Pattaya is a coastal city near Bangkok, best known for its nightlife and as a hugely popular destination for tourists and foreign retirees. It has a reputation as a place where genuine love stories and much murkier situations coexist, and the stories collected here reflect exactly that double face. There are sailors and passing travelers who met someone special in a bar in the city, alongside accounts of people who had to learn, sometimes the hard way, to tell genuine interest apart from someone only after money or a visa.
📚 Stories with #Pattaya
Retired in Pattaya since 2017, a 55-year-old Polish man falls for Apple, a 32-year-old bar girl with three kids to support. For months he believes he's the only man helping her out financially. One day he decides to follow her instead of believing the usual excuse, and discovers he was just one of several sponsors supporting her at the same time.
👁 12828 views
At 44, divorced for a decade, an American meets Tay on Facebook. A month later, already in love, he finds out she'd spent the past year with an Australian man who'd visited her village in Isan. She confesses everything honestly and asks for one chance. Years later, they're married and building a house to retire in.
👁 10310 views
A 52-year-old Canadian, after mistaking lust for love on a trip to Vietnam, goes back to Tinder looking for something real and meets a Thai woman of Chinese descent 24 years younger than him. Three weeks together across Bangkok, Pattaya and Koh Samui become the start of a long-distance relationship that, bumps and all, is still going strong toward a proposal.
👁 8112 views
A 54-year-old Swiss man tried his luck with three online dates in three different Thai cities. The Khon Kaen woman had a steady job, her own home, and paid her own way, but turned out to be a few years older than him. Now he's not sure whether to let that matter.
👁 13640 views
A Finnish man became a regular customer of a massage girl in Pattaya, and after a lovely trip to Koh Chang and two years of Line contact through the pandemic, one boozy night in Chiang Mai ended in screaming, a packed bag, and a revealing explanation months later.
👁 10179 views
A Norwegian who's been travelling to Thailand since 1986 met Som, a Bangkok professional, on a dating app. One evening of drinks on Soi Cowboy was enough to trigger twenty missed calls, a bag packed in minutes, and months later, harassment reaching his own daughter.
👁 11892 views
A 54-year-old South African met Noi, 32, near Khao San Road in 2019. She never asked him for money despite her troubles, and the Koh Chang trip was perfect. But one night of drinks in Pattaya without her changed everything, and the pandemic finished it off.
👁 14754 views
A 42-year-old Dutchman started visiting Pattaya in 2010 and never stopped coming back every January. In 2022, in a bar on Soi Honey, he met Jib, from Isaan. Two years later he bought land from her family, fully aware of what that meant.
👁 11798 views
A 26-year-old Brit met Om in a bar on Soi Buakhao, Pattaya, then found her again months later serving coffee off Beach Road. Two years of her never asking for anything, a complicated visa and a wedding later, they now run a pub in England with Thai theme nights.
👁 5446 views
A 62-year-old retired American recounts how he met Dada at a Pattaya massage shop, married her in a Buddhist ceremony in Isan, and everything fell apart when she started quietly withdrawing money from the joint account he'd opened for the dowry.
👁 3598 views