What Walking Street is, and why people talk about it
Picture it: nine in the evening on the South Pattaya seafront, and you are standing at the top of the street near the Bali Hai pier. Ahead, the whole road is closed to cars, neon signs in blue and pink running off into the distance, people moving every which way, the sound of a live band in one bar mixing with the smell of grilled prawns from the seafood place next door. This is Walking Street, the night-time scene that has become Pattaya's signature image.
Walking Street is a short road, about 500 metres long, at the southern tip of Pattaya, running north from the Bali Hai pier along Pattaya Beach. By day it is an ordinary, fairly quiet seafront road with most venues shut. But from around 6pm it closes to traffic and turns into a full pedestrian street, both sides packed with bars, clubs, live-music venues, seafood restaurants, discos and shows of every kind — one of the biggest and busiest nightlife districts in Thailand.
I'll be straight: Walking Street is known for adult nightlife, but it is more than that. In the early evening it is a place families and couples come to see the lights, hear the music and eat seafood by the sea, while later in the night the mood tilts towards partying and bars. The trick is to match the time to the kind of evening you want, and to know about prices and tourist traps before you go.
