Searching for Dolf Riks

North Pattaya

After many years running his wonderful restaurant and painting his terrific pictures Dolf Riks passed on in 2004 but I was keen to discover whether anyone was carrying on the good work.

I still have my Dolf Riks painting hanging in my boudoir after all these years. The old fella passed on a few years ago but I was keen to see what had happened to out old haunts. Where was Dolf Riks? Where is anything in North Pattaya? Rampant development and the third wave of swish hotels and air conditioned shopping malls have yet to arrive but they are advancing down Second Road.

Sweating like a tap, bought some flip-flops to limp home.

I actually managed to go out in the afternoon! I went over to the Handicraft Market on Second Rd, as I got there the most impressive rain storm hit Pattaya. Great to watch from under cover, but didn’t provide any respite from the heat. Actually the effect was more like throwing water on the coals of a sauna. Have I mentioned the heat? The temperature hits you like a hammer and during the day any normal activity is way more tiring than you would ever believe because of it. This was another reason for the nocturnal approach.







and rampant over-development has long since destroyed any natural charms it once had, but its plethora of hotels and guest houses and convenient location with quick and easy access from the capital make it a popular weekend getaway.


A view overlooking the garden, with the Ocean Tower on the left and the Garden Wing on the right
Tiffany's Show [80] on Second Road near signless Soi Srinakhom (one soi north of Soi 1) has performances at 19:00, 20:30 and 22:00 (plus 17:30 high season) and in May hosts the annual Miss Tiffany's Universe Pageant [81] beauty queen competition, for contestants born as men. If you're got testosterone left over, visit the Shooting Range in the basement!

















Orchid Lodge Hotel

The other survivor from twenty years ago was the dear old Orchid Lodge Hotel. Just. It's not the comfy, shambling old place surrounded by gardens that it used to be but has joined the swish hotel category and the elephant has long since retired.

It is now merely the Garden Wing of the Amari Orchid Resort.












Diarmuid Gavin

The hotel that was a resort has become yet another soulless hotel and now it is called a resort. Why bother. What a throughly disappointing journey. Let this be a lesson to me; never go back. Nostalgia is a comfort blanket, no more. Learn from yesterday, live for today and look forward to tomorrow. Never give up; never surrender.