andyl66

Jomtien or Pratumnak far preferable. Away from the hustle and bustle and the traffic yet only 10 minutes into Central Pattaya if you need to go there.

Agreed, with those areas. However, I would strongly suggest rental as the best route. Thailand is just about at the peak of it's property boom and as an investment Thailand is not great because, firstly, Thai's do not like to buy second hand homes, so the moment you move in you'll have just shaved two to three million off the value. Next, property building is going crazy again, and the prices are stupid - ten million baht is over $350k and you can buy a place in New York or London for that. Remember this, Thailand is an UNREGULATED housing market, also use your own eyeballs and see that nothing here is over 20 years old! They build, keep it up for a few years and then knock them down! Because the housing market is unregulated it means that just because you're buying freehold you are a farang and can NEVER own land, so the land will always belong to someone else. That someone else will invariably be a Thai national, and when he or she decides to knock the entire apartment block down you will just receive a letter in your now broken mailbox that you have to leave.

This is Thailand and what has great security, and a great management service today, you will notice those levels of great service take a dramatic nosedive once all the units have been sold. Where I live in Bangkok we used to have a shuttle service to both the airport and the local BTS, it was provided free of charge as part of the service charge. The pool area was maintained and was spotless, all the windows downstairs in the reception area were spotless. We had 24 hour call-out for repairs. On the day that the last unit was sold the free shuttle service ended! The pool maintenance went from daily to weekly and now every two weeks. The fountains that were always permanently on and lit at night haven't even been turned on for the last six months. Our 24 hour repairs service has stopped and we are now told we need to hire someone ourselves, but they can suggest someone (who charges about ten times Thai minimum wage). The building needs painting, the balcony was obviously built using cheap steel because the railings are now rusting and has stained the walls with rust. These units sold for 2.5 million five years ago, if we sold our now we'd be lucky to get 1.5 million unless we found a stupid farang willing to part with his cash. If I could go back in time I'd have rented.

Seriously! What I'd do if I were you is buy a property in London, rent that out - which will take you roughly 2 minutes and use that money to rent the property of your dreams in Pattaya. Pattaya becomes very old, very quickly. Unless you are working there then I wouldn't ever suggest it as a place to have your main residence. London offers a more realistic return on investment. In Thailand the population earns 300 baht per day and 50,000 THB per month is considered an enormous wage. In London a part-time toilet cleaner will earn that! So how can it justify ten million for an apartment? It can't, so the bubble will burst!

You must use common sense! You will certainly be buying from Russian mafia when you buy in Pattaya, built by Russian contractors, and I've seen those buildings going up, with just a two inch breeze block wall, and plasterboard dividing walls. Every corner has been cut when they built them, and bribes have all been paid to make sure they get away with it. Don't believe me? Go to any current residential property building site and look at the absolutely terrible quality of materials being used. Oh, and with the Russians, if you've got a complaint then prepare to commit suicide if you make too much fuss!

Pattaya is also solely reliable on the girly trade, when Walking Street closes your property will be absolutely worthless. Walking street will close, it is inevitable, the land prices are being pushed too high, very soon the land the clubs are on will be worth far more than anything the clubs can even hope to make. Pattaya is very quickly becoming too expensive to maintain itself. Prostitution is also illegal in Thailand, and if a gvt comes in that starts to tackle corruption (which it will do, because Thailand is developing very, very quickly) it will shut Walking Street down. Thai GDP is coming less and less from tourism and the sex tourist portion of that GDP is even less still (with many now preferring to go to Vietnam/Phil/Cambodia - where the sex is so much cheaper). Also, the Russian Mafia are crawling all over Pattaya and the Gvt will very soon want them out! So Pattaya is doomed I'm afraid. It certainly will not exist in it's present form in five years from now. That much is certain. For God's sake rent!

It all depends on budget. Any area that is close to BTS or MRT is 'cool', and the rental prices reflect this. To be honest you'd be hard pushed to notice any real difference in any of the areas but I'd be looking for something close to Bearing station now. Bearing is less developed and more 'Thai' than any other of the BTS areas. Also, you are guaranteed a seat when you catch the BTS because it is the starting point of the journey. Although once full you MUST stand for elderly or children. If you have a budget of only 5000THB per month for rent then you can get a serviced apartment with air con (studio room). If you have a budget of 10k or over you can get yourself something very nice. You will need your translation device for use in restaurants (I use bing translate on my WP7 just let the cam look at the thai text and it translates it into English). Another reason I'd suggest Bearing is that because of the lack of farang there you will be ripped off far less. Taxis will always turn their meters on (without you having to ask first), restaurants only have the one menu (not the two menu systems where you pay three times more for food if you're farang). People are much more friendly towards you and the crime rates are lower in Bearing and surrounding areas. Victory monument is a nice area if you want to be surrounded by western influence. As a previous poster said On Nut is a very good area, with some fantastic apartments and brilliant markets. Just always make sure you're within walking distance of BTS or MRT and all areas are good.

That's the sort of negative attitude that we can do without. Of course it's possible to stamp it out. It will be extremely difficult, but it's possible to clean it up. We need people like Chuvit to make a stand. It takes time to get these things done, but at least he's making a start, which is more than you're doing, which is sniping from the comfort of your armchair.

Who's 'we', Kimosabe? You got a mouse in your pocket?

Really tiresome seeing all the moralists come out of the woodwork.

Chuwit was not only the Massage Parlor Magnate, but the guy who bulldozed an entire block of bars on Sukhumvit in the wee hours, resulting in massive property loss for those who could hardly afford it. And now, the land lies fallow, as "Chuwit Garden". What was the point?

I can only assume he is attempting to be a pain in the ass to those in power, who sanction the very activities he is protesting.

If he were sincere, he'd be saying "Stamp out corruption, and prostitution will take care of itself..."

"Chuwit was not only the Massage Parlor Magnate, but the guy who bulldozed an entire block of bars on Sukhumvit in the wee hours, resulting in massive property loss for those who could hardly afford it. And now, the land lies fallow, as "Chuwit Garden". What was the point?"

Well depends on what sort of spin you want to put on it.

Another way of looking at it, he removed squatters from land he already owned.

As for the land being fallow, there was a sign at the enterance last time I was there that says its a memorial to his mother.

Its one of the few places in that area where its possible to escape the madness of the surrounding area.

There is ONE primary reason why a girl, whether she be Thai, Russian, English or American and that is MONEY! You cannot wipe out prostitution because it is ALWAYS ahead on the wage front. If you put up factory wages to 10,000TBH per day then the prostitutes will charge 30,000 per hour! In the UK a prostitute will cost you (for a good one at least £100 per hour), in Thailand a good prostitue will cost you 3000THB (yes you can get some skank from a bar for as little as 700THB. So let's consider the lowest of the low, cheapest whore you can get in Thailand, let's say 500THB for 1 hour. My wife's last job was in a factory as a quality control inspector - for the whole day including 7 hours overtime she received just shy of 400THB - FOR THE DAY!

The temptation to turn to prostitution is always there for many girls/women - purely because of the money they can earn. I know girls in the UK who have less than twenty regular customers and earn in excess of £8k per month - from those clients alone! It also is a job you can carry on doing until your old age! Nowadays if a pensioner was offering herself she'd go for a premium amount, because it's regarded as a fetish!

You can never, and will never stamp out prostitution, you'll just drive it further and further underground, and as a consequence the prices will go up and up and up.

Whatever country you are in you can guarantee that to buy a whore will cost you roughly 3x a low daily wage for just one hour! As I said, in the UK you'll struggle to find anything decent for less than £100 per hour! How many people in the UK are earning £100 per day? Tax free? Even a moderate skank in the UK will be earning in excess of £500 per day. The exact same is true in Thailand!

In the apartment block where I live the girl who owns the shop was struggling to make ends meet, then a man from one of the apartments offered her 5000THB for sex. She had sex with him, word spread and now she is fully booked for sex and the shop is hardly ever open! She's Thai, all her clients are Thai men and they gladly pay 5000THB just for sex! She's now just bought a brand new car and is saving to build a house for her parents!

Seems like a great move! Thailand is known for two things the world over:

1. Sex

2. Corruption

So remove the sex and all it'll have left is corruption - I somehow doubt quite so many tourists will come to experience the corruption (even if it is funny at times).

Be prepared for a nightmare! I'm trying to get a UK Family Visa for my wife. We filled out the form, got all the supporting documents ready then went to the Embassy. We were told we MUST fill out an ONLINE APPLICATION and submit it. They gave us a sheet with all the web links and we came home and have been searching for hours for this hallowed online application form. It doesn't seem to exist! We keep being redirected to VFS (who you need to submit the forms to), but we tried telephoning VFS and they NEVER answer their phones. So we are completely stuck as to what to do! The links the British Embassy gave us contain only the pdf forms, the information contains absolutely no information about submitting the documents online. The cost for the Visa is as near as dam_n it 4000 THB. On top of that you need to pay VFS. I think the whole thing is set up to scam people out of money (I suppose this is the norm for UK & Thailand) and force you to use a Visa Agency (expect to pay between 10K and 20K THB for their 'service'). Ah well, what else do you expect from Rip Off Britain and Corruption Central Thailand - a mix made in hell!

Sorry if I'm just being stupid - but me and my wife filled out a Family Visa by hand, then we went along to the British Embassy and were told that they don't accept written applications anymore. I must fill out an online application form. They gave us a sheet of paper with the links on it. So, we came back home and I've now been searching for nearly 3 hours. I've clicked nearly every single link on the whole website to try and find the online application form. This is so frustrating, I'm sure someone must know where the link to a family visa (online application - not the form itself) is.

Please help

Thank you!!

Oh dam_n, I was planning on releasing a new amazing skin whitening cream that really works! I'd also found another cream that increases female breast size from an A cup to a G cup in just five years. Oh and I have another cream that cures every disease ever and it really works! With these new plans to ban my false totally true adverts for vaseline my skin miracle creams, I don't stand a chance.

Pretty obvious why she's wanting to fight her divorce in Scotland. Under Scottish law and British Law it doesn't matter if your wife has another lover, the wife is still entitled to half of everything you have. It makes it worse that the husband has absolutely no proof that she has another man. If she's allowed into the UK then Mr Kilt Maker is seriously up the creek. Divorce law is cut and dried, the courts cannot say 'oh because you live in Thailand we're giving you less money'. The courts will stick to the letter of the law, Mr Kilt maker will have to either reach an agreement outside of court, or go to court and lose half (at least). Anyone that has been through a divorce in the UK will testify that if you're male then be prepared to have your balls sawn off. She's just being sensible.

Farangs need to realise they are in Thailand. People here do not believe in the law as such, this man withheld 1/3 of the payment for decoration and carpentry work - so that means the total bill would have been for £1200 - let him try and get the same work done in the UK for this price! Did he not look around him while he was in Thailand and think 'the levels of workmanship here are not the same as the UK'? If you get Thais to do a job for you, they will do it quickly and often not to a high standard, this is reflected in the price charged. If you are unhappy with the work, tough, you pay up. This is not the UK and the Thai's have their ways of getting their own back. I've been ripped off in lots of ways while I've been in Thailand, from dodgy taxi drivers to dodgy work but I always pay up, it isn't worth getting involved in any dispute because I know that I'll get smashed round the back of the head when I least expect it.

Anyone that lives in Thailand is aware of these practices. Just look at village life where people borrow money 'poy' - if they don't pay the Thais send the heavies along to visit mum and knock the crud out of her, steal all their belongings and still demand the payment in full! This is how it works here. If you don't like it leave! Or alternatively, do the work yourself.

Also, Thai law will ALWAYS put the Thai first. Often the Police and the courts will go on the word of a Thai despite documentary evidence (video, legal documents) stating the contrary.

You should try going to Malaysia, it doesn't seem to matter if you queue or not, people just walk past the queues and start unpacking. However, I personally think the Aussie girl was right, it isn't fair that people who wait in line for an age get pipped by someone just because they raced ahead to get to the newly opened checkout. But, hey that's the British for you, they used to be the epitome of politeness, how things have changed