Pattaya is Thai city of 22,2 km² for a population of approximately 105 000 inhabitants (Figure going up to 500 000 at certain moment of the year if we count the tourists, the unregistered expats and the thais who are working there but still registered in their hometowns). It's the biggest seaside resort of the country and the second in term of infrastructure after Bangkok. The city is distant of 147 km from the capital, in the south-east province of Chonburi, on the coast of the gulf of Thailand.
Until the beginning of the Sixties, the city was a tiny village of fishermen until the inhabitants of Bangkok decide to go there for the weekend. Quickly after that, the American soldiers based at U-Tapao (in the province of Rayong) began to spent their "rest and recuperation" (R&R) over there instead of going back to Bangkok. It's at that time the sulfurous reputation of the city was born but actually it isn't worse than elsewhere especially than since the beginning of the Nineties, the city makes new skin, passing from the place dreamed for single people, to the place of family vacancy.






