The long march of progress in Pattaya

May 11, 2012

In our old guise as Pattaya One, with our uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time, and rejecting the toe-curling obsequiousness of much of the supine Pattaya press, we decided to instead concentrate on reporting on stories about the city, the streets (literally) and the people who live here, wherever we saw a story.

As part of that engagement with the city on a micro-level, our roving photographer one day in early 2011 observed the chopping down of an ancient tree right on the corner of Pratumnak Road and Thappraya Road, next to a site that boasted crappy one-story shacks, consisting of motorcycle repair shops and nail parlours, which had been there for 20 years. The tree had been there for much, much longer.

It's called progress. In Pattaya.

From forest to firewood

At the time we lamented the tree's passing, but we realised Pattaya marches on, and we decided to watch what happened on that site as a barometer of development in Pattaya, where old industries and old, long-established users are being replaced by new, spanking tourist-oriented developments like malls, bars and hotels.

Looking towards the junction of Thappraya/Pratumnak Roads

By May the site had been razed of all shacks and businesses, and looked like it does in the above photo (looking towards Pratumnak Road, with Thappraya Road to your left) and in the below photo looking towards Thappraya Road.

Towards Thappraya Road

Recently, piling commenced and the site looked like this in September:

September 2011

Also in September

Then, just across the road, we noticed another long-established Pattaya business had closed, the land had been cleared, where the old signmaker's shop used to be (it has relocated a few shops down, we are happy to report, in case any readers are desperate for the construction of a new gigantic sign).