Royal Garden Plaza

Royal Garden Plaza stands on Beach Road in South Pattaya, with entrances on both Beach Road and Second Road, a short walk from Walking Street. It is owned and run by the Thai hospitality and retail group Minor International and is one of the older shopping centres in the city.

The mall is best known for the Ripley's Believe It or Not complex on its upper floors. Alongside the main Ripley's odditorium, the group of attractions has included a wax museum, a haunted house, a mirror maze and a motion theatre, sold individually or as combined tickets. A model of a red biplane appears to crash into the front of the building, which makes the mall easy to spot from the beach.

The lower floors hold fashion and accessory stores, a supermarket, souvenir shops, banks and money changers, while the food court and restaurants serve Thai and international dishes. Its air conditioning and central location make it a common stop for families during the hottest part of the day or on rainy afternoons.

Opening hours run from late morning to late evening. Entry to the mall is free, while the Ripley's attractions charge separate admission.

The odditorium and the attractions around it

The odditorium is a walk-through museum of strange artefacts and record-breaking curiosities collected in the spirit of Robert Ripley's newspaper cartoons. Around it, the other attractions have included Louis Tussaud's Waxworks, the Haunted Adventure, the Infinity Maze of mirrors and the Moving Theater with motion seats. A visit to two or three of them takes about two hours.

The mall is a good rainy-day plan with children, combining the attractions with lunch in the food court. Baht buses run along Beach Road past the entrance, and the southern end of Beach Road, where Walking Street begins, is about five minutes away on foot. Prices in the shops are fixed, unlike at the street stalls outside.