Darrel

I'm still trying to work out how E. Coli gets into/onto a cucumber anyway, unless............. hmmm. Doesn't bear thinking about.

Why should gold be less expensive here?

Why should your iPad (or all imported devices/products) be less expensive here?

I wont comment on gold (which to me is the ultimate South Sea bubble) but iPads should be cheaper here than in (say) Europe because the VAT is a lot less here than it is there, and the wages of the person selling it are a lot less here, and the costs of running the shop are a lot less here, etc. etc.

And indeed the iPad is cheaper here (and I still dont want one, thank you very much).

That, however, has nothing to do with resale property prices which are entirely dependent on perceived values and not on real costs.

Thailand is full of property owned by people (Thai and farang) who just dont care whether they sell or not. As a result, asking prices are often absurdly high and places stay on the market for months/years/decades, even to the point of becoming totally derelict. This is apparent everywhere but even more so in Pattaya.

This is an anomaly caused by the low cost of property ownership and the fact that very many people own multiple properties, unlike in the West where property taxes encourage people to sell or rent, and most people own only one property in which they live.

As long as you can find a software VOIP/SIP client for your Jesus Apple device, it should work perfectly well with voipstunt. Just as it would with any other VOIP/SIP provider.

X-lite is such an OSX-compatible SIP client.

You do not need a SIP device, unless you particularly want one for ease of use.

Skype, of course, is a proprietary protocol.

For similar money you could own a proper small villa; 800 m. from the beach in Mae-Phim.

Well, you could own one if you are Thai. It's a big if.

And there is a significant difference between 300m from the beach and 800m from the beach.

Personally my idea of "beachfront" stops when I can no longer count the waves from my balcony.

It is well worth pointing out (multiple times in fact) that estate agents fees are not set in stone like the price of a postage stamp or a packet of biscuits at 7/11.

They are totally and utterly negotiable: just like the prices of the things they sell.

Birmingham are every bit as fast.

Posted one afternoon, delivered back in well under 48 hours.

My brother thought that I had probably put the application in the return envelope by mistake!

It's their country, why worry?

Because I live here and much of it looks like a landfill site.

So they do. I think the site must be down. All Mapjack links seem to be pointing to the same place!

Singapore managed to teach (fine) Asians into being tidy: I'm sure that Thailand could do it. All they need is the desire.

You will see thing changing as soon the Pattaya Police find out how much the Bangkok littering police earns from fining turists.

Good!

I am hugely in favour of colossal fines for littering (and being noisy for that matter; in fact I would be in favour of prison sentences for both).

But I dont think that tourists are the worst offenders.

3. I have been informed that the last daily departure from Suwanaphum to "Pattaya" (at 9:00 p.m. I believe) terminates at Naklua (north end of Pattaya, and does not even go as far as the North Pattaya Bus Station. This is hearsay;

Someone I know arrived at Jomtien station at around 11pm on this last bus a week ago. So I would say that it does go where it is supposed to and for 120+Baht it seems to be a bargain.

I would also add that for many people Jomtien bus station is much more conveniently located than Sukumvit Rd bus station, as from right outside Jomtien station one can get a regular Bahtbus for 10B to go anywhere along Jomtien Beach Rd or 2nd Rd Pattaya (or even Naklua for 20B), which puts you within walking distance of nearly all the major and minor hotels in the popullar parts of town (except for places like Pratumnak and Wong Amat, which just dont have any regular transport, and for silly places like the Ambassador). Anyone stopping at Sukumvit bus station will have to negotiate (ie pay a fortune) to get to most places.

Anyone living off the beaten track would be well advised to use the Bell bus, which is 200B to anywhere in town, and no fighting negotiation required.

Totally off-topic, but what about cheap(er) Thai language courses for people who actually want to learn Thai and who arent just after an easy visa extension?

This looks like Ticklebites: http://www.mapjackde...?e=bRrRUE9pkc7F

Someone else can do the rest.

My two cents is that Nuch in Soi Xcyte does a great seafood Pad Thai for 40B. http://www.mapjackdemo.com/?e=4GvRUz6rkc7F (was a laundry when the photo was taken).

And the Pad Thai stall on the corner of Soi Diana and LK Metro http://www.mapjackde...?e=XNvRUDXrkceB (stall not present when the photo was taken) is the biggest rip-off I have ever come across. 50B for a few tasteless noodles in cheap tomato ketchup and a couple of old prawns. (No, the old prawns werent bargirls from LK Metro.) AVOID!

I have first-hand experience of prices that rise and fall by 10% or more on a daily basis.

In one of the restaurants I went to several times this week the price (for the same items: beer, soups, curries, fish) increased by 10B per item when the daughter did the bill, but then dropped by 10B per item whenever the mother did the bill.

On a note closer to real economics, the can of beer that I buy every evening in 7/11 has gone from 35B to 39B in two stages (!) in less than one month. And a cake that I sometimes buy there has gone from 15 to 17B.

Only one word springs to mind: filthy.

Everywhere you go there is discarded rubbish. You just cant avoid it.

But I know why it's like that. I was on a minibus trip the other day. We stopped at a very clean service/restaurant area. In the toilets women were busy spraying bleach around and rinsing everything. Our driver bought himself some sort of cake from a 7/11 store and just dropped the wrapper into an attractive ornamental fountain area outside the shop without a second thought. There was a trashcan about 5 feet away from him.

Walk along Pattaya Beach Rd and examine the detritus all over the floor and the concrete seats: endless bottles, bags, styrofoam containers and half-eaten food. Yet there are loads of large waste bins everywhere. If Pattaya took some of the money it squanders on nonsense and spent it on employing a few dozen people to tidy up the beach the city could even perhaps pretend to be a world-class destination.

Singapore managed to teach (fine) Asians into being tidy: I'm sure that Thailand could do it. All they need is the desire.

Funny, isn't it?

I have always thought that the only worthwhile part of a trip to Koh Larn is the boat ride, and indeed the last time I did it (several years ago) I just came straight back. A very reasonably priced 2 hour cruise though, and I would do it again on a nice calm day.

A friend of mine who visited Pattaya for the first time this week described Koh Larn as a dirty, over-developed, over-priced dump full of the worst Russian tourists (many of whom seem to lodge there overnight, surprisingly). All the prices he quoted seemed to be about twice what they would be on the mainland.

My home is not an investment but rather a life style choice ...I would rather be slightly poor sitting next to my pool living with the sun on my back in Thailand, than having to struggle and make ends meet back in cold UK

Hmmm. How will you feel if they open a Karaoke bar or dog kennels next door to your house? Your "life style choice" could turn into a nightmare that you would be glad to get rid of for half of whatever you paid for it: if indeed you can sell it at all.

For every nice dwelling that I have seen in Thailand (and everywhere else in the world for that matter), I have seen at least 1000 that I wouldnt live in if you paid me to. And whilst places often seem to get worse over time, they rarely seem to get better.

i am sure people do exist who are bothered by the depreciation of their dwellings. but then... only poor people -who consider the houses or condos in which they live an investment- bother about the values.

You are forgetting those who do not intend living in the same house until they die.

I am interested in the value (or cost) of where I live purely because I want to know whether or not I would be better off renting it than owning it. And the answer to that depends on how much I can easily sell it for x years down the line, compared with the price I bought it for and what it might cost me in rent in the meantime, and what I might earn from the money if I do something else with it. Either way I will probably not be living in it indefinitely as I have other places to see before I snuff it. And when I consider how much the world has changed in the last 20 years I expect that within the next 20 there will be much better places to live in than where I live now, or where I did 20 years ago.

One person's "life style choice" is another person's investment, or millstone, or indeed folly.

Otherwise why increase the cover to 50MB and then reduce it to 1MB again?

It's decreasing not increasing - currently its an unlimited guarantee - then itfo to 50MB, then 1MB in 2012

So there has always been an unlimited guarantee on all deposits, until now? It wasn't less at some point?

I think that it increased prior to decreasing.

He then ...... grabbed employee #1s cellphone and purse off the desk....

And why weren't they in a drawer somewhere?

OK, the guy is still a crook but if you insist on making it easy for him..................

The price is 150,000THB per month

This has got to be the silliest thing I have read anywhere for many years.

I thought Team America had got rid of him.

"I'm so wonewy."

Kim Jong Il is surely the worlds biggest a***hole. He makes even Mugabe look good.

Actually I find the call quality on my phone to be surprisingly good. Certainly good enough to understand what people are saying. And Thai mobiles are often the same price to call from Europe as a Thai landline, and people with ADSL VOIP packages often get those calls entirely free. I have several people in Europe who call me often (too often!) and it costs them and me nothing at all.

TukCom has phones for 500B and I would describe these as perfectly satisfactory for someone who just wants to make and send the odd call or SMS. For 900B there is a fairly smart flip-top Samsung, which will also do the basic functions and shouldnt get scratched in your pocket.

Chargers on new phones should be pretty standard now as the EU micro-USB requirement is now in place. I charge mine exclusively from the USB socket on my laptop.

You mean to say for a 50B top-up the validity period is 6 months..if so which teleco is it...thanks

Buy a True "InterSim" SIM card from 7/11. Yellow cardboard wrapper. English instructions inside.

Top it up for a minimum of 50B at 7/11. Your top-up (and your number) will remain valid for 365 days, at which point you only need to top it up again to get another year.

AFAIK this is the only Thai SIM card that is valid 1 year for 50B. Calls seem quite cheap also, not that I make any.

They cant add up anyway.

12*6=72sqft/curtain.

72*8 = 576sqft total

576*450 = 259200, not 59000

Or are they trying to say that they bill by the linear foot, regardless of the hight of the curtains?

12linft*8 = 96linft

96linft * 450 = 43200, not 59000

Tell them to sue you. :jap:

If you cant do right-click:paste just do ctrl-V. That should work.