Toy Boy

Heavy rain for about 30 minutes already here in South Pattaya. It's easing off but you still wouldn't want to be out in that.

I must admit that I'm still a bit shocked by what Snooky has become, the Chinese have basically done there in less than a decade what it took the Thais and their various foreign partners half a century to do in Pattaya. And the reality is even worse according to this informative Chinese article I found online: https://globalchinapulse.net/sihanoukville-rise-and-fall-of-a-frontier-city/ While the authorities and locals get worked up in Pattaya about failed projects like the Waterfront, Snooky is now on a totally different level: "According to an official from Cambodia’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, as of early July 2022, Sihanoukville had 1,155 projects that remained incomplete, accounting for 70 to 80 per cent of all the buildings in the city—a situation that was still dragging on at the time of writing in mid-2024, despite various attempts by the Cambodian Government and Chinese business associations to find viable solutions." So those buildings under construction in the photo of the Golden Lions I got from The Times are most likely to have been abandoned. Anyway, one of my plans if the tax authorities were to force me to spend no more than 179 days a year in Thailand was to move down the coast to Snooky for 4 or 5 months of the year, but that no longer looks like it would be a good idea.

Thanks for posting that, I really hadn't realised how far it had gone. Sad IMHO, but I suppose the Chinese love it, probably reminds them of the urban deserts they live in back home. I wonder what the locals make of it? I'm just glad I spent several visits there in the days when it was a sleepy, unspoilt town. One historical aside: during my first few visits the local Governor had banned the rental of motorbikes to foreign tourists as there had been a few unfortunate accidents, probably with some excess C2H6O involved. As it covers a big area and I had little idea about the layout, this didn't bother me and I was happy to use the cheap motorbike taxis. It certainly annoyed a lot of people, though, and was OTT as a reaction as, at the time, it probably had the widest, quietest roads of any decent-sized town I've ever been in.

We've probably all read about the Chinese takeover of Snooky and how it's nothing but casinos and high-rise buildings these days. This was the view of the town from Wat Leu, the temple up on the hill behind the town, back in 2005, though it's spread over such a large area that it's difficult to get it all in one photo. That's looking towards Occheuteal Beach and note the complete absence of anything high-rise, and the rest of the city to the right of the photo, over towards Victory Hill and the port area, was the same. I mentioned that I used to stay on Occheuteal Beach. Just behind it was a famous Snooky landmark, the Golden Lions traffic circle (that's a roundabout to us Brits). I took the left-hand snap back in 2005, and the town was much the same in all directions. Then a few months ago I was reading an article in The Times on the developments over the last decade or so in Cambodia and they included the photo on the right of what the Golden Lion traffic circle looks like nowadays. Call me a stick-in-the mud, but I much preferred it in the old days, though there's far more money sloshing around the place and I hope enough of it makes its way down to the ordinary Khmers.

Back in 2008, I spent a week in Snooky and hired a car and driver to have a gander along the coast all the way down to Kep. The only thing of interest really between Snooky and Kampot was the Elephant Mountains with the Bokor Hill Resort on top. I wanted to visit that but the Koreans were building a new road up the side of the mountains and turning Bokor into a casino resort so it was a no go area at the time. This was before the Chinese takeover of Cambodia, they were just starting to show up in Snooky, but there were no casinos or high rise buildings there yet. They'd built one fancy hotel on a small island and that was advertised for $2K/night. This was the road up to Bokor under construction at the time: I was interested to visit Kampot as I'd met a Belgian guy from another forum who lived there with his Khmer wife. Your photos make it look positively bustling and cosmopolitan compared with 2008. There were some foreign-owned bars near the river and I had a beer and lunch in one, the Rusty Keyhole, owned by a Kiwi couple. The whole place really was dead, I'd have gone out of my mind with boredom in a week living there. The Belgian guy clearly lived there because it was his wife's home town and he spent most of his time on the road, supposedly for business reasons but we'd once met up in the Pattaya Beer Garden and he didn't seem to be doing much business there. His main interest was getting me to show him The Windmill Club which he'd heard a lot about and he loved the hands-on nudity. I once mentioned as a joke that I might start a Gogo Bar in Kampot, and his Khmer wife declared me persona non grata after that, lol. Here's a few miscellaneous views of Kampot: Kep was a bit more lively and also more foreign-touristy. The main attraction, unless you were travelling onto Vietnam, was the local crab with pepper, which was OK but expensive for such a poor country. Here's a few random views: I'd spent a lot of time in Phnom Penh, Snooky and Koh Kong, where I'd almost married a gorgeous young Khmer bird, until her boyfriend had appeared from nowhere and told her he'd kill me if I ever contacted her again. Well, that was a mood breaker for sure, lol. I particularly liked Snooky with its old buildings and large, spread-out area, surrounded by half a dozen nice beaches and lots of countryside, and its laid-back attitude. In the early 2000's my favourite watering hole was the Fisherman's Den, a rooftop bar run by a Kiwi named Brian and his mate. The red light areas were slowly being closed down until, by my last visit in 2008, there was only one left on the hill. After 17 years away I'm sure I wouldn't recognise the place now, but I've got some very fond memories of it from my many trips between 2001 and 2008.

There's not many actual book shops left in Pattaya nowadays, Asia Books in Central was the last shop I went to and that was during Covid, so hardly recent. Plus their selection wasn't huge and the prices were often eye-watering. It's taken 20 years of living here, but I'm finally getting interested in learning more about the history of the place, so I've been buying the occasional book from Amazon when I'm back in the UK and lugging it back here to Thailand. Lately, adverts for this online shop started appearing in my FB feed: https://www.riverbooksbk.com/index.php/books/english-books.html so I visited their website and ordered three books. Paid by online bank transfer, and they turned up around three days later. They offer free delivery in Thailand which is always a big plus for me. These were the three I bought for starters: The ancient sites book is self-explanatory, and the other two are historical fiction. Here are some reviews: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/18054227-a-woman-of-angkor https://www.accartbooks.com/us/book/diogos-chronicle/ They'll keep me off the streets for a while, anyway. The shop offers a decent selection of what are, after all, quite niche books, with good service and quick, free delivery. If you're looking for something interesting to read, you could do worse than have a browse here.

They're all at it now.... lol

I'm all in favour of saving the environment, but I think this Thai attempt at avoiding plastic straws may just be a step too far... lol