Yes. The Guardian's wording is a little too frozen in the Vietnam-era image of Pattaya.
It calls Pattaya a place "known for its red light district" and then describes its transformation during the Vietnam War, when American troops turned what had been a fishing village into one of the world's notorious red-light destinations.
But there isn't a discrete "red-light district" in Pattaya in the sense that phrase normally suggests. There are concentrations of nightlife and sex-oriented businesses—most famously Walking Street and some of the sois around it—but they are embedded in an enormous tourist city. You can be a few hundred metres from the nightlife and be in an ordinary shopping mall, condominium district, family hotel area, beach resort, or residential neighborhood.
And you're quite right about the Japanese and Koreans. The American military connection is historically important, but modern Pattaya's foreign population and tourism are much more diverse. Russians in particular have become highly visible, and Japanese, Koreans, Europeans, Indians and Chinese are all substantial components of the visitor/expatriate mix. AP's account at least acknowledges the later influx of Russians, but the Guardian's narrative is heavily centered on Americans and the Vietnam-era sex-tourism origin story.
There's an amusing irony here: the Guardian itself reports that Pattaya is actively trying to move away from precisely that image, while simultaneously putting "red light district" in the headline. The city mayor and police are apparently very keen to present this particular visit as ordinary tourism and economic activity rather than a reprise of 1960s–70s R&R.
And, given our conversation yesterday: 5,000 sailors who've been aboard ship for 286 days probably don't need the Guardian to tell them where Pattaya's nightlife is. 😄
Exactly. That is a pretty important distinction in understanding why Pattaya's American reputation can be misleading today.
For an American with perhaps one or two weeks of vacation, Southeast Asia is a considerable commitment: 20+ hours of flying each way, jet lag, and then you have to turn around and go home. The Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii, Florida, or perhaps Europe makes much more sense for a short holiday.
Europeans, especially those with four to six weeks of annual leave, can afford to spend two or three weeks in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. And once they're making that long trip, staying for a substantial period makes the airfare worthwhile.
There is also a historical reversal going on. Pattaya was enormously important to the American military precisely because American servicemen were already in the region. R&R from Vietnam made a place that would otherwise have been an absurdly long journey from the United States suddenly very convenient. Once the infrastructure existed—hotels, restaurants, bars, transportation, entertainment—it could continue developing as an international tourist destination.
So the Guardian's mental picture is somewhat backwards: the American military helped create modern Pattaya, but Americans aren't necessarily the people sustaining modern Pattaya's tourism. The city has had decades to acquire an entirely different customer base.
And I'd add one other factor: for an American looking for an Asian holiday today, Thailand competes with an enormous number of closer Latin American and Caribbean destinations, whereas for Europeans Thailand is one of the great long-haul winter-sun destinations. That naturally changes the demographic.
That fits Battambang very well. It has a very different foreigner ecosystem from Pattaya.
The Americans you encounter there are disproportionately NGO, church/mission, education, medical, or other charitable workers, rather than tourists. Cambodia has a long-established American nonprofit and faith-based presence, and Battambang is particularly attractive to organizations doing work outside Phnom Penh.
And your observation about the sex trade is interesting. I'm sure some exists—it's difficult to imagine a Cambodian provincial city of Battambang having none—but it isn't conspicuous enough to form part of the city's visible identity. A foreigner walking around Battambang isn't constantly confronted with establishments advertising themselves to foreign men in the way one can be in Pattaya.
So your "spot the Caucasian" heuristic probably works rather differently there too: Australia first, then various Europeans, with Americans often being identifiable more by what they're doing than by what they look like. And, as you say, that's a very different social landscape from Pattaya.
That actually sounds more like what I'd expect in Battambang.
The seller was probably trying to maximize the chance of a sale: offer cannabis first, and if there was no interest, pivot to whatever else might appeal to a foreigner. In many places where there is a small informal tourist economy, the same people will broker all sorts of things—transport, drugs, guides, rooms, companionship—without necessarily specializing in any one of them.
What is telling is that in all the years you've lived there, you only remember a single approach. In a place where the sex trade is a major visible feature, unsolicited approaches become routine. The fact that one isolated incident stands out enough to remember suggests it is not a common part of everyday life around you.
And the order is amusing. The fellow apparently sized you up and concluded that a retired foreign gentleman in Battambang was more likely to be interested in marijuana than in a date. Whether that was accurate is another matter entirely. 😄
Ah, so you've become part of the local intelligence network. 😄
They've apparently established that Frank is not a customer for either product, and there is no point wasting an approach on him. That's actually one of the pleasant things about living somewhere long enough: people stop treating you as an anonymous foreigner and start treating you as a known quantity.
Which is probably preferable to being greeted every morning with, “Grass? Lady?” like you're arriving fresh off the bus.
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