Pattaya Shopping

Probably because it attracts so many weekend holiday-makers from Bangkok, Pattaya has quite a few shopping centers. These offer a range of goods, from clothing to books, as well as a large number of restaurants to choose from. The grand dame of the malls is the Royal Garden Plaza, next to the Marriott Hotel in roughly the center of town. The mall has no department store, but it does have many shops, a rather posh food court, movie theaters and a branch of Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.

Just down Pattaya 2 Road from the Royal Garden is the relatively new Avenue center. Avenue is a rather different kind of mall, for Thailand. It's an open-air arrangement on several levels. There are many restaurants, a fitness club, theaters, a bowling alley and much more.

The new kid on the block is Central Festival City, opened in January 2009. Like Royal Garden Plaza just down the street, Festival City runs between Pattaya 2 Road and the beach.

There are also a number of outlet shops in Pattaya. Most of them are located south of town on the main Sukhumvit highway, around the intersection of Thepprasit Road. There's a large "Outlet Mall" full of shops, and just down the road, a Jim Thompson outlet store.