Pot-bellied German pederasts mincing around in flowery shirts, Dutch dropouts, Austrian dykes with piercings, French ex-colonial heavies, Russian teenage girls squirming as they listen to their ghetto-blasters -- it's hard to forget Michel Houellebecq's portrait of Thailand's premier east coast resort at the end of his sensational 2001 novel Platform.
And this has constituted Pattaya's reputation ever since it was first developed as an R&R resort for American troops during the Vietnam War. The whole of the coarse West's exploitation and despoliation of the exquisite East seemed to be summed up in that one word -- Pattaya.
But what's it like today? What's changed? There's been much publicity promoting a reformed, cleaned-up Pattaya. Has the grisly old leopard, redolent of musk and stale beer mats, really managed to change its suppurating spots?
It's certainly the case that the vast majority of Taiwan's visitors to Thailand go there -- girlfriends, wives and young children included. Three nights in Bangkok and two in Pattaya is the standard tour-package offered at any Taipei travel agent.
So, do these people see the place as Houellebecq saw it? Or could it be the case that, instead, they see something completely different?
The truth of the matter, as with so many matters, lies somewhere in between. Pattaya's nightlife, which was once dirty, seedy and disreputable, is nowadays clean, tidy and disreputable. Bars still flaunt girls and boys with numbers round their waists dancing lazily until someone from the audience picks them out and pays to take them away for an hour or two (though some battered old no-hopers, it should be said, manage to find partners for what's left of their lives in this manner).
But for the rest, Pattaya today is remarkably comfortable, healthy and even salubrious. Its best hotels are outstanding, its restaurants serve quality food from the most celebrated European cuisines, its beaches are safe and congenial, and the quality of the sea water, not so long ago dubious, is now somewhere between good and excellent.
On a hot Thai morning you can walk down the pedestrianized Golden Mile (officially known as the Walking Street), take an espresso and croissant while overlooking the bay where the jet-ski operators are getting ready for another busy day, and all there is to offend the most Protestant sensibility is a waiter sponging down the bar-stools where a few hours previously Thai and other girls were, as Houellebecq would have it, squirming to the sound-system.
You can then take an open-sided mini-bus to Jomtien Beach ten minutes away, overlooked by condominiums housing the town's large number of expatriate retirees, and enjoy a day in a deckchair under a beach umbrella with no one to bother you. There may well be some strange spectacles promenading in front of you along the sand, but why not? It's free theater, after all, and surely the girls and boys who've labored away so hard the night before, cruelly exploited as they undoubtedly are, also deserve their afternoon in the sun.
Pattaya's best hotels are marvelous indeed. The Royal Cliff (tel: 66-38-250420), perched high on its promontory, with its 10 restaurants and five swimming-pools, is internationally famous. The Montien Hotel (tel: 66-38-428155) is also a high-quality hostelry.
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