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Pattaya, Thailand: Walking Street after dark, neon, a boxing ring and a cobra

Two nights in Pattaya in May 2016. Walking Street neon, a snake handler and Muay Thai sharing one bar ring, and the floating market the next afternoon.

We got to Pattaya in May 2016 with no plan beyond finding out what all the noise was about. The answer is that the noise starts around nine at night and doesn't let up until the bar staff start stacking chairs.

Walking Street

Crowds walking under a wall of neon signs on Pattaya's Walking Street at night, including a kebab shop, go-go bars and a club sign
Walking Street at full blast. There's no gap between the signs and no gap in the crowd either.
A cabaret performer in a sequinned costume and a tall black feather headdress standing on Pattaya's Walking Street at night, tourists walking past
A performer out on the pavement drumming up an audience, apparently unbothered by carrying half a metre of feathers in that humidity.

One ring, two acts

Halfway down we followed a crowd into a place called The Champion, which puts a full boxing ring in the middle of the room and fills it with whatever the schedule says. What you get depends entirely on what time you walk in.

A snake handler kneeling in a boxing ring at The Champion bar in Pattaya, holding a raised cobra under pink and red lights
The first act of the evening. He held the cobra at arm's length, and we held our drinks considerably tighter.
Two Muay Thai fighters facing off in the ring at The Champion beer bar in Pattaya, under a sign reading The Champion Beer Bar and Thai Boxing
Then the snakes went away and the Muay Thai started. Same ring, same crowd, a lot more elbows. If you want the proper version of this, it's worth waiting for a stadium card in Bangkok.

Daylight, eventually

The next afternoon we swapped neon for water and went out to the floating market, a village of shingle-roofed shops built on stilts around a set of canals. It's the tidied-up version of the real thing, and after Walking Street we weren't going to complain about tidy.

Inga holding an iced drink beside a canal at Pattaya's floating market, wooden shingle-roofed shops on stilts lining the water behind her
Iced something in a plastic cup, wooden shops down both banks, and a boat vendor paddling past in a straw hat.

Pattaya works well as a base. The carved wooden temple at the Sanctuary of Truth, the fossil garden and crocodile show at the Million Years Stone Park, and the naga staircase up Big Buddha Hill are all short drives out of town, and we started our last morning at the fresh market. If you're coming down from Bangkok, it's a couple of hours on the motorway.