With the holiday season upon us, some home-buyers may be thinking of acquiring resort condominiums in nearby Pattaya as vacation homes or an investment.

While Pattaya may seem near on the map, in terms of travelling time, it is not. The problem today is not so much the highways, which are bad enough.

The most irritable part of going to Pattaya is getting out of Bangkok first.

From Ekamai, where the Eastern Bus Terminal is located, it takes more than three hours to reach Pattaya, or longer than flying to Hong Kong or Manila.

The journey on Sukhumvit Road from Phrakhanong (Sukhumvit 71) to Udomsuk (Sukhumvit 103) is among the worst stretches in Thailand, with construction work on the BTS extension narrowing traffic flow to one or two lanes.

The result can be highly stressful and spoil any outing.

To avoid a disastrous start, steer away from Sukhumvit and use other conduits to reach the Bang Na-Trad highway.

The good news is Ananya lies closer to Bangkok than most new condominiums sprouting up in Pattaya.

It is on Nak Lua, a once-faded part of the resort town where land prices stayed on the soft side for decades until an upsurge in speculation drove land grabbers to pay enormous sums for less-than-prime plots.

Ananya is different in that it commands a long beachfront and has good road links.

In the first phase of the 11-rai project, there will be 80 large units contained in four low-rise buildings, all rising five floors.

The condominiums are expected to be completed in one year, an optimistic salesperson said, although piling has yet to commence. There are mock-up units at the site office.

To be sure, for people who appreciate a quiet, seaside property with an older, softer feel, Ananya is pleasant enough. It attracts none of the tourist throngs that makes Pattaya an ecological nightmare, one that has systematically stripped it of its esteem, charm and sensibility.

There is none of the ridiculous jams and hideous slums that occupy the areas between Beach Road 2 and 3.

Indeed, Thais like Wong Amat because it is still relatively peaceful but the current high prices will make it tough for even middle-class locals to afford homes there.

Ananya's Bt82,000-a-square-metre price may sound cheap to wealthy Westerners, but locals will note it exceeds Bangkok's prices. Condominiums in mid-Sukhumvit now go for Bt50,000-Bt70,000 a square metre.

But Ananya may be interesting for professional swimmers. It is expected to provide a 230-metre-long pool, almost five times that of an Olympic-standard, which is 50 metres long.

The depth will be 2 metres, says the salesperson, which makes it even more perfect for divers who need a training ground.

Very few residential sites in the world can provide such a facility. In this respect, the condominium may have a niche market indeed.

Itthi C Tan

The Nation