Darrel

They give you a little card and they mark what you spend on it. After 7 visits they cash it in for 10% of the total value.

When they moved from the Poseidon they said that it was being renovated. Now that the roadworks outside are nearly finished, I wouldnt be surprised if they started it up again at some point. Whether they would then run two buffets, I dont know. I think a lot of the customers from Poseidon just followed the buffet to Pattaya when it moved!

You are quite correct, and it has been mentioned several times, not least by me.

You forgot to mention the yoghurt and honey (both quite rare in Thailand for breakfast), and the discount card.

They also do a cheaper afternoon cake, sandwich and coffee buffet.

Has anyone obtained one of these recently? If so, was there a fee and were any documents needed apart from a passport with valid visa extension?

Or maybe someone got a similar document from another government or municipal office here? People in other parts of the country often seem to get them from the local town hall rather than travelling to an immigration office.

NY place has a small size pepperoni pizza for 189 baht. Similar prices to LOAF

I don't consider their regular pizzas overpriced...about B200-250 per pizza

Compared to the prices of other pizza places in town I suppose they arent unusually high. However, I wouldnt pay 200B for one small pizza as there are too many better meals to be had for the same money, or much less.

I would (and do) pay 200B for the Loaf pizza buffet. Actually I pay 300B for pizza buffet and two beers: it's about the only place in town where I drink beer with a meal at all, and I dont suppose they mind the extra profit!

.....then some people will start having a go at you for being average or mediocre.

Or indeed for not being sympathetic enough.

Talk really is cheap, holier than thou talk even more so. But I wonder how many of the bleeding hearts in this thread actually went to Beach Rd and donated cash to the "down and out" farangs there, or whether they decided that berating others for not doing so was enough of a good deed for one day/year/lifetime?

Not many, I suspect.

Standard Chartered has an eSaver account that pays 2.5% with no restrictions.

Shame they dont have a branch in Pattaya.

Bad to worse....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/19/bitcoin_values_collapse_again/

You are probably right, though they do have buffalos here and mozzarella is made from buffalo milk (real mozzarella anyway, not the stuff you get on most pizzas throughout the world). As it isnt imported it shouldnt cost too much.

If the Loaf bakery didnt do the 200 Baht buffet I'm fairly sure that I would never eat pizza here. It's just too over-priced compared to all other sorts of food.

New York Pizza in Naklua.....

They now seem to have a branch on 3rd Rd, more or less opposite Soi Lengkee.

The menu looks very expensive to me.

Nearly all radio stations are available online these days, assuming that you have a broadband connection.

I just use my domestic wifi and my mobile phone in loudspeaker mode to listen to UK radio.

Anyone recommend a free password manager that does online form filling like Roboform?

Firefox itself seems to remember nearly all this information for me. (Name, address, phone number etc. etc.)

... to keep more of it available for me. However, with your non-endorsement, I can probably rest assured that I can continue to get a seat at this smallish place and stuff my face on Wednesdays for little money.

Haha. My seat is booked.

I noticed more people there last Wesnesday that I have generally seen before, even back in high season.

.... I finally got around to trying a pizza at LOAF and my impression was that it was a POOR pizza.

Well, I am indeed surprised.

You mention the bready flavour of the base. I wonder what sort of flavour you want a pizza base to have? As they are all made from bread dough I feel they should taste of bread dough, and I find that the Loaf bases do. They are thin enough to allow the flavour of the topping to come through, which is what is supposed to happen in my book, at least on a classical Italian pizza, but not so thin that they go like filo which I dont like at all.

Yes, I like deep pan pizzas in the Pizza Hut style also (those bases do have a lot of flavour, unsurprisingly, given the amount of fat in them) and Loaf certainly dont do those. But they do make what I would describe as a good "proper' pizza. Not too thick not too thin, and not sweet which pizzas here often are.

I admit that I have never just ordered one pizza in there, nor would I. I prefer the buffet which allows one to taste many different types and costs less anyway. All the ones I have tried I have liked, but I dont try BBQ and bolgnese and Hawaiian and other flavours that I know I will detest. They had a banana pizza last Wednesday which I had my doubts about, but I had a slice for dessert and very nice it was too. Other ones were rocket and parma ham, prawns, feta and olives, various salamis and pepperonis, a "breakfast" pizza which sounds awful but in fact was basically a carbonara. I thought they were all good, even if they arent all exactly classic Italian pizza toppings.

What would you think makes a good pizza, compared perhaps to a Pizza Hut deep pan pizza, or some other pizza that I might have tried?

" I have been looking at rental ads and the rentals seem to be way overpriced."

You got that right. Rental prices and sale prices are both mostly way over the top. Not to mention the appalling condition of many properties.

And owners still wonder why properties dont find tenants and dont sell for years on end.

Malware moves in for the kill ..............

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/18/bitcoin_stealing_malware/

You make the Declaration in front of a consular official within your Embassy not Thai Immigration.

In all cases you are legally responsible for what you sign for.

An example of what one might declare on a Statutory Declaration:

"I have income which meets the financial requirements of Thai Immigration for an extension of visa based on retirement."

You then sign the declaration in front of the consular official. The consular official will ask you if you are aware of the content of the declaration and the penalties for knowingly giving false information under the criminal code.

The consular official then signs and stamps the document.

And pockets a huge fee for having done precisely nothing. A declaration made before a consular official is totally pointless. You may as well make the same declaration in front of the Thai immigration inspector. It has just as much (or just as little) meaning, but at least it wpuld be done on Thai soil under Thai law, and so if you lie you do stand some chance of being prosecuted. Whereas if you lie to a consular official in a consulate they would have to wait until you returned to your own country to prosecute you. And would they care anyway? Surely not. Just as long as they have the fee they couldnt care less.

Declarations of income are a complete joke.

Until you wake up some morning, check online, and find your Thai bank account has been emptied by a crooked bank employee or their BF/GF, or someone who's skimmed your card, or any variation of similar things...

I would be quite interested to see someone empty a time-deposit account before the term is up. Especially as the account has no card attached to it.

I have great sympathy for people who are genuinely hard up. In that group I would put the people from the north of Thailand who travel here and then walk the streets selling trinkets for a pittance, and who possibly dont see family for weeks or months.

However layabouts from Europe who dont want to go home and get a job are certainly not in that group, and they deserve nothing at all apart from a kick in the pants.

I will continue to give my money to support people and causes that actually deserve it.

Owning our own place is an investment and a guarantee that we have some money to pay in case of big problem (hospital,...)

If you can sell it.

However, on the 800,000K issue, I certainly could do that, but have never done so... Even with the lousy interest rates in the U.S., I certainly can get a much better return on $22,000 in the U.S. than by plunking it into a Thai bank account where, in addition, it's safety and security is more than a bit questionable due to lousy consumer/fraud protection rules here.

Well, I dont see a huge difference in the return between a time deposit here and a time deposit in the UK. And having the money in the bank here means I dont need to pay a fortune to the British consul for a pointless declaration every year. The pleasure I get from not having to do that is well worth anything I might be losing on interest.

Anyone bumped into the norweigen fella who always has a pair of jeans, vest and a small back pack. Mid fifties with long grey hair? Usually around second road between Klang and Nua? He got me the first time with the lost passport and had wallet pinched, just need to get to embassy line.

I dont know that one but a young (20-ish) German guy tried the same trick with me a couple of months ago. I offered him my mobile phone to call the German consulate but for some reason he wasnt interested.

My rent, electricity and internet alone costs me over 360K.

I think 65K/800K is a fairly low bar.

800K on deposit is a pittance and doesnt bother me at all. However I dont spend anywhere near 65K per month and probably never will.

As for rent, electricity and internet exceeding 360K, it all depends on how big your dwelling is. A nice condo in Jomtien with a full-on sea view would cost me well under 200K per year, 6K for a year's internet from Sophon and about 36K max for electricity, even using the aircon generously, which I dont, for a total of well under 250K. I have no idea how I could spend more than that on those things, unless I had a large condo with extra bedrooms that I never used (why?).

And if I owned the condo rather than renting it then my yearly fixed outgoings would probably be under 50K (electricity, maintenance, internet/cable, water).

Surely if you make posts you don't expect everyone to agree with your point of view - which in this case shows little concern for people suffering hardship.

I'm delighted when people disagree with me. It would all be just too boring otherwise. You, however, seem to turn disagreement into a habit. Not that it bothers me at all.

Apart from the German loony, the people I described are not suffering hardship. They are just unwilling to go somewhere where they can legally work (or claim benefit) and hence get themselves out of the situation they are in. All three of them seemed to be of European origin, which means they have a large choice of countries to work in and some sort of social security system available in all of them. They do not need to beg or collect plastic bottles here; that is best left to local people whose need is surely greater than any European farang's. If you want to see people suffering hardship, just look at some of the vagrant or disabled Thai people around town. They dont have the option of going home to a relatively rich country and getting benefit or a decent job.

Personally it doesnt bother me at all whether these farangs go home or whether they stay here making fools of themselves and wondering where the next cigarette or plastic botttle is coming from. Just as long as they dont expect me to contribute, that's fine by me. I just posted about it because I thought that the high number of these people on that one day was somewhat remarkable, and the town is rather quiet at the moment with not much else happening worth talking about apart from smelly drains and barking dogs.

The German loony does need help, as I mentioned. Perhaps my post will bring him to the attention of one of his countrymen, who will do something.

I managed to get to sit on one today (stationary, in the showroom) and it did feel comfortable to sit on. I liked the large space under the seat and the general build quality felt high. It also felt much more solid to sit on than a couple of other cheaper bikes that were nearby. The features like the locking seat and fuel cover, the auto cut-out, the key-fob alarm all seemed useful. The mirrors seemed well-positioned and I got the impression that if something hit the side of the bike (or indeed if it fell over) the bike body would provide a little protection to the rider's legs. I may be mistaken about that. The speedometer fillled me with horror as it goes up to 160kph! God forbid that is a real number.

The price I was quoted for the basic model by the airconditioned Honda shop on the corner of South Rd and 3rd Rd in Pattaya was 80,000 including all the paperwork etc. which seems quite high compared to the 71,000 that the Phuket poster paid. None of the extras I saw on another very flash-looking model seemed to be very worthwhile, and all of seemed to be of the "go-faster stripes" type. Perhaps the fancy seat at 2500 is worth having, for long distances, and the variable brake settings may be of some use. Not sure how much that option was though. I suppose all those things can be fitted later for the same price anyway.

Thanks again for the helpful comments.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/16/bitcoin_theft_claims/

I'll still be sticking to tulips. At least when it all goes belly-up you can admire the blooms.