After an hour of rest in the hotel room in Pattaya, I went to see Alcazar Cabaret. The show is conducted in a theatre consisting of more than 1000 seats. The show started within a short time. Though the name of the show is Alcazar Cabaret, this is a beautiful programme in which a number of wonderful dancers with lovely costumes participate. It would be a great loss if you do not watch this programme in which more than 200 artists take part. The amazing stage settings that change with the captivating scenes in the dance, the matching illuminations, and the melody of the Chinese music combined together made this show an amusing one.
The show lasts an hour and a half. When I came out after the show, I could see the rush of tourists to take photos with the dancers in the show. For taking snaps, there is a small fee. The most interesting thing is that most of the female dancers were transgender. These female dancers (or male dancers??) are physically more attractive than the real female beauties. After the show, I decided to relax in the hotel room. I took rest for some time and then went out to see the famous night life of Pattaya, a resort city in Thailand. The tourists to Pattaya have a lot to see, enjoy, and study from this place.
Just like the different types of theme parks, Sriracha Tiger Zoo, Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden, crocodile farm, underwater world, the alluring beaches, and the customs and traditions of that place, the nightlife of Pattaya is also a major attraction to tourists. In Pattaya, we can also see large number of Buddhists, smiling at its varied lifestyles. The streets are full of road-side eatery shops, bars and massage parlours. In the road-side eateries, we can find diverse Chinese foods. These eatery shops are made colourful by scorpions, snakes and cockroaches. Cockroaches are fried and kept in mounds, like chips, and served in heaps to those who want them. I saw some people munching these fried cockroaches when they passed by. Snakes and scorpions are cooked without spoiling their shapes and bathed in masala (a mixture of many spices) and decorated aesthetically.
The scorpions look like they are ready to jump on us. I no more felt hungry after seeing all these. The nightlife of Pattaya includes these road-side eateries, bars, loud music and street girls with lot of makeup on their faces and showing off their hands and legs. These girls are not like the ones who are looked at with disdain in our country; in Pattaya, they are sex workers and this is their profession. Pattaya has accepted sex work as a calling and any girl who has attained the age of majority can get a permit for this if she applies. Most of the tourists walking through the streets have these beauties with them. They go to bars, massage parlours or hotel rooms for spending the night.
Sometimes, if you see a person standing alone on the road, he will either be an agent of a massage parlour or of sex. These people will have multicoloured brochures with them. Here, the third genders are also active just like women. Even if this is the true picture, the native people do not agree with this opinion. They behave as if everything is normal. I went back to the hotel room as it was around midnight and I had planned to go for sightseeing the next morning.
I got up in the morning and dressed up to go to Coral Island which was planned as the first destination for that day. It is a 45-minutes boat journey from Pattaya to the Coral Island. In the sea, we can see platforms built at different spots. This is where paragliding is done. Even if I did not want to go for paragliding, I alighted here to take some pictures. I could see lot of people enjoying parasailng, irrespective of their ages. A parachute is attached to a person’s body by a harness, the front end of which is hooked to a boat. As soon as the boat starts moving, the parasailor is towed by the boat and the parachute opens and he glides through the air. The way the paragliders rise into the sky, the facial expressions of the people when they go up in the sky, the deep breath they take when they land, all these are really enjoyable views.
I took a few shots and went straight to Coral Island. It is a pleasingly neat and gorgeous beach with crystal clear water through which we can see the bottom of the sea. The scenery of green mounds in the background, the magnificent beach below that and the holidaymakers enjoying in the beach is all something that one should experience personally. This place is a paradise of enjoyment with all the sources of entertainment, like sea water scooter, undersea walking and banana boat; open restaurants serving delicious foods of different countries; and the road-side eateries offering varieties of Thai tastes and flavours; etc. I had food from one of the Indian restaurants and went back to Pattaya. The rest of the journey will be described in the next part.
