Unbelievable fun in Pattaya

Unbelievable: a family attraction in Pattaya!

So let's say it's raining in Pattaya and you need to kill a couple of hours. Or your sun burn has been diagnosed as blisteringly radio-active and you don't want to go near the beach again -- ever!

Well, you can always slide off to the Tahitian Queen bar as usual. However this is not recommended if it's only 11am and you have the family in tow. So ...

The pilot was later breath-tested

Head for Ripley's Believe It or Not! at Royal Garden Plaza, slap-bang in the middle of Pattaya's increasingly interesting Beach Road. You can't miss it -- it's the building with the big red DC-3 carelessly crash landed on the 3rd floor.

Ripley's is really a 5-in-1 attraction offering the Museum (where you could spend a whole day gawking at the weird and wonderful exhibits), the 4D Moving Theater (billed as 'the wildest simulator ride in the world'), the Infinity Maze (a mesmerizing series of optical mazes and illusions), Haunted Adventure (a ghoulish walk through various nightmarish scenarios with real live actors), and finally, there's Louis Tussaud's waxworks.

The dummy made more sense than the real Becks.

At the latter, you can rub shoulders with Jackie Chan, Will Smith, Posh and Becks, have a laugh with Eddie Murphy, and laugh at Paris Hilton (well, what else are you supposed to do with that bimbo?)

Ripley seemed to have a fascination with two-headed cows (no, not Posh and Becks), three-legged horses and the like. Freakish. He also introduced the western world to the Padaung women with 15" necks, which you now can see any day of the week in hill-tribe villages in Mae Hong Song, jing jing.

But Ripley's childlike fascination with the crazy, the creepy, and the colourful, makes for a very memorable and thoroughly entertaining half day for everyone in the family. And the same can't necessarily be said for Walking Street!

[cue voice-over effect] Believe It or Not ...

For more: see www.ripleysthailand.com