Amazing festival in Pattaya, Thailand - My travel diary

Dear Steemit friends!

Today I am going to tell you about the 808 Festival in Pattaya.

During my time in Chiang Mai, I really did a lot of fun things. But there was something missing. I really missed a very special feeling.
As I am a person who loves to go to Festivals, I knew very quickly that I miss this special and great festival feeling. In Thailand, festivals are not very common. That´s why I was even more surprised that one of my friends found out, that there will be a huge music festival in Pattaya. We did not hesitate and we directly booked the tickets and an accommodation. My three friends and I were super excited to go to a music festival in Thailand.
It was just perfect that it was in Pattaya as traveling inside of Thailand is very cheap.
Also the tickets were not expensive. We paid for a two-day pass 2500 baht which are around 60-65$. So we knew that this is going to be a great weekend trip.

On a Saturday morning, we went to Chiang Mai airport and our adventure started.
Once we arrived in Pattaya, a minivan brought us to our hotel which was around half an hour away from the airport. The place where we stayed, was called "Nong Nooch tropical botanic garden and resort" and it was super stunning.
The resort was full of festival visitors and people already started to have fun in the morning inside the pool. Even though a lot of people were there, it was a very quiet and peaceful place.
We all shared one room and we had 4 beds in there.

After we checked in, we directly visited this huge area. This 2.4km² huge resort was really beautiful.
Nongnooch garden opened to the public in 1980. Today this garden is one of the most popular attractions of Thailand.
Presently, Nongnooch garden is a very popular tourist attraction which welcomes tourists from all over the world. More than 5,000 people visit each day and the garden has also been recognized as one of the top ten most beautiful gardens in the world. It is rated highly by global websites and has received numerous honors and awards. The garden has 5 different theme garden as for example the French garden. All the plants and flowers are really beautiful and it smells very nice from all the different kind of flowers. The whole garden is just breathtaking. We really loved it.
Once you´ve seen enough flowers, you can head over to their own animal park.
They also offer golf carts for people who don´t want to walk. But I recommend to walk around the area as it is free and really beautiful.
There are also several restaurants and a food court serving Thai, Western, Indian and seafood. It never gets boring as they offer different kind of shows. You definitely need to visit this amazing place once you visit Pattaya.

Neither my friends or I went to a festival before, which was located at such a beautiful place. So now we were even more excited.
The main acts at this festival were, Hardwell, Valentino Khan, Dillon Francis, Marlo, Carnage and many more. It was not a festival with super amazing headliners but we just wanted to have this special festival feeling.

Back in our hotel, we got ready for the night.
If you want to go to this festival, I really recommend you to stay directly at the resort because you have a free shuttle all the time which brings you to the festival and picks you up again. So it´s very convenient.
In the resort, there is also a little shop where you can get something to drink and eat, so no need to bring alcohol with you.
We really loved this resort because we met so many nice people from all over the world.
The whole afternoon was really fun and we enjoyed the time. At around 8 pm we decided to drive to the festival with our shuttle. It took us 5 minutes to drive to the festival area.

We finally arrived at the festival and it was just amazing. The stage was stunning and the atmosphere was exactly that what we all missed. The whole place looked magical.
Many people don´t like festivals which is totally fine. But I love it because every single person is just so happy and has fun. Doesn´t matter where you are from, everybody is the same.
We really enjoyed our night.

The festival ended at midnight. We headed back to our hotel and we were happy that we could sleep. It was a great first day.

The next day we woke up quite late. As we were on vacation, we didn´t do much this day. We went for lunch and chilled the whole day at our huge pool.
We enjoyed ourselves and later on we got ready for our last night where Hardwell was the main act.
Like already the night before, we had again a lot of fun.

The festival ended again at midnight. Afterwards, we drove all together to Pattaya city to enjoy the rest of the night. We ended up in a huge nightclub which was great because Chiang Mai doesn´t have such places.
We danced and had a great night. At around 4 am we took a taxi back to our resort because our flight back to Chiang Mai was at 7 in the morning.

We packed our stuff and a taxi came to drive us to the airport. Before I continue I have to say that you should always tell the driver from which airport your flight goes. We thought our driver knew that we want to go to Pattaya airport but no. He drove us to Bangkok.
After a time we realized that something is wrong because when we came to the resort, the airport was not that far away. So we asked the driver and he really said: "Oh sorry I thought you want to go to Bangkok."
We were really pissed because we missed our flight. Until today, we don´t know what the reason was that he drove us to Bangkok as we were in Pattaya and Pattaya has an own airport.
He drove us back to the resort and he really wanted money from us but we said no because of him we missed our flight.
He was very angry but after a time he realized that it was his mistake and we didn´t have to pay for the ride.
Back at the hotel, we searched for a new flight. The new flight was just 3 hours later. We ordered a new taxi and this time we directly said where we want to go and we arrived safely at PATTAYA AIRPORT.

All I can say is that it was really worth to go to this festival. All the people we met were just amazing. We had a great time. If you love festivals and you are in Pattaya at that time you should definitely go there.
Just the huge garden is already amazing to visit.
It was a great experience for all of us which we will never forget.

I hope you guys liked my story and I would be very happy about comments, likes or any feedback.
Thank you so much for reading :-)