Soi Bukhao -The English Patient (Part 2)

Right, straight back into the punchy Thai Visa thread about Soi Bukhao called “Soi Bukhao Likes and Dislikes?”

I can't help feeling that if a soi could sue for libel (and most things can in Thailand), this soi would never be out of court.

Therealmrbrightside starts us as we left it, with a haymaker:  

Something I have noticed, is every single expat I have got speaking to ANYWHERE in Pattaya who is skint, no job, bumming about Pattaya trying to extort money out of fellow farangs - lives in Soi Buckaow.

Coincidence?

Jiu-Jitsu, also of the anti-soi brigade, commented:

Believe it or not, not everyone visits Pattaya to take advantage of women of easy virtue and to dine on a poor imitation of English style food.

In answer to which Soi Sauce (clearly a supporter of this saucy soi) asked:

What do they go to Pattaya for, then?

If it was Thailand's beautiful beaches, culture, and all the rest that TAT tell us about, they ‘aint gonna  find it in Patttaya. Hua Hin, Cha Am, Phuket, Samui etc, yes. Patts, No!

Soi Sauce also robustly fought back against people criticizing Soi Bukhao residents from the luxury of their posh Pattaya seaview condos; who had a view of all the yaba head freelancers strolling along the prom, but if that's your thing, good luck to ya.

Bit down-market for my liking.

At this point, Jiu-Jitsu poo poo'd the place thus:

overall it's really just an unattractive, downmarket area populated by ne'er-do-wells in their three quarter trousers, football shirts and trainers...you can't polish a turd.

thaibeachlovers, tried to calm things down a bit, but succeeded in only widening up the debate:

I don't understand how posters can be so brazen about condemning other people based on their looks, and choice of restaurant etc. Do they think only people that conform to their dress standards and bank balance should be allowed into Pattaya?

Jiu Jitsu, sensing a throwdown, replied:

The world is full of stereotypes. If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.... If they look like the kind of people that in my experience, I would wish to avoid, they probably are the people whom I would wish to avoid.

I don't want to talk about their experience in a youth detention centre or Wormwood Scrubs, nor who played in the football game last night, how much they drank and especially not which 'sort' they pulled from the bar last night.

The mouth leading to the belly of the beast, or the colon out of it.

DanielToddGilbert, I presume a major-league wind-up merchant, added:

It must become easy to forget ones background when one arrives in Pattaya with the monies from the sale of a two up two down on a run-down council estate in Doncaster then builds oneself a detached house for a pittance near a slum and begins to believe one is actually affluent and sophisticated when the truth of the matter is, if one really is like one would like to believe, one would be living in Monte Carlo not Pattaya.

Rgs2001uk, detailing a precise knowledge of the content of Soi Bukhao drinkers’ conversations, although not being a fan of them or the soi, continued:

Many soon reinvent themselves, usually as real estate developers or investment advisors. After meeting their soul mate, who was of course working as a cashier at the bank where they cashed their giros…these content happy chappies can often be found in local farang watering holes, bitching and moaning about their wife, the wife's family, the heat, the spicy food, no decent beer, can’t trust anyone, many suffering from paranoia, everyone’s out to rip them off.

Ah soi Buakao, where dreams can become reality. Broken promises, broken hearts, broken bank accounts, broken dreams and in some more extreme cases broken men.

HarryLime launched one of the best put-downs I have read anywhere on Pattaya’s  snooty contingent, and funnier because it is true:

I love the Pattaya snobs. King of the world's largest brothel are you?

Too funny.

Englander tried to restore some order with a friendly post:

I go to Soi Bukhao once a month to hit the boxing gym and have a few days eating decent priced English food.

I can genuinely say I don’t frequent the girly bars and don’t wish to have the same mundane conversation time and again.

To which BaronCasey wittily but rudely replied:

Shame, I bet those ladies really miss having a mundane conversation with a pie-and-chip eating amateur boxer - know wot I mean 'arry...

But by now the thread had veered off into a criticism of not just Soi Bukhao, but of the whole Pattaya and Thailand tourism/sex-tourism industries, and the “types” who frequent the city.

In amongst this punch-up, the words of Thaibeachlovers rang like satang in empty Chang bottles:

No matter how people try and dress it up, there's only one reason to visit/ live in Pattaya.

I really wish farangs that don't like Pattaya the way it is/was went elsewhere, and left it for those that do like it.

Who are these people that think they are so important that the world should be changed to the way they want it? Do they really believe the rubbish they are speaking when they say they're here because of the golf courses/ restaurants/ shopping/ quality accomodation, and the girls/ ladyboys/ boys should be banished because it gives a bad impression?

To them, get a life (somewhere else), please.

And then I realized what lies behind many of the arguments about Soi Bukhao: the raging battle between lovers of the 'Old' Pattaya and supporters of the "New' Pattaya.

Online posters trading in wider Pattaya stereotypes like to believe that Soi Bukhao is a lowlife-infested slum, housing the worst kind of Pattaya sex tourist and broke longstayers the city doesn’t need.

Others, who know the soi well, resent this, and believe it has a wide variety of frequenters and attractions, and it’s not just the “old” Pattaya sexpats who mooch around there.

That’s why reading the online Soi Bukhao threads is so much fun, as these two groups kick lumps out of each other.

From behind a keyboard, that is.