the girlie bars and high-rise hotels, there’s rewarding year-round wreck and reef diving nearby. more …
Ko Samet – Pretty (and popular) little island fringed with dazzlingly white beaches. more …
Ko Chang – Large, sparsely populated island, with several good beaches and lots of accommodation. more …
Ko Mak – Stay in a teepee-hut on this diminutive island with fine white-sand beaches. more …

reference info. by The Rough Guide

TAG

Samet Island

Pattaya

Eastern Bus Terminal(Ekamai)

 

 

Peace Through Tourism

It is staggering to think that elephants sought higher ground immediately before the Tsunami hit Asian shores on December 26th 2004, while no advanced technology existed in the form of an early warning detection system that could prevent the loss of human life … or so said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Tourism of Sri Lanka. I can’t say for sure. I wasn’t there. I was safe and dry in Varese, Italy at the time, and a long way from Pound Ridge, New York, from where I hail.

I have been honored to be one of the many panelists at the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism Global Summit in Pattaya, Thailand, an organizational conference dedicated to exploring the ways in which tourism can and does promote peace. I was one of the only westerners there and was surrounded by Ministers, Members of Parliament and others dedicated to the concept of sustainable tourism and peaceful tourism.

While I spoke about the strategies that western tourism enterprise has utilized to confront terrorism and natural disaster in the U.S. and Europe over the past few years, my fellow panelists from Sri Lanka, Uganda, Cambodia and South Africa, to name a few, discussed the ways in which terrorism, internal armed-conflict, war and poverty have affected their lives and those of their families and countrymen. Among a group of co-panelists at breakfast one morning, I was the only person to not have held the status of refugee at some point in my life. To the extent I have changed houses or homeland, it has been entirely through choice and a quest for new experience and I know nothing of fleeing for my life or the lives of my children. My colleagues from across the sea, in contrast, have been counting the years, and in some instances, the months, days, hours and minutes of peace.

It is amazing to me that the more I am exposed to through travel and interaction with peoples of other countries, the more ignorant I feel. Like most people, I know that people living in other parts of the world do not share the same standard of living that I do, but I did not know that the single greatest killer of children world-wide is unclean water. I did not know that my colleagues in Jordan get water once a week, but that my female Jordanian colleagues have virtually no “glass ceiling” that prevents them from advancing professionally. I didn’t know that there are still cold-storage containers on the shores of the Andaman coast in Thailand that contain the bodies of unidentified loved ones after the wave hit and I didn’t know that police boats and huge fishing trawlers still lie kilometers from the sea where they lie against buildings, but otherwise upright, as if they are simply dry-docked in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What is sustainable tourism and how can we in the western world assist our brothers and sisters in less developed areas to face problems that affect fragile economies so dependent upon tourism? And how can we, as tourists, promote peace when we travel? So many of us, as individuals as well as public and private enterprise, donate money. Is that the way to assure that families and businesses post traumatic natural or terrorism-related episode continue to survive? It appears, based on what I have seen and heard here, that despite our display of compassion, exemplified by our overwhelming generosity, that this may not be the answer. Houses built with Tsunami donations, for example, but which failed to consult the cultural, physical and spiritual needs of the people, lay vacant. Boats built with Tsunami donations lay idle on the shores awaiting beurocratic clearance before they can be used by Thai fisherman. Tsunami money to Sri Lanka remains unutilized because the Sri Lankan administrative offices charged with administering the money, are located in an area of the country which is governed by a para-military entity not recognized by the U.S. or the United Kingdom.

The best answer seems to be exemplified in the request I heard time and again from His Excellency Akel Biltaji, Special Advisor to His Majesty King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordon, His Excellency. Eng. Ziad Al-Bandak, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Palestine National Authority, Ibrahim Yusuf, Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia, and James Lu, President of the International Hotel and Restaurant Association, to name a few. The way to be a part of sustainable tourism in each of these countries, is for the average tourist to “come back.” This means — to go back to Bali and to Jordan as soon as possible after the recent bombings, to frequent the hotels that were rebuilt after the Tsunami, but that are not yet at full occupancy, to eat the fish caught by local fisherman served in local restaurants and to buy the handicrafts of the indigenous peoples. The way to be part of the movement of “peace through tourism” is to be an ambassador of acceptance, traveling with an open heart and open mind, and demonstrating respect in our words, behavior, and interaction with peoples of all cultures. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness,” said Mark Twain. In this era of terrorism, a reality that Mr. Twain probably never contemplated, truer words were never spoken. As a general rule, we do not hate people we understand, and we have no reason to destroy what we do not hate.

As I walked around Khao Lak in Thailand, an area that was almost completely washed off the map by a wall of water, I was also reminded of the words of Francis Ford Coppola, “Time is the lens through which dreams are captured.” As my lens captured the images of hotels, local businesses and homes in ruins, I feel that it was simultaneously capturing the ghosts of the people who walked in and out of these thresholds. But, it also captured the dreams of the Thai people to rebuild their land. It captured the dreams of lasting peace of the Sri Lankan people whose internal armed-conflict screamed to a halt because they lost almost all their weapons and ammunition in the wave. And it captured my dream for all of us in the Western world to revisit this world of smiles, elephants, pristine shores, Buddhist temples, limestone caves, blue skies and peaceful waters.

Pattaya and Hua Hin videos – Pattya and Hua Hin holidays – Kuoni Travel

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