dddave

My condo overlooks Jomtien 2nd Rd. The Rimhad Condominium crosswalk on 2nd Rd. has a stoplight but both motorcycles and cars routinely just blow through the red light. Big Bikes use Jomtien Beach Rd as their own Bira Circuit all day and all night. Even on these nice cool nights, I have to tightly close my 10th floor balcony doors to lessen the sound of screaming motorcycles racing up 2nd Rd, then making a U-Turn and racing back down. I have gotten so I can recognize certain bike hat are regular offenders and predict where they will U-turn and come back. No police enforcement whatsoever. I wish it had been the biker that lost his life rather than the pedestrian.

There is precedent. Long timers here may remember the case, ironically also involving a Dutch victim. The victim came to Pattaya at the Millennium as a young man and quickly made a fortune. In 2000, local internet access was scarce and expensive and there was no easy access to home country news. He had the idea to get the rights to publish several UK and European newspaper main pages locally on the day of publication and sell them on newstands in Bangkok & Pattaya. It was a huge success. He made several other successful investments and was soon, the wealthiest expat in Pattaya. He had married a beautiful Thai girl and they built a huge mansion and both drove matching Mercedes. Everything was perfect, until it wasn't. His body was found bludgeoned in a field, half burned. Though sensational, the case was not solved, nobody was charged. The grieving wife collected millions of insurance Baht. It faded away. It didn't fade away for the victims family in Holland. They were relentless, pushing the Dutch Government to pressure the Thai Government into re-opening the investigation. Finally, a personal visit by members of the Dutch Royal Family to the Thai Royal Family during which the Dutch Royals brought the issue up with the Thai Royals resulted in the case being re-opened with a lot of money behind it. A couple of key confessions were obtained and it was discovered that the perfect wife had a scumbucket Thai boyfriend on the side. They lured the victim to the murder location and her uncle and boyfriend beat him to death. The wife was arrested, tried and finally, more than ten years after the murder was sentenced to life in prison.

Agreed. I ride Baht-buses frequently and the vast majority of rides are just normal, stop & start trips.

Last year, it was pretty big news when a Korean man fell off the back of a Baht-Bus, also on Soi Buakhao and died of his injuries. Lots of announcements of strict load-enforcement rules, not allowing standees and hanger's on at the rear platform. That lasted about a day.

Or a cigarette flicked out a front window and being sucked back into the rear, lodging in the seat. Used to happed frequently in the days prior to air-con. Not very frequent now but during this cool spell, I've been driving with all windows down. Not likely but possible.

Which is perhaps why the police aren't releasing any details. Suitable financial penalties will be arrived at and the case will quietly disappear from court agendas with no means for inquiring reporters to find anything else out.

Almost every US Embassy has what is called a "LEGAT", the acronym for "Legal Attaché", almost always an FBI agent. At larger embassy's like Bangkok there are DEA, CBP, ATF and CIA agents operating under various titles. Most other larger nations have exactly the same. They don't have the power to arrest but they just bring along a local cop for that. Interestingly, during the annual "COBRA GOLD" exercises involving US Navy and Marine personnel, in Pattaya, especially on Walking Street, American MPs seem to have pretty free reign to enter bars and clubs and demand ID's, pulling out anybody off limits.

A car doesn't actually have to be travelling that fast to create a huge amount of damage in a direct collision. A 1500kg sedan travelling at 50 kph (30mph) has almost 150,000 J of kinetic energy. That's more than enough to total any car.

In Fact, nearly 100% of the property in that area of Sukhumvit, from Phrom Phung to Ploen Chit is owned by long term resident Indian families. Almost 200 years ago, one of the Thai Kings invited Indians and Persians to set up commerce in then Siam and granted them a huge track of land which is now Sukhumvit. They can not sell it, they can only lease it. Indian families dominate the Bangkok hotel and textile industry and control many of the larger Sukhumvit area hotels. There is some resentment between these Indian families and Thais as they remain aloof from Thai society and rarely intermarry.

One possible glitch on Lazada purchased Kindles I ran into. My new Kindle Paperwhite 6.7 inch model purchased on Lazada stopped charging after a months use. I tried every online suggestion there was, nothing worked. I decided I must have somehow damaged the USB-C port. I bought another one, also from Lazada and the exact same thing happened, after a months use, stopped charging. I was totally flummoxed. There is no Kindle service available in Thailand and they can't be mailed to the US because of the built-in battery. A friend was going to the US for a visit so I gave them to him to take there and drop off at a Kindle service center near his home. Just on impulse, he tried charging them at his home and amazingly, thy both charged right-up without issue. WTF??? Some deeper research revealed that most Kindles sold in Asia originate with Kindle-Japan. Japan has a weird power grid, half the country is 50 cycle, half 60 cycle. This creates a lot of conflicts and compromises in circuit design and though I have no proof, I think that was somehow involved with my battery charging issue. The only way I can consistently charge them is by using a power bank as the source. Then they charge without issue. If I use a charger and outlet, sometimes they charge, sometimes not.

I once bought a Gateway laptop in the US, brought it to Thailand and after 11 months, the HD crashed. I took it to a Thai repair shop, he suggested I check with Acer service . Acer had bought the Gateway brand and they honored the Gateway US warranty. No charge for HD replacement. OP One unlikely but possible glitch you can encounter with a computer purchased in the US and brought here. Happened to me. I got a new HP laptop I had bought while on a short trip to the US. When I tried to set it up in Bangkok, I couldn't get the wifi to connect...it wouldn't even see the network. All my other devices wore working on the wifi with no issue. Took 2 days to figure it out but the short version is, in the USA, wifi channels 12, 13 & 14 are reserved for government use and are locked out on all US sold devices. This is only in the US. Those channels are available in Thailand. My router had happened to have assigned one of those channels to my home network, thus my US bought computer could not connect. Changing the router channel to another channel resolved the issue.

The reporter is being pretty cagey about not actually saying how many days this guy was on overstay. I expect if it were actually only a "few", like 2 or 3 days, he would have said that. My guess it was many more days than a "few"

"No marks on the body" You think a shark attack would maybe leave a mark or two?

It's not unusual around Jomtien Beaches to see older men swimming solo very far out from the shoreline and outside of the protected swimming areas. There are many jet-ski's zooming around these areas as well as tourist speedboats and with the constant glare of the afternoon sun, a swimmer can be very difficult to see. Contact with a watercraft does not seem to be the case in this instance, more likely an older man pushing his limits and suffering the consequences.

All firefighters get my respect for going into fires such as this on an upper floor. They never know when a floor might give away and send them flying. I'm from a city where 9 firefighters died because an illegal renovation of an old hotel led to a sudden collapse of interior floors left unsupported.

How can anybody walk on a Pattaya sidewalk, more often than not blocked with parked cars, motorbikes, vendors carts and what have you.

In 1946, France granted French citizenship to all residents of the many colonies they held, justifying the conscription of many colonial resident's to fight with French Force during WW2 and hoping to hold off the many independence movements brewing. Now, they're stuck with them.

You mean, like Christians and Jews do?

I need to get a Thai automobile driving license. I searched through this forum but while there are a number of topics on renewing, there were not any I could find describing the process of getting a new license. If you know a link, please post it. My US license expired more than 2 years ago during Covid. I live in Jomtien. I know I need a Certificate of Residency from Immigration and a health certificate. What is the process? Is the training video now accessible online? What is the nearest DLT to Jomtien? I prefer to try doing it myself rather than using an agent as it appears from what I have read, I'm pretty much going to have to do the same routine anyway. I have access to a car so I don't need an agency to provide one. If anybody has recently done this, I'd appreciate knowing your experience.

I think under 50cc doesn't require a license but not 100% sure. I know it was true at one time but it may have changed.

IRRC, motorbikes under 50cc are exempted from registration and may be driven by kids under 18

I haven't done it myself but I have seen other residents of my Jomtien condo building paying GRAB drivers using a QR code.

But having more than 2 decks of cards without a license is illegal. Many years ago, because of a political situation, the police actually raided a Bridge Club event. It caused an uproar because the "Man On Top" endorsed Bridge and was a pretty good player. The only face saving technicality the police had to cover the raid was they had more than 2 decks of playing cards.

A friend with dual Gas/LPG converted back to gas only because the LPG tank in her 10 year old car had reached it's expiration date and could not pass inspection. Getting a new tank installed wasn't worth it.

Still several saunas at the beach end of Pratumnak-5 and one on Pratumnak-6, closer to the top of the hill.