An Australian tourist was knocked out in a bar fight after 'looking at someone the wrong way'.

Troy Robert, 52, was drinking with skimpily-dress escort hostesses at the pub in the notorious coastal city of Pattaya in eastern Thailand when the confrontation happened in the early hours of Saturday moring.

Onlookers said a local man exchanged 'awkward looks' with Troy before he attacked him. They said that the thug repeatedly 'punched and kicked' the holidaying Aussie before fleeing into the streets.

Paramedics arrived and put a bandage on Troy's head to cover a deep wound. He appeared shell-shocked while he stood outside the nightlife spot.

Bar waitress Lamiat Mongkol, 44, said: 'Both men were quite drunk. The other person was a Thai man, about 20 to 25 years old.

'They started looking at each other awkwardly then they started arguing. The Australian man tried to calm him down but the young man didn't listen.

'He punched and kicked the tourist until he was injured. Then the Thai man ran away.'

Paramedics from the Sawang Boriboon Thammasat Rescue Radio Center said they received an emergency call at around 1:30 AM local time on Saturday morning, March 4.

They treated Troy at the scene of the alleged attack before he was taken to hospital.

Officers arrived at the scene and interviewed the bar girls before requesting copies of the CCTV.

Police Colonel Thanapong Phothi said officers had just started their investigation today and 'would speak with everyone involved'.

The cop added: 'Nobody has been charged yet. We will check all the evidence from both people involved and find out what happened then proceed according to the law and to protect the reputation of the city.'

Military top brass from Bangkok have been trying for several years to clean up Pattaya, dubbed the 'sex capital' of the world and a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, as they battle to kick out badly behaving Brits and Aussies and turn the region into a family-friendly resort to tap into lucrative family markets in China, India and Russia.

However, they face an uphill struggle against its entrenched 24-hour sex industry and endemic corruption that allows it to continue unabated. The bars - many of which are run by British ex-pats and function as shop windows for cheap prostitutes - along with massage parlours and street workers are also a lucrative part of the tourism industry, which before the pandemic accounted for 21 percent of Thailand's annual GDP, generating 1.8 trillion baht (52.3 billion USD) in revenue.