From Wikitravel

We really need a map. There's a name for the Big-C complex besides "Big-C complex." More on the cabarets.

What are the criteria for "Budget", "Moderate", and "Splurge" hotels locally? I've been using as a guide < 1000 baht for budget, 1000-2000 baht for Moderate, and > 2000 baht for splurge.

For Pattaya that sounds pretty good. Usually budget = backpacker style (guesthouses etc), splurge = hella expensive and mid-range = the rest. Jpatokal 22:55, 25 Jan 2005 (EST)

Yes, the Big-C complex is officially "Central Festival Center" but c'mon, do you really think your motocy taxi driver is gonna be familiar with that name? ;-) My cutoffs are budget <= 600 baht; mid-range < 1000 baht; splurge >= 1000 but I'm very frugal (dangerously so, perhaps). Ewlyahoocom 22:53, 1 May 2005 (EDT)

I usually aim for 200-400 bhat when I'm doing the budget thing. I think up to 600 for someplace like Pattaya makes sense... It's always the A/C that bumps it into the +500 range... Majnoona 07:35, 2 May 2005 (EDT)

[edit] "Clear extlinks"?

"Clear extlinks"? A bit drastic, yes? Perhaps you are a bit of a control freak. Anyway, it's your site and I really wouldn't want to fight over it so I cede it back to you. Thanks, it's been fun.

Yup, we're collective control freaks. See Wikitravel:External links. Jpatokal 03:47, 6 Jul 2005 (EDT)

I'm a bit surprised the ax went to the two map sites as well; they're not primary sources, but as far as I know there's no official city map online. If someone can find a map with the right rights to redistribute it, it would be a bit improvement to the article. I've looked, and most of the online maps I've seen are of very unclear origin and copyright ownership. (Mister Handy)

If there's a really good external map site, we can link to it, but a good PD map would be better. Jpatokal 11:02, 29 Jul 2005 (EDT)

[edit] Nothing wrong

Instead of asserting that there's "nothing wrong" with prostitution, I'd like to stick to the facts, which are that a) prostitution is illegal in Thailand, b) it's a great way of picking up venereal diseases and c) no, it's not normal or socially acceptable to pay for or get paid for sex in Thai society. Long debates about whether it's OK or wise for the traveller to indulge or not belong in Stickman Bangkok, not Wikitravel.

See also Wikitravel:Sex tourism policy, where we've already had a couple of long debates about Bangkok and Pattaya... Jpatokal 20:51, 23 Nov 2005 (EST)

I'd prefer less emotional style level concerning on this matter, cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Thailand. I agree, "nothing wrong" may be not correct. The fact is, however, that sex trade is widely tolerated in Thailand. The travellers shoud be awared that, particulary in Pattaya, nightlife fun and sex is largely mixed together. Sure, we do not include how-to-do-sex-with-local-ladies information, according to our sex tourism policy. Lulu 05:10, 24 Nov 2005 (EST)

I think we agree on this — the key phrase is 'tolerated'. I think the traveller should be told both that no, he will not end up in jail, but no, beer bar hanky-panky isn't considered respectable Thai behavior either. Jpatokal 05:22, 24 Nov 2005 (EST)

Yep... I'm just considering, how to build up the nightlife section. I think, it can be made according to our policy, but one should agree, the subject is highly sensitive. Lulu 07:10, 24 Nov 2005 (EST)

[edit] Manual of style, future Destination of the Month

So I just went through the article (once again) and tried to changed it into the Wikitravel:Manual of Style format. Contentwise, I think this is shaping up to be one of the best articles on Wikitravel — it's getting good enough to be nominated for Wikitravel:Destination of the Month candidates, and only needs a better map to qualify as a Star. Jpatokal 22:19, 29 Nov 2005 (EST)

[edit] Listing changes

I rolled back a number of listing edits that changed Manual of style-compliant listings into more prose-y listings. See restaurant listings, attraction listings, accommodation listings and bar listings for preferred formats. --Evan 19:06, 26 Dec 2005 (EST)

Answer: yes, very acceptable! Thanks for your work. --Evan 23:02, 26 Dec 2005 (EST)

[edit] Better, but still...

Mr/Mrs Anonymous, will you please sign up for an account already, so we can actually a) identify your edits and b) have a civilized discussion?

Also, the Get out section is way too bloated now. A basic listing of places to go and short summaries of why they're interesting should suffice, the nitty-gritty info on how to get there and how much to pay should go into Get in and the respective destination articles. Jpatokal 22:13, 26 Dec 2005 (EST)

Well, I'm glad to see you're at least paying attention to our suggestions... and oh yes, Pattaya is now up on Wikitravel:Destination of the Month candidates. Jpatokal 03:56, 27 Dec 2005 (EST)

[edit] And again (sigh)

Why, oh why, have you changed every bleeping phonenumber in Thailand to use the utterly perverse "66 (0) xxx" style? Good luck punching "660xxx" into any phone and getting it to work. Please follow the Wikitravel:Phone numbers standard and and format phone numbers as they would be dialled internationally: that is, +66-xxx. Jpatokal 21:04, 27 Dec 2005 (EST)

[edit] re: phone number format

For clarity and comparison, here's a summary of the overall change:

Before - all phone numbers (including all prefixes/suffixes) as they were at Revision as of 22:45, 29 Nov 2005

(03 842 1428)
Tel 038756879
Phone: +660-3822-5407, +660-3836-7229
(0-3842-0965-6)
(078 336655)
(03 873 5050)
038 361 500
038 428 057
(0 3837 0173)
(0 3836 7652)
tel. 66 3841 5941
tel. 66 3825 0721
+66 38 425550
tel. 66 09 5441430
tel. 03 873 5050
tel. 66 38 412120

After - all phone numbers (including all prefixes/suffixes) as they were at Revision as of 06:07, 7 Dec 2005

tel. +66 (0) 38421428
tel+fax. +66 (0) 38249818, +66 (0) 38249853, +66 (0) 38249174
tel. +66 (0) 38429321
tel. +66 (0) 38296556
tel. +66 (0) 38756879
tel. +66 (0) 38427660
tel. +66 (0) 38225407 / +66 (0) 38367229
tel. +66 (0) 38420965 / +66 (0) 38420966
tel. +66 (0) 78336655
tel. +66 (0) 38735050
tel. +66 (0) 38255488
tel. +66 (0) 38361500
tel. +66 (0) 38428057
tel. +66 (0) 38370173
tel. +66 (0) 38367652
tel. +66 (0) 38415941
tel. +66 (0) 38250721
tel. +66 (0) 38425550
tel. +66 (0) 95441430
tel. +66 (0) 38735050
tel. +66 (0) 38412120

The format applied was not considered to be unequivocally correct.

Applying it was considered a reasonable and worthwhile change given the following facts:

1) Wikitravel:Phone numbers states "...format phone numbers as they would be dialled internationally but in a way that shows the part that can be dialled locally"

2) any consistent format can be replaced by any other consistent format in a matter of seconds (ie the multiple individual manual edits necessary to make this change would mean that in future, a simple find-and-replace could update the entire article in a single edit)

3) consistent format was previously absent (see summary above)

4) no alternative format specifically for Thailand could be found to have been declared (numerous Talk: pages were reviewed)

5) no consistent format could be found to have been applied to any other Thailand article (ie no precedent to follow - numerous Thailand articles were checked, eg Bangkok, etc; all pages with multiple numbers were found to have a mixture of formats)

6) definitive format would be confirmed/applied when phone number markup/template is introduced, and making this change now would simplify the switch to markup/template, regardless of the actual format used

7) see also "Telephone numbers" question - Talk:Pattaya - 16:53, 1 Dec 2005

re: "you changed every bleeping phonenumber in Thailand" - comment is incorrect; the < tel. +66 (0) 12345678 > format was only used in nine other articles (a grand total of 13 phone/fax numbers).

re: "Good luck punching "660xxx" into any phone and getting it to work" - comment is misrepresentative as it disregards the bracketing of the zero.

Rest assured, I very much appreciate your work in standardizing the phone numbers. However, my interpretation is of the standard in Wikitravel:Phone numbers is that we should first and foremost use the international format ("+66-12345678"), but show the part that should be dialed locally by highlighting the country code in italics ("+66-12345678"). The "0" in there adds little value and lots of confusion, eg. I initially "corrected" a few entries to +66-0-xxx until I realized that the zero was spurious.

And why are you referring to yourself in the passive third person? Jpatokal 03:30, 30 Dec 2005 (EST)

[edit] Prostitution illegal

It's not illegal to pay for sex

I believe this is false; prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand; the law is not enforced.

According to my admittedly limited understanding, it is indeed legal to pay for sex (client-side), but it is not legal to provide sex for money (server-side). Jpatokal 23:04, 1 Jan 2006 (EST)

[edit] Big table of holidays

The large table, coming so close to the head of the document, disrupts (to me at least) the flow of the document ... does anyone else agree? And if so, and if it's not too incompatible with the manual of style, could we either move it to the bottom (with a link and an anchor) or to a subsidiary page? mr_Handy 17:24, 12 March 2006 (EST)

Moving it sounds good - so I moved it (and deleted the out-of-date stuff at the same time) and put in a link.

Quite frankly it shouldn't be in Pattaya at all. The public holidays and such should be in Thailand, and Pattaya-specific stuff should go into "Do" or "Understand" — with copies into Calendar of events and festivals, please. Jpatokal 22:19, 12 March 2006 (EST)

I suggest leaving it as it is. The idea is to provide Pattaya-specific info for each date (including "national" dates - ie about what's happening in Pattaya on those dates), and there's more info to come. There are only four dates that could potentially have no Pattaya-specific info, and as it's only four, they should be left in for completeness.

[edit] This article used to be good...

This article used to be good, but now it's not: it's too long and it's got too much crap in it. What happened? 58.147.63.1 12:14, 13 March 2006 (EST)

Mr. Overly Enthusiastic Anonymous happened. I agree with you, so please take a scalpel and start cutting out the crap. Jpatokal 12:41, 13 March 2006 (EST)

Wow! I'm speechless. This is huge. This will be on my to do list. Sapphire 01:14, 27 April 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Districting

Whoah there Sapphire, let's take this easy. First, I don't agree with the wholesale deletion of the Orientation section, it's got some good info buried in there. Second, I think you're going overboard and creating way too many districts for what isn't actually all that big a town -- could we start off with a three-way split for Jomtien, Central and Naklue for starters? Jpatokal 03:44, 27 April 2006 (EDT)

Sorry, I was a little woried about the districting, because I've never been to Thailand, nor Asia for that matter and it was hard to find any info about this place. I'm actually rearranging the Orientation section on my laptop to make it a little bit more user friendly. I would have liked your guidance earlier because I saw how crazy in size this monster was and I wanted to tame it a little. I guess drinking espressos late at night really isn't a great idea. Earlier I suggested this article as a COTW. What's your take on that? - Sapphire

Would you do me a favor and leave me a little information about what the three districts were going to use should contain? Like streets, landmarks, and the such? For example where is this Dolphain square at? Would we put Buddha Hill in Jomtien? I'd prefer it if you could leave the information here User_talk:Sapphire. Also, tommorrow at aroung 5 PM (EST) I'll have the orientation info back in and a little more concise and to the point.

A picture is worth a thousand words: [1]. So as you can see, the beach is split in three by two headlands. The south beach is Jomtien, the north bit is Naklua and the central bit is, well, Central. Jpatokal 05:08, 27 April 2006 (EDT)

The following districts are orphans. To stop them appearing on the orphan pages list I have listed them here instead. Please decide if they need to be deleted or redirected as appropriate. -- Huttite 06:49, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

• Pattaya/Bay of Pattaya deleted 18 May 2006
• Pattaya/Buddha Hill deleted 18 May 2006
• Pattaya/Downtown deleted 11 June 2006
• Pattaya/North Pattaya deleted 18 May 2006
• Pattaya/South Pattaya deleted 18 May 2006

If you still want to split this article up, perhaps moving out most of the bars/restaurants/entertainment into its own page would be the way to go? 149.9.0.21 12:06, 30 June 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Getting out

In relation to Cambodia's border where is Pattaya? Thanks! - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 11:11, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

To the west. Follow the coastline (or Sukhumvit Rd) east and you'll eventually end up in Cambodia. Jpatokal 11:52, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Sanctuary of truth

Maybe you should add information about The Sanctuary of Truth which is not far from Pattaya.

We have a brief mention of it under "see," but if you have more information please plunge forward and include it in the appropriate district. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 23:43, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Pattaya + Jomtien split - opinions & suggestions

Pattaya is a very small and compact city, and the sub-districts (Jomtien excluded) are each about the size of a postage stamp.

Pattaya Beach: because of the extremely small areas involved, the nature of much of the content (especially nightlife and transport), the chronic vagaries of the boundaries, etc etc etc, splitting this up would result in a bunch of confusing fragments that will be difficult for people to contribute to and even worse to try and use as a guide.

Naklua & Buddha Hill: neither warrant separate guides - likely potential content specific to these probably totals less than 5% of everything else north of Jomtien. Even if a "Naklua & Buddha Hill" article were not geographically impossible, it would still be an impracticably small split.

Jomtien has alternative "Get in" options from Bangkok, and is big enough, different enough, far away enough, geographically distinct enough, etc to justify a completely separate guide. I suggest everything else - ie everything north of Jomtien - be grouped together as Pattaya.

The Pattaya/Naklua article currently has less than 2.4KB of actual info, Pattaya/Central only 5.6KB - if there's no consensus against, I propose to merge these back into the main Pattaya page (already done, but not yet posted), then start on something meaningful for Jomtien. 125.24.4.216 07:31, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

I'm fine with this, although I'd like to keep Naklua separate because it is geographically a bit different. I agree that there's no point in attempting to subdivide central Pattaya. Jpatokal 10:49, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

In what way is Naklua "geographically a bit different"?

It's separated from central Pattaya by a headland. Jpatokal 22:51, 22 July 2007 (EDT)

[edit] This is a poor guide

Unfortunately, I wasn't around to object as loud as I possibly could about this article, but I've been busy with other things. This is, editorially, a poor article. Yes, I concede that it's very informative, but it is still a very poor article and lacks the common factor of past DotM articless and that's quality over quanity.

My specific objections are the many numerous and seemingly random listings. There is no information that tells me why I should pick one scuba diving place. What I, the traveler, want is a description of the services businesses offer. I don't want random listings with no information that seems like no one actually tried out, but took from the CVB's website and then copied and pasted the information to the Pattaya. Sure, that's helpful in some instance, but over doing it makes this article look like it lacks any kind of integrity.

Our mortal enemy said it best:

"There's so much information out there that people want somebody to discriminate for them, we're not doing anyone a favor to list 100 places. You want someone to say this is better than that." -- Michael Spring [2]

The other big issue is that a lot of crap is not Pattaya specific. A lot of information needs to be moved to the Thailand guide and removed from this article. Otherwise, some of info should just be trimmed down if it actually does have some relevance to the article.

It was an error to highlight Pattaya as DotM, when it is in fact a poorly conceived and written guide. Is there anyone that can turn the monstrosity around? -- Andrew H. (Sapphire) 00:22, 2 February 2007 (EST)

I agree with Andrew, this page looks pretty bad and it being highlighted as a great article isn't ideal, it just encourages people to copy what they see here. A small discussion started about it this page on Wikitravel talk:Internal links but not much response... I'd be happy to remove the internal links if others agree with me, and the see and do sections are a little horrific... hell, I'm gonna plunge forward a little... hope nobody minds... but I'd still love to know people's views on internal links... ::: Cacahuate 08:17, 2 February 2007 (EST)

Do we honestly need the Pattaya#Clubs & associations section? Who in the hell is going to meet up with the Vegetarian Club of Pattaya? Revert my removal of the section, if needed. -- Andrew H. (Sapphire) 02:49, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Not only will I not revert, I'll encourage you to keep going... I did some cleanup of the article, but every time I try to go back to it it hurts my head... too big for a small destination, but I haven't been there and don't know what to trash and what to keep. ::: Cacahuate 03:04, 7 February 2007 (EST)

I'm in the same predicament, but I'm trying to be somewhat conservative in my attacks. My approach is what will I want and need to know if I go there. -- Andrew H. (Sapphire) 03:17, 7 February 2007 (EST)

[edit] Sex

This article should really warn/inform people what Pattaya is really all about. Families bringing children here might want to be prepared to answer awkward questions. i.e. Why are half the foreigners fat balding old men with beautiful young Thai women/girls...

I think the article actually does a pretty good job. The "Drink" section leaves few illusions about what Pattaya's nightlife is all about — but there really is a plethora of sporty stuff to do unparallled in Thailand. Jpatokal 08:20, 17 February 2007 (EST)

[edit] The "Getting Out" Section

Has anyone else noticed the "Get In" section seems to be mostly about leaving. I'm going to go to Pattaya today so I'll try and update a bit sometime in the next week. George. 203.144.143.6 22:20, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Pictures

If anyone has some good pictures from this place, please for god sakes add them, it's hurting the eyes, we need something to break it up (see Stockholm how a large article can actually be comprehensible) --Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 07:33, 10 December 2008 (EST)