http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/world/asia/16iht-pattaya.html?scp=1&sq=pattaya&st=cse
PATTAYA, THAILAND ââ¬â Somewhere in the world there may be a city with a more seedy reputation, a place more devoted to the sex industry and more notorious as a haven for criminals on the lam. But probably not.
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SLIDE SHOW: Thailand's Sin City Reaches for Respectability
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When dusk comes to this beach resort, a sea of pink neon bulbs casts a pale glow onto the thickly made-up faces of thousands of women (and some men) who sit on bar stools waiting for their patrons.
If Las Vegas is Sin City, Pattaya is a bear hug from Lucifer himself.
And yet, amid the back alleys jammed with girlie bars and a beachfront peopled with what the Thais euphemistically call ââ¬Åservice women,ââ¬Â there are signs of change.
Indian couples, Chinese tour groups and vacationing Russian families stroll around the city. A dozen luxury hotels cater to the weekend crowd of wealthy Thais from Bangkok who mingle with tourists at a huge shopping mall. Pattaya has a growing number of fancy restaurants, an annual music festival and, perhaps most improbably, regular polo tournaments. ..........
Olga Bidenko, 28, a tourist from Ukraine who came to Pattaya with a colleague from the marketing company she works for, said she was entertained by Walking Street, a thoroughfare stretching a kilometer and a half, or about a mile, blocked to motor traffic and packed with bars. Typical of the bars is Sexy Airline, where women dressed in old-fashioned air hostess outfits call out to prospective patrons passing by.
ââ¬ÅWe thought Amsterdam was the sex capital of the world,ââ¬Â said Ms. Bidenko, 28. ââ¬ÅBut now that Iââ¬â¢ve been here, I think Amsterdam is a perfectly respectable city.ââ¬Â
