Beach Road

This guide to Pattaya's Beach Road opens on the twenty-ninth of June 1959, when a group of soldiers from an inland army base wandered onto this stretch of coast, rented houses from a local landowner, and went home talking about it. From there it follows how word of mouth turned bamboo drinking shacks into bars and guesthouses into hotels as American servicemen on leave from Vietnam poured in by the thousands. Stand here at dusk to feel the hinge between the quiet coast those soldiers stumbled onto and the strip that grew from it.