Accommodations, Part 6: The Poseidon Guesthouse in Jomtien

The Poseidon Boutique Guesthouse in Jomtien may be a little out of the way for those hell-bent on whooping it up while staying in Pattaya, but that's also a large part of it's charm for this old dog.

Unless you have your heart set on multi-level indoor mall shopping you can find almost anything else you'd want within a few blocks of the Poseidon: miles of beach, thousands of chairs and umbrellas, a book store or two, newstands, a variety of restaurant cuisine, beer bars and clubs and yes - even some nighttime entertainment. Pattaya itself is just a short 10 minute ride away, if you really want malls and crowds and traffic. If you want to be right in the heart of the nightlife in Pattaya proper I'd recommend Baan Dok Mai, also a friendly place but of a more basic style. Both have their good points.

The Poseidon rates may sound a bit higher, but I've found it to be a good value for both that I've tried: the Superior room and the VIP Studio. Nightly rates in low season on their web site today are (approximately) between US$43 for a Superior room and US$77 for the VIP Studio. For high season the same rooms would be US$53 and US$91. I've not stayed in the Master Suite because at 80 square meters (861 square feet) it's far beyond my needs, space-wise.

The Standard room is actually more of a level other places might call a Superior room. The decor is tastefully done, the towels and linens are of a very good quality, there's a desk of adequate proportion - something often lacking - and the basic items you'd expect to find (the TV, room safe and VCD player, for example) are all above the norm. In fact, I found the VCD player to be a handy way to play music in the room.

They provide a fairly full range of items in the mini-bar but as I always prefer to stock my own snacks and beverages they've always been good about sending housekeeping up to remove their stock - something I learned long ago helped avoid unexplained charges on check-out, and something I now ask for at every hotel. Just to be clear, though: I've never had an unexplained charge at Poseidon.

As is the case at most of my favorite places in Thailand, the staff themselves are a feature. Pleasant, welcoming and professional they have the luxury of not having so many rooms that they can't keep track of who's staying with them, and they not only remember you when you're coming and going they look as if they actually care and aren't merely going through the motion of being polite. Hospitality staff can be a somewhat transient occupation, but many of the Poseidon folks have been there for a while, and it's nice to see familiar faces each time I stay there.

Normally I tend to stay in lodging a little more simple (it makes a longer stay a bit easier on the pocketbook and frees up funds for some charity work I enjoy) but they have VIP Studios at the Poseidon with not only a shower area of generous proportions, but a Jacuzzi. There's just no better way to relax and mull over the day after showering off the sweat and dust, and I've enjoyed them immensely. If one of those rooms is available, I highly recommend booking it. If it's been a hot day, try it with the water just barely warm. Heavenly!

Breakfast at the Poseidon is an activity best enjoyed at a leisurely pace. My personal preference is outside on their front terrace to watch the area come alive, but you can sit inside if you prefer. The juice and fruits are always fresh, likewise the delicate croissant, the coffee is "real" coffee - and the omelets are made to order. Grab a paper from the lobby table and take your time! Some of my nicest memories of the place are my quiet breakfasts there, and the chats with the staff while they take and deliver my order and then go about their regular morning duties, tidying up, sweeping, that sort of thing. Sadly one of my favorite waiters has moved on to another hotel, but nothing lasts forever. We'll catch up with him in another post, another day.

From the front door you're maybe 30 feet from where you'd catch the song taew on Thapraya Road into Pattaya proper, if that was your plan for the day or evening. It's 10 baht to ride it either direction, and they're both regular as clockwork and easy to flag down: hold your hand out, palm down, and sort of cup your four fingers down and in quickly two or three times, as if you were grabbing a handle. That's also the way you'd call someone over to join you, as the upturned crooking of the index finger we'd use in the West is considered to be impolite.

There's been major re-paving done on Thapraya over the past couple of years and I understand that while it's nearly completed there's still work being done. At least it isn't the 20 minutes of dirt, dust and delays.

If you go out the front door and go the other direction (to the right) you'll be at the shoreline in about 300 yards by making a few turns, not "as the crow flies". On your way you'll pass the one club with an actual show: the Venue. They have a full singing/dancing/cabaret show that I've yet to see but am told is fun. At the Venue corner you'd make a couple more quick turns before taking a right onto Thapraya road again and the short stroll to the beach. You'll see better what I mean on the Poseidon's location map and aerial map below.

You'll arrive at the beach near the main sign for Dongtan Beach, and all along there you'll find many places happy to rent you a chair in the shade for the day for about 50 baht. We'll visit the beach another day, too - but just to give you a point of reference. Naturally I can't say there aren't other places to stay that are closer to the beach than the Poseidon - but none I've stayed in so far that I've liked as well.

[Note: like PJ's Place in Chiang Mai The Poseidon is a smaller venue and very popular with return visitors. It books up quickly, so do your best to make reservations early to avoid being disappointed. Now (August) is not too early if you're thinking of a VIP Studio during January. By the way - someone's sure to ask about guests: For your safety IDs are recorded and held at the reception desk. There is no charge for guest visits.]

Map from the Poseiden web site

The Poseidon is the green star on the map above

A Follow-up To Yesterday's Post

At sunset on a Jomtien area beach, just to have an image for today

A reader left a comment about yesterday's post that deserved more of an answer than would gracefully fit into the "comments" section, so I'm replying today. As a reminder:

The initial idea behind Bao-Bao's Blog was to provide a place for me to share my photos, stories and observations without the usual nonsense involved with online forums (i.e. profanity, flaming and other abuse) -- and hopefully help two categories of people who may stumble across it: Newbies who are seeking some information before a first or second trip and old-timers who enjoy just being reminded about the Land of Smiles. Some have been kind enough to let me know they look at it regularly, and I'm flattered.

It is - and will remain - relatively "G-Rated" - and that rules out much "adult" detail. For anyone interested about the nightlife in the more colorful parts of town there are already plenty of sites online as reference.

That out of the way, I've paraphrased and numbered yesterday's comment questions below.

1) Are the "Adult" bar and club shows production numbers or strip shows?

Both, in some clubs... only one or the other in some, only "stand and pose" in others. By walking past the clubs the touts will let you know - usually in explicit detail - if there's a show involved. Again, check some other web sites where nightlife discussions are held.

2) How much nudity is allowed on stage in Thailand?

Officially? None. It depends on what bribes have been paid to look the other way, and to whom.

3) Is pornography legal in Thailand?

No. That's not to say it isn't available, but adult items of any sort are rare - with two exceptions: "sexy movies" are readily available in many night markets and computer malls (see a post about those touts here) and condoms are widely (and wisely) available at most convenience stores, like 7-11.

4) What about the government crack down on clubs several years ago?

See #2. There's a continual ebb and flow to what shows are on, and where. Gay clubs seem to bear more of the brunt of "tea money" enforcement, but I don't have any facts to back that opinion up.

Thanks for the comment. I appreciate you participating.

Pre-Show Free Show

If it's fair to say that there's a "seedy" side to Bangkok's night life (and that's being generously fair, trust me) it's certainly true for the beach side resort town of Pattaya. We're not going to enter into a debate about it at this point, but while on walks into the evening and night hours - when the temperature is most pleasant - I've taken a number of photos and had many interesting visits with the club workers themselves. A few of those stories have already appeared here (Where The Wild Boys Live, First Go-Go Interview: Na and Noi's story).

A reader asked if I'd do a post of activity in the night club area with some photos of the guys, and I ran across a few yesterday I'd taken in Pattaya in mid-December 2008 (note the Christmas decorations and potted poinsettias) while walking back to my hotel from a late dinner. I'd heard music coming from around the corner while on Second Road and looking around the corner saw a group of dancers from a club out in front, doing routines to draw customers inside for the show that would begin in about a half hour.

I stood and watched while taking a few shots of the dancers, and after they finished and were milling about before going back into the club I asked if they'd gather for a posed group shot. They seemed happy to oblige.

Those of you who read a forum I've posted to may well recognize the second (Dancing) shot as being one of a dozen or so I'd cropped down and loaned to an online forum. You'll see full versions of the others eventually, too. Leave a comment if there was one in particular you'd like to see here.

The last item today is one of three clips I took with the snapshot camera, which obviously doesn't do well in low-light situations. You'll see several cars and song taews passing between me on my side of the street and the dancers on theirs, but that's just part and parcel of the experience.

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At The Shore, Part 2: Childish Joys

Wouldn't you agree the most corny lines ever from a personals ad has to be "I like long walks on the beach"? If I had a ten baht coin for every time I've seen that old chestnut used I'd be a very wealthy man at any exchange rate in any country. Nevertheless, in my case it's a truism: a slow stroll along the shoreline at or shortly past dawn is one of my favorite ways to begin a day while on vacation. Late afternoon through sunset is such a close second I really can't pick a favorite; both have their unique charm.

Because there's so much more activity and far more people on the beach in the afternoons I usually get more photos later in the day. Just as you'd expect anywhere, families and groups of friends gather to share food and fun along the shoreline - and most days it's a rich harvest of images if I keep my eyes open and the camera ready. I go through batteries faster having the viewfinder on all the time, but I learned long ago to bring an extra set along with me.

A father helping his son learn how to swim

Children tend to be the best subjects, and my theory is it's because they're the most uninhibited about letting loose, being silly and having fun. A line from "A Thousand Clowns", one of my favorite old movies goes "Children are too honest to be wise," and there's a lot of logic to that. The main reason a child is unhappy that they laugh so hard the milk they were drinking comes out of their nose is because it's uncomfortable. With luck their misfortune will surprise their friends into doing the same thing! For an adult it's humiliating. The people in today's pictures are out having fun with complete abandon, and it's great fun to watch, especially when my mind is more willing than my middle-aged body.

For some reason I don't fully understand we seem to fall into believing the old claptrap we were told as we were officially leaving childhood when we were first admonished to "act our age". Frankly, my body reminds me to act my age quite often enough, thank you - I refuse to waste an opportunity to be a child every so often unless I absolutely have to put on the hat of dignity and make like an adult.

Floating along on a rented inner tube

Talented Topiary Trimmers

While I've admired the skill and dedication it must take to maintain the thousands of public gardens throughout Thailand - most of which feature at least a few carefully trimmed shrubs, hedges and topiary pieces - I hadn't stopped very often to make more than passing note of the people who maintain them.

While walking along in the Ratchethewi area at Petcha Buri Road one day I noticed someone doing some of this work out among the traffic islands at a large intersection and stopped to watch for a few minutes. It's undoubtedly hot work, made no cooler by the clothing she was wearing: a long sleeved shirt, long pants, a hat and what actually looked like a t-shirt but may have been a scarf or Muslim-type headpiece wrapped around her face. My guess was that it was protection from fumes.

Despite the heat and exhaust of countless cars, trucks and tuk-tuks (which can often spew exhaust that equals of a much larger vehicle) she was focused on her task; pausing often to lean back for a better look before making a few practiced swipes with her large shears. I was surprised she could concentrate at all, what with the continual roar of traffic and the fumes - they were making me a little woozy, or so it seemed. Might have just been the heat. Anyway, we exchanged smiles before she went back to her work and I went on my way.

Another day I was walking past Peace Park on Ratchawithi Road (near the now burned out Central One mall - seen here in better times) and saw the man below doing similar work, although he wasn't doing the same detailed topiary type of trimming that day. He knew a little English so we could exchange pleasantries and he happily accepted the bottle of fresh orange juice I'd bought for him from a cart vendor who's often there. I haven't seen him there since, but I was glad to run into him that one time, and I make a point to be more appreciative their craftsmanship when I see it there now.

Life Imitates Art

I'm not yet 60, but sometimes I think my mind's going.

I'd been going through folders of images this morning, looking for pictures taken at BTS stations for a post in progress, but invariably ended up opening and adjusting unrelated photos - one after another after another. The end result is yet another couple of dozen pictures to post at SOME point, but not the few needed to illustrate the story I wanted to post today.

One that caught my eye was the picture above, taken at a Swenson's ice cream parlor during Christmas time in 2008. Odds are the young man behind the counter will never actually see a snowman in real life, but there one was as a graphic on the signboard to his right, complete with cherry eyes and the triangular wafer Swenson's used for decades here in California. The only store left here now is the original store in San Francisco that opened in 1948. There are still franchises throughout the world, though, including quite a few in Thailand.

There. You see how easily I'm distracted?

The point of the photo is how the young man unwittingly struck the same "pose" as the counter card (although he has a mouth and is lacking a scarf) while helping a customer.

More on Swenson's when we get back to the "Same Same, but different" series.

Superstitions: Speaking About Death

The two-lane road from Chiang Mai up to the beautiful mountaintop temple Doi Suthep is a series of switchbacks and blind turns, none of it graced by guard rails or enough heavy shrubbery to keep one from making an end-over-end detour a ways down the extremely steep mountainside.

I was reminded yesterday about a ride back down that winding road on my first trip to Thailand. The Thai friend along with me that day was named Voy, the “first generation” off of the family farm into the Big Mango that is Bangkok. Although he had already been Westernized to a degree he was a country boy at heart, and seemed happier in Chiang Mai than in Silom.

He’d suggested we commission a song taew (a pick-up truck with a metal roof over the back to cover the bench seats along the sides) to take just the two of us up to the temple, wait while we wandered around, and then drive us back down into Chiang Mai to my hotel by the Ping river.

It had been misting the whole time we were at the temple and had begun raining in earnest by the time we were headed back down the mountain towards town, and the driver seemed to be in a hurry. He was going far too fast for my comfort on a road that was now slick with rain, in addition to being twisty.

I was hanging tightly onto the bars along the inside, wondering how I'd fare in the semi-open back of this truck if the tires lost grip on the asphalt and we attempted a "shortcut" into town. Other than the two of us there were no others in the back and I imagined us tumbling around like sheets in a dryer. I asked Voy to tell the driver to please slow down. "I don't want to arrive back at the guest house dead," I said.

From the look on his face you'd have thought I'd just suggested Voy had enjoyed having relations with his mother the previous night. He was absolutely shocked. More than shocked, really; his face paled as he gasped in surprise and then said (more forcefully than I’d ever heard him speak) "NEVER say this! VERY bad luck!" I understood and immediately apologized, but he continued to frown - although he did ask the driver to slow down. He then sat silently, his brow knitted as we rode along, the tires singing on the wet pavement.

There was a break in the rain so we made a stop at a scenic vista point (panorama photo above) where he quickly fired up a cigarette while I played tourist and took photos. Soon he calmed down and began to clown around in his usual manner. By the time we were climbing back into the truck it was evident he’d let it go, and we joked about many things the rest of the way... except dying.

Thai Smiles, Part 13: Begging Children

There were a couple of ways I could have gone today to include the photo above: as an entry in the "Smiles" series, or as part of a cautionary post about abused children. My overall mood hasn't been the brightest lately anyway, so let's skirt around the issue of child abuse for now and just go blithely about our day and assume these two boys were out for a lark at the foot of the Sala Daeng BTS station, shall we?

On my first couple of trips there my Thai friends were quick to reel me back in when I was handing out money too often, discretely telling me in hushed tones a number of reasons how it may overall do more damage than good for me to drop cash into the cups, bowls or hands of children begging alone or with an adult along the street - but it went against my nature.

Having since run into many more needy individuals and paying more attention to detail I, too, have come to have a better feeling about which to give money to, which to give food to and which to just pass by. I often err on the side of generosity, but I'm getting better about it. [Note that today's kids are very different than the students we saw "panhandling" for funds in a different post back in May.]

That said, these two representatives of The Great Unwashed were having quite a time giggling between themselves the three or four times I saw them at this particular post one afternoon. Maybe it was the drinks and things obviously provided by kind passers-by, maybe they'd already made their assigned amounts for the day -- who knows? Unaware I was watching they were giggling so much that the smaller of the two grabbed his privates at one point as though he were about to wet himself while convulsed with laughter. If it was a set-up, I fell for it.

I took the photo, dropped coins into each of their outstretched hands, accepted their generous number of wais and went up the stairs to catch my train back to my dinner out, a pleasant evening with friends and a good night's sleep in a safe hotel room.

With gratitude.

Hello, Young Lovers

Public displays of affection between adults are seldom seen in Thailand. That's not to say you won't see people hug or occasionally see one Thai give another a peck on the cheek, but overt displays are considered bad manners at best, even if there's no exact phrase in Thai for "Hey! Get a room, you two!"

I think it's a social quality to be admired, myself; but I'm getting to be of an age of shifting moral opinions so readily admit I may not be the most impartial judge of such things. The Thai are a caring and affectionate people, but it's shown in more subtle ways: a compliment, an offering to share food, a small gift, maybe a pat on the back.

Sometimes friends of the same sex walk hand in hand there, but it has a far more innocent meaning than it would in the West; denoting nothing more than friendship. What you don't see is tongue wrestling, where a couple sits in public somewhere and "swap spit" as we used to say back in the Paleozoic era. Nowadays it seems to happen almost everywhere in the West; maybe the cost of gum has risen to a point where it must be shared, I don't know - but it seems to me groping and fondling just seem to be something better done without quite so many others in attendance as witnesses. Call me crazy.

In a round about way that leads me to the post today. The young man in the photo above had been working on a construction site in an area where I was wandering around one noontime (mad dogs and Englishmen and all that). Tired, I'd stopped in a shady spot to people watch.

Off a short ways away and out of the line of sight of the others on the job site I spotted two people on the ground. Being as nosy as the next guy (maybe more so) I moved over to a position with a better view, wondering at first if perhaps one of them was injured and was being given medical attention of some sort. That wasn't the case; the two were a couple. I'll never know if they were married or dating or something in-between, but it was a scene as gentle and caring as you'd ever want to see, and indicative of both the people and the culture.

Once I realized the site was shut down for a mid-day lunch break (the empty bottles and small containers near them bore evidence of a meal just finished) it was obvious the young woman had come by to visit her man and now sat with his head in her lap, gently stroking his hair while he lay contentedly, eyes closed. He was motionless except for the occasional small smile while she cradled his head and spoke softly to him.

I felt a little guilty watching them, but there was an ease and kindness that warmed this old heart of mine. Far too soon a sharp call came from the foreman, and the man reluctantly sat up, rubbed his eyes and stood, stepping back into his rubber sandals. The woman looked around and then gave him a quick kiss on the lips before gathering up the remains of their lunch, waving as he went back to work.

Random Pictures: More Kids

Despite the week-long computer snafu here I've found some random photos of kids I'd previously prepared and stored on an alternate drive... so although there's not much of a story to go with any of them it is a post, by God.

The header photo today of a boy crouched in the pipe in a play area of Nong Prajak park in Udonthani is another of my favorite photos, like the boy laughing his fool head off after dunking a friend in the water on in Pattaya from July 13th's post.

The boy on the right in the camouflage shirt has already appeared in a photo about Thai smiles on the job, sitting with his father in the family upholstery shop, but on that same morning walk he'd followed along with me and I did manage to get him to sit still for a moment with a couple of his friends for this one:

While visiting a public school on scholarship business I found students there were just as pleased to be distracted from their studies as children in class most anywhere else. I'd done nothing to encourage them, but after only two other shots I was spotted in the doorway and only got this one other shot before they all looked up and began "posing" and giggling. Having learned a lesson myself I backed out of sight so as to not disrupt the class any more than I had already.