Moving on to Pattaya for a few days

Today I went 2 hours southeast of Bangkok to Pattaya, the beach town. Pattaya has evolved over the last few years into a more family friendly resort city. No, the sex sleaze is still there but there is a different kind of peerson traveling there. There are more Asian tourists from China, Japan and Korea. The Russians visiting are not so much the ill-dressed rude, drunk, exploiters of young beauties. There are more sophisticated Russian couples and families. Western...American and British are fewer.
In addition, there is an effort to present a family friendly shopping destination. This is evidenced by a few more 4 and 5 star hotels and several new or remodeled shopping malls.

The ride down to pattaya from Bangkok was a bit different. I used my taxi driver from the airport for the 2 hour drive. Mr Vilai was my assigned taxi driver at the airport queue when I arrived. I noticed his cab was immaculately clean and he was wearing a pressed shirt with epaulettes. As well, he was a careful driver. We were talking about my trip and he offered to take me to Pattaya for 40% of the usual limo price I usually use. It was a good trip with accompaniment by Mr Vilai's personal burned CDs of American country music; not the usual wailing of Thai regional music.
Another interesting thing on the ride was a big effort by authorities and volunteers to discourage drunk driving during the holiday period....at the expressway toll booths they were giving away several bottles of mineral water to each car. "Drink water not alcohol"
We arrived and I went poolside to read in the very lovely weather..low humidity (for Thailand) and temperatures in the high 70's.