limbos

Makro, Big C, Tesco and Tops didn't have it all the times when I looked for it, hence my question here.

Sanphet is the shop in Nathon, right?

Can't seem to be able to find grounded nutmeg, any ideas. Thx in advance.

I found two lifts so far, one inside Central store and one kind of opposite the Food park

Dengue is around and at times almost epidemic. Now in the dry season not too much worry but once the rainy season starts and the increase in mozzies starts, more people will catch it. I don't know if it can be statistically proven that Thais have more problems with it compared to foreigners. I would be rather surprised.

I would imagine that it's a growing number. I hear from more and more people living here that they use this airport. Late April I will use it myself for the first, with family to fly to BKK r/t, around 8,000.-THB for the 4 of us and a baby. Can't beat that. You need to book a bit in advance but it's well worth it.

Well done CPN...

8,000 square meters x 1,200 baht: you will breakeven within less than three years

Ain't that the most important?!?

Mmmm, and what's wrong with that, to turn your investment into a profit?

PHUKET: One of my favorite movies in recent memory has to be Up in the Air. Given a hectic travel schedule, it’s certainly a subject I can identify with. One of the classic scenes has to be George Clooney, jumping into line behind some people of Asian descent at the foreboding metal detector and commenting how they “travel light”. Profiling, yes, but in my experience, the less I get repeatedly slapped in the face by over-sized backpacks being lugged by Europeans down airplane aisles, the better.

Lately, I have often been asked how Thailand’s resort markets are holding up in light of the country’s political issues in Bangkok. Looking over at nearby Samui, the answer appears to be – quite well, apparently. Last year, a record high of 1.3 million passengers arrived at the island’s airport.

Perhaps it’s time to recall the key catch phrase that best applies to tourism destinations “you can’t stay there, if you can’t get there”. Historically, air travel into Samui has taken a decidedly different path to that in Phuket. The latter’s facility is operated by the Airport of Thailand (AoT) authority and has embraced the game-changing surge of low-cost carriers (LCC’s) head-on.

While Samui’s prospects have been defined by the existence of a private airport, controlled by Bangkok Airways, there is a limitation of 36 daily flights imposed by a decade’s old environmental restriction. The destination cannot tap into either the LCC traffic or charter flights that operate into Phuket in the overnight time period, with the latter being a key driver of mass tourism.

In 2013, the Samui airport hit 86 per cent capacity, and looking at the rise in hotel numbers, it was hard for us to reconcile where the island’s growth was coming from. Hotel occupancy market-wide rose to 73 per cent and average room rates achieved seven per cent growth comparing year-on-year data.

Part of the answer came in viewing nearby Surat Thani’s airport arrivals, which in 2012, pushed up 38 per cent, and in 2013, another 32 per cent. Looking into the numbers, you find AirAsia and China Eastern Airlines, with their direct flights from mainland China and nearby Malaysia. Additionally, there was a lift in charter flights, with almost 60,000 passengers through the airport last year.

Effectively, Surat Thani has become Samui’s “Plan B” in creating new airlift to the island, and these rising numbers are driving new levels of business. While the logistics are complicated, with passengers required to be transported to Don Sak for ferry transport, the reality on the ground is the Samui airlift conundrum has found a partner in nearby Surat Thani.

That said, the island’s tourism market for the full year 2013 was still dominated by international visitors, which constituted 88 per cent of the market. Western Europeans still account for over half of this amount, but China and Russia are knocking at the door, with each showing triple digit growth compared to the previous year.

What is decidedly different between Samui and Phuket are the incoming hotel pipelines. Presently Phuket has just over 46,000 registered hotel units, and Samui comes in just shy of 18,000. The number of new hotels under development on the former stands at 26 properties, while the latter has five, hence supply and demand in Samui remains on solid footing. Simply put, there is not a broad danger of oversupply in the short to medium term.

Wrapping up our visit to Samui, the sunny island in the gulf of Thailand, the tourism prospects remain strong. What has the island currently buzzing is the opening of the Central Festival mall in Chaweng on March 29. Like it or not, the push higher in the development cycle changes every island’s dynamics the world over. For now, though, Samui’s hotel trading outlook appears set to go from strength to strength.

This article first appeared in the March 15-21 issue of the hard-copy Phuket Gazette newspaper.

http://www.phuketgazette.net/phuketproperty/2014/Phuket-Property-Watch-Samui-staying-strong-27844.html

The comeback from Zen!

Many still missing;

Sizzler (as I mentioned already)

Shabushi

Just to name two. Unfortunately since it looks like more or less the same options as are already available at Big C and Tesco Lotus.

The only local and new option seems to be Zazen's brasserie.

Just in case you misread my first post; no sizzler

No Sizzler

evadgib, how did you copy that video link from Facebook?

They can ask for the credit card of the person that booked but they don't have to. In case of your wife's friend, file it under 'shoe got lucky, she got away with it'. I know more cases of people that didn't get lucky. Whenever I book tickets or have tickets booked for me, I make sure that i read the conditions and if needed, I will have a copy of the persons ID card/passport and copy of his/hers credit card with me, I've been asked several times to produce these items at the time of check in, and not only by BKK Air.

There are plenty of airlines that have this rule in place, that the person who paid by credit card, has to be part of the travel party. That's not only a BKK Airways rule.

It's cars older than 6 years that apparently get the additional tests.

In Maenam a new Japanese restaurant opened in walking street, excellent menu options, very tasty, good sized portions and affordable. Well worth a visit. It's named Kobori. Closed on Mondays.

We have just tried the Lebanese restaurant at the Prana Resort in Bangrak.

Excellent. Really good food at not a bad price for a resort.

Great location with views over the bay at Bangrak. Live music (good) - singing Frank Sinatra and other similar style songs.

Not for Foodstall foodies, but very good if you want something a bit different. We will be back.

Thank you to whoever it was that mentioned it on the 2013 TV thread.

That was me Tropicalevo, I'm glad to hear my recommendation worked out for you. I've been there twice now and both times the food was excellent, well prepared, original to Lebanese cuisine and served without long waiting times. I will be back for sure!

You just can't help people who won't help themselves SJ.

Red flags on a beach anywhere in the world and it's pretty obvious what they mean in any language.

Unfortunately the attitude is: 'I'm on a fortnight's holiday once a year and no-one is going to stop me enjoying myself.'

i was told that it is normally the strong people who like to show off or think they can fight the sea are the ones most vanerable

Most victims of the waves and currents in Chaweng and Lamai each year are older people that get caught out and don't know what to do, besides the fact that they probably shouldn't have been in the water to start with. Not necessarily only the show off brigade.

It´s appalling for sure to see a high degree of negligence with regard to safety, drunkenness, human rights, education, the environment, what have you. I have seen plenty of examples to the contrary, however, some bordering on an OCDish standard of cleanliness and order.

I can handle that it´s probably a matter of ignorance and socialization. What kills me is the outright denial and scapegoating of any of the above.

I attended a conference for work recently -- I work for an NGO -- and one of the keynote speakers was a Thai woman who is a board member and a former provincial senator from the north. I genuinely asked her what positive qualities she has observed and would like to see in foreigners working and volunteering for our organization. She proceeded to launch into a trite, shallow comparison of the West and the East. Not only did she not answer my question, she insulted me and my colleagues by suggesting that the West is responsible for spoiling the environment, among other things, and that we foreigners could learn from the simple life of the

Asians. I just smiled and thanked her. Later, my colleagues and I were like, Are you GD kidding me?!

It just occur to me that this has been going on for at a minimum of hundreds of years. Now it only stands to reason that if it is hurting the ecology there would be lots of examples to show after 100s of years. As I drive around the country side do you think it would help if this healthy looking jungle was to have signs showing how the littering over hundreds of years had hurt it.

Seems to me there is more damage brought to the country by the pollution producing vehicles and industry that Thailand never had.

Maybe we could have an NGO to look into that.

Plastic products were not around a hundred years ago.

The Wat Plai Laem Rescue team was fairly busy today, I saw them at least twice in action within a two hour stretch.

Sad to see the Rescue vehicle leave the accident scene and other vulture ambulances are just arriving.

It's showtime; it's high season

Sadly enough

The garbage trucks have indeed been at it, however, they just clear the garbage bins and leave any 'residual garbage' laying around, for this garbage somebody on a motorbike with sidecar comes along and cleans it up. At least in most places.

However, near 'the Park', people still use that long stretch as a dumping ground, despite various efforts of cordoning parts of the road off.