Pattaya vacation - Sep 2016 (part 1)

After my last trip to Kaohsiung in August, this month Ivy and me went to a place I haven't returned for more than 20 years - Pattaya. Then it was 1995, and it was my graduation holiday, when I came here with Chadwick, my classmate in HKU, before starting my job in Kai Tak airport.

The day started not too well with us receiving the notice that the flight would be delayed for one hour. Thinking positive, we went to the airport to have an early lunch before boarding, and got the good news in check-in that both of us were upgraded to business. How lucky!

Lunch at Cafe Deco is quite decent, with me having a Carbonara and Ivy going for Hainan Chicken Rice. It is quite expensive though, with the two dishes plus a Iced Chocolate costing $470. We still kind of missed the days when we got discount being airport staff.

The nightmare began after boarding the plane. After delaying for one hour on the original ETD, somehow we were told again that because of bad weather and waiting for some passengers (?) we had to wait another one hour before push back. When finally on the way, it was another 40 minutes before the plane got into queue for take off. By that time I have watched half of a movie already.

Finally arriving Bangkok, we took the private limo service of Oriental Escape to Pattaya. The driver was friendly and with heavy rain on the way, he didn't drive too fast and so the journey overall was quite comfortable. It took us 1.5 hours to arrive the hotel.

We were staying at InterContinental Pattaya Resort, located a bit far from downtown thus very quiet and peaceful. After check-in, we took a golf cart to our room, and were happy to find that our room was spacious, with a nice balcony overlooking the sea and beach. Already a bit starving, we decided to go to the Infiniti restaurant for dinner.

The open restaurant was facing the beach and sea, and on the night with the nice breeze blowing, we didn't feel any heat at all. I ordered their signature cocktail which was a bit too sweet for me. For the meal, we went for a 3-course menu including a Mushroom Soup, a Grilled Mixed Seafood with Salad and Potato Mash, and a Lime Sorbet for dessert.

The soup didn't have a strong mushroom flavor and I might mistake it for a lentil soup instead. However, it wasn't too bad in taste. The seafood was good, with a prawn, a pipa prawn, a piece of sea bass, couples of mussels and a piece of squid. Fresh and grilled nicely, the portion was good to be filling but not too much. The sorbet then provided a refreshing finish to the meal.

The price was quite reasonable, and apart from the nice breeze the thing I liked most was the privacy, with only two other tables on the night so we could enjoy a relaxing dinner. We all looked forward to the next couple of days of vacation.