Pattaya Article in Time Magazine

Time magazine has a huge article about Pattaya up online. It's not very flattering, but it is spot on. Well... other than the trash on the beach and the dirtiness of the water. That's part embellishment and part history. Also the article gives a good history of Pattaya, and I learned quite a few things.

But, the final paragraph does sum it up pretty well:

In Alex Garland's iconic novel The Beach, some intrepid backpackers discover a Thai island untouched by mass tourism and establish a utopian community, which later collapses amid jealousy, greed and violence. The moral of the story is not that paradise doesn't exist. No, the moral is: paradise does exist, we just don't deserve to live there. Until we do, there will always be Pattaya.