Whatever your opinions of whoever runs Pattaya; they should be applauded for the wide variety of events they manage to attract here; even if you only find out about most of them a couple of weeks after they are finished.

This week, Pattaya has hosted the World Junior Wrestling Championships, and they are running until tomorrow at the stadium in Soi Chayapruk if you want to go and watch. I went today and had a couple of problems.

Firstly, the lighting was appalling for photography, so I was shooting at ISO 2000 and up. Secondly, several hundred sweaty male wrestlers in one place are a bit smelly, and their supporting teams are not much better. Five minutes of the Bulgarian squad screaming instructions to their man, only inches from my left ear and nostril, was like a lifetime in any other universe.

Anyway, a few photos, all with the Panasonic GX1 with the Olympus 75mm lens:

Went I started this humble enterprise, I was fairly sure I was going to have to deal with my share of the arseholes who frequent the wide wide world of web.

But the actual experience has been much more positive than expected. Sure, there have been the spammers, but the tools in Wordpress have taken care of almost all of those, more than 105,000 spam comments to date. I just pop into the spam folder every so often and mass-delete. But apart from the feeble spam dicks, most of the comments on this site have been a fun addition to whatever nonsense I have chosen to share. And to those who do comment, a very small percentage of visitors, thank you; I love you all.

Been feeling a little shabby the last couple of days. Feared an onset of the feared man-flu, but seem to be recovering today. The day celebrated by pissing it down, making surfing or street photography out of the question; so I settled down with a couple of shells that Nik had given me.

Couldn’t get a light inside them, so decided to light from the side and have some coloured lights behind.

Tried it with a lot of lights, tried it with swinging the lights, in the end I decided it was best with just a small number of lights in the background.

Title designed to attract dyslexic mongers. Met this beauty on the beach and took her home. I washed out her insides with boiling water and shone a light up her. I understand this to be standard practice.

A little while ago I took some photos of an amethyst.

The son made a comment that this shot had some potential, if I could get rid of the background and just show the green crystals:

The plan for this evening was to have a meal and then take a wander with the GX1 and Olympus 75mm, a combination I have yet to try out after dark.

The plan rather fell apart when I chose to eat at what must be one of the best Thai restaurants in Pattaya. The food is reasonable and the taste is just superb. It’s a well-kept secret, but one that is becoming increasingly well-known, so you can wait a while to eat, provided you can find a seat. But there was a spare table for me and the usual prompt service in terms of delivering me a cold beer and a menu. Order placed, I prepared to wait.

Forty minutes later I still had not eaten and vowed I really wouldn’t come again unless they are quiet. Forty five minutes later and my food had arrived and I decided I would like to eat there every evening and never mind the waiting; it’s worth it.

No, I am not telling you where it is, but it might make for a good place to eat at the great Grant/Spanky/Spike get-together. Given the prices, I might even offer to pay.

Unfortunately, once I had finished eating, I realised it was less than an hour before the car park closed. Given the limited time available, I was not going to bother with taking any photos; but in the end I had a little walk.

All the below were taken within half an hour with the GX1 and Olympus 75mm at F1.8 in varying levels of darkness, ISO up to 3200. Black & white are JPEGs produced by the camera, colour shots are from RAW. Spent less time processing them than I did taking them, want to get this post done so I can finish it before she who must be obeyed returns from work and needs a cuddle.

With acknowledgements to Pattaya Unlimited for a reminder that this subject is ready for an update.

It all started on December 12th 1998 with the launch party for The Beaches; which included Asia’s most technologically advanced water-park to be constructed by WhiteWater West Industries. The scope of the 9 billion baht development to the south of Pattaya was stunning, easily the highest profile development Pattaya had ever seen:

“A 300-room, 5-star condominium resort project will combine the beach cultures of the Mediterranean, North and South America and Thailand in a 30-acre waterscape. Within one venue, it will combine a grand palace as its flagship hotel, two other 5-star international hotels, a boutique hotel with Maldives-inspired water villas, three man-made beaches, three lagoons, Asia’s most technologically advanced water-park, all-adult and family pools, a state-of-the-art fitness centre and tennis academy, a wellness and longevity spa, a hi-tech conference, meeting and convention centre and the kilometre-long Grande Promenade, sporting 20 themed gourmet and casual restaurants, nestling in miles of picturesque, landscaped gardens.”

The developer was Pacific Shore Developments, and their CEO, Mr. Liakat Dhanji who, “when asked about the origin of his finances, said that he is essentially self-funding, though will have some support and sponsorship from HSBC.”

The abundance of funding was reinforced by another local newspaper which stated “This will be a mammoth World Class Destination, employing around 6,000 permanent staff, so Pattaya and the whole Province of Chonburi, has much to gain when such a project comes on line around 2012, and despite what any detractors may think, with such a highly capitalized company group, The Beaches are here to stay.”

(Quotes from Pattaya Daily News and The Pattaya Times).

With typical triviality, Pattaya Days showed no interest in the magnificent scope of this enterprise, and instead decided instead to bitch about a rather lax cartographic approach as reflected the map in the sales brochure. The post signed off with: “The Beaches appears to be an ambitious, quality development. But if they can’t even be honest about the location……” which turned out to be somewhat prophetic when the vice president of the project, George Morgan allegedly absconded with in excess of 100 million baht of investor deposits in June 2009.

Unusually for a local paper, Pattaya Daily News covered this story in some detail, and also asked the CEO, Mr. Liakat Dhanji about the status of the project because, six months on from announcement, nothing appeared to be happening. Mr. Dhanji stated that “rather than starting to build the hotels first, which had been held up at the bureaucratic level due to constant changes in the EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) regulations, the order of construction was going to start with the building of the Water Theme Park, which he assured us is due to start at the end of July or early August 2009”. This was strange, because six months earlier The Pattaya Times reported “Currently, Liakat Dhanji is working with the local authorities and municipalities on The Beaches master plan, and just for the record, this project meets all their EIA and design requirements.”

Presumably the EIA issues remain outstanding, because The Beaches isn’t quite finished yet to the extent that it hasn’t quite started yet. You can get more information on the project from The Beaches website (don’t bother), or from the developer Pacific Shore Developments at their website (don’t bother).

The Beaches was scheduled for completion in Q1 2012.

Just as an aside, you would have thought that the apparent failure of a massive, 9 billion baht project which was launched with huge publicity, would have been subject to some follow-up and comment from the local, or even national, press. But other than the piece by Pattaya Daily News at the time of the deposit theft scandal; nothing.

It all started in July 2010 with the announcement of the Amazon Falls Waterpark, to be built by WhiteWater West Industries on part of The Beaches site. “From the start, we set out to build the best waterpark in Asia,” says Liakat Dhanji, CEO of Amazon Falls Co. Ltd".

The press release stated that “Amazon Falls will open in December 2010”, which seemed rather ambitious what with needing to get EIAs approved etc. and indeed a progress report on Pattaya Days in November 2011 showed completion was a some way off.

Three years ago today*, Panasonic introduced the GF1.

*Yes, pedants, most press releases were on Sept 2nd, but the first announcement was Sept 1st.

It wasn’t the first micro four thirds camera, but it was probably the first to capture the imagination of keen amateurs. Prior to that there had been the Panasonic G1 and GH1, fine cameras but not really micro enough. Then there was the Olympus EP-1, a cute fashion statement and a good enough machine; but the focus was a little slow and the supplied lens was nothing special.

Then along came the GF1. Small, fast, configurable; and with a couple of cracking lenses. There was a 20mm F1.7 lens, and a 14-45mm F3.5-F5.6 lens. The 20mm lens is still sought after as a must-have for the system, and although there have been six subsequent kit zoom lenses by Panasonic and Olympus (all 14-42mm), the 14-45mm remains the preferred lens in terms of quality of construction and optics. A fantastic combination of camera and lenses and sales went through the roof, such that it was very hard to find them until later in the year.

I found mine in Singapore on the 15th December 2009. I believe I had sold the trip to she who must be obeyed on the basis of “seeing the lights”; but once there I dumped her in a shoe shop and scoured the island for a GF1 kit with both lenses. Found it in the afternoon and spent a couple of frustrating hours dodging the pouring rain trying to get shots, before repairing to the Long Bar at Raffles for free peanuts, expensive drinks and a chance to take a photo.