Asiantravel

1 hour ago, lordblackader said:

used them a number of times. Initially you'd get an actual ticket from the airline, now they send you an travel itinerary which looks like they typed it up themselves. Last visa application I just changed the dates on an old ticket out of the country, was accepted without issue as there's no way for them to check it. 

dangerous assumption!

the guy from the Bali consulate was a participating member on this forum (maybe still is) and he checked tickets and when he found that they were false he would ban that person from ever using the Bali consulate again.

9 hours ago, JSixpack said:

 

Quite the opposite, as the idiots are so numerous that distinguishing oneself is for you so much easier and for Thais all the more welcome. Pattaya has a large & diverse population of Thais from many parts of the country, and actually they don't know any culture other than Thai no matter how they may act on the surface. So in fact you can learn quite a lot from them, including stuff you'd never find out in some traditional, conservative town, and have some good laughs. 'Course, we're talking about common culture; average Thais know about as much about Thai High Culture as average farangs do about John Milton. I'd say your view is both superficial and stereotypical.

  it's as if you seem to think you have a deep understanding of their Psyche . It's what they say about you after you have left that would reveal the most about their culture

For the past year including all through the recent high season a large part of the Northern end of Beach Road (near the Dusit hotel) has been blocked off to pedestrians with a long row of billboards which say “ beach nourishment “and “ construction zone do not enter “

But it would be nice to be able to see the sea again!

Yesterday there was a gap in the billboards and I was able to get through to check out what was happening and as you can see from the photos not very much at all.

I wonder which year they plan on finishing this work?

12 hours ago, joepattaya1961 said:

Great, another supermarket within close range of another supermarket. 

They could have considered to rent the empty space in the Avenue; easy access and free parking

Or even this place because they badly need tenants

https://www.google.co.th/maps/@12.9436965,100.8848165,3a,55.2y,120h,95.46t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sygwLFJoGjkJEwzVhwlpEEg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

29 minutes ago, Cirencester said:

Changed beyond all recognition in last 25 years. Yes Ive got older but as far as Girls go I'm still a handsome man on the basis the quality of guys left is close to appalling.What are here have a fascination in making themselves look as ugly as possible with shaven polls and arms painted green and black.

Its not even fun any more in the main. Spend a lot of nights in Hotel now just watch decent movie and go Beach or Swimming Pool during day which I certainly enjoy.... Point in question I could do that in Spain or Greece.

Soi's 6, 7 and 8 and changed beyond belief and North Pattaya a Ghost town. Soi 6 in particular always a good laugh is a dying shell of what it was and getting worse. walked it yesterday about 5pm shall not bother again deserted

Frankly I cant be arsed with it anymore  !!  If you're not coming here for sex (and I can completely take or leave it) then why am I coming. Shocking Exchange rates for Brits not helping

 

Maybe a change of location in Thailand ??   Pleased if others would input on that

it depends what you're looking for but if you think Pattaya has changed I think you'd be in for an even bigger shock in Spain or Greece as well with even more changes to come.

Pattaya isn't the only coastal resort in Southeast Asia. Why not try Sihanoukville in Cambodia or Nha Trang in Vietnam before taking such a drastic step such as going to Europe?

7 hours ago, mok199 said:

now that I have seen this in real time ,I don't understand why they couldn't accomplish this with heavy equipment such as scrapers(landmovers ) and cats etc..this isn't a tunnel its a normal overpass,nothing about this is underground...????

why couldn't they have created an elevated overpass with most of the components prefabricated off-site and simply assembled? It could have been done in months instead of years.

On ‎11‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 10:35 AM, craigt3365 said:

Just went both ways.  What an absolute mess.  They should be embarrassed.  Traffic is really backed up.  Both ways the lane on the outside is a disaster.  Dirt, rocks, holes.  Horrible.  Absolutely terrible.

 

I was in Latvia a few years ago.  Saw them resurfacing a highway.  They could do about 2km of road an hour.  From start to finish.  What a professional job.  Here, we've been waiting for a long time for a properly resurfaced road outside the tunnel.  Unreal.

I agree and in many countries they use generators and huge lights so they can keep doing the work even at night time. This has caused  so much inconvenience and such delays because the traffic has been narrowed down to one lane that they should have been doing this in shifts on a 24-hour basis but there is no sense of urgency whatsoever.

And what about the sidewalk of the eastern side- well in short there isn't one any more  complete shambles.

15 hours ago, mauroest said:

we were in NhaTrang too, with my russian relatives.  

Russian tourists move to new destinations following others russian.

Destination must have sea, sunshine, fish and piva (beer).

Usually They do not know well the area where they will travel

 

Most of them do not know one word of English and get all information from russian forums and most of them rent apartment from others  russian people.

 

Many are in NhaTrang as in Pattaya Wongamat area. You will see young couples with baby, try to walk on destroyed 'platform'  and dirty beaches.

 

I don't want to misunderstand you but are you saying NhaTrang has dirty beaches? if so you must be joking particularly compared to

Pattaya. please tell me exactly in which part of NhaTrang you saw dirty beaches?

and again  if by " platform " you mean sidewalk or pavement, they are beautifully clean and in good condition throughout the city and beyond unlike the disgraceful condition of pavements in Pattaya.

On ‎15‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 10:34 PM, pipeflaw said:

What is a court visa?

 

there are several references to what a court Visa is on a forbidden website but here is another one and it suggests that all other visas are suspended and that you are allowed to remain in Thailand only by virtue of the fact that you are required for court appearances

Quote

Head's current press credentials are scheduled to expire in May, after which he will be required to apply for a court visa that must be renewed every one or two months in the southern province of Phuket, a one-hour flight from Bangkok, where Head lives and works, the BBC representative told CPJ. Because of strict contempt of court laws in Thailand, the representative requested anonymity.

https://cpj.org/2017/02/defamation-suit-in-thailand-restricts-bbc-reporter.php

10 hours ago, Gopro said:

http://pattaya103.com/fab103/thai-lawyer-discusses-problem-plan-condo-buying/

thanks very much for posting thatnow I understand what it is involved with rehabilitation.

But what a nightmare for the buyersthey would simply have to appoint a lawyer to do all the preparation work as Khun Pira explained very well so that involves forking out even more money on top of the potential losses they are already exposed to.

The part I find the most intriguing is how can the company come up with any meaningful rehabilitation plan when there are so many legal question marks still overhanging the development itself?

1 hour ago, JSixpack said:

 

Couple of other points. Almost all failing malls in the USA are located in the rust belt or other areas w/ relatively depressed economics or changed demographics. A factor often cited related to the demographics is the safety issue. Middle class shoppers don't feel safe in the malls or in the mall parking lots, which has helped push them to online shopping. Try to find a failed upscale mall in a beach resort area where the main business is tourists. The huge Ala Moana Center in Honolulu? Doing great. That a tiny  mall is in a poor location and poorly designed and has overwhelming competition just down the street opening after it did--such purely local factors can easily explain its poor performance without resort to Global Economics and posturing.

Rustbelt or depressed economics? California, Arizona, Texas are not in this category are they and yet have a fair share of closed malls.

http://deadmalls.com/stories.html#CA

But much closer to home, how does your theory fit into Singapore’s struggling shopping malls?

Singapore’s shopping centres struggling to survive

http://sea-globe.com/singapores-shopping-centres-struggling-to-survive/

Five years from now, one-third of China's shopping malls will be out of business, report says

http://shanghaiist.com/2016/09/08/one_third_shopping_malls_gone.php

I have been following the case of the two British guys in Phuket who were both victims of property fraud and which then Jonathan Head of the BBC has tried to report to the world .What really disturbs me about Thailand's legal system is the bar seems too low regarding someone being able to start a private criminal case against someone else and  in the case of a foreigner can then lead to either the defendant being put on a court Visa or even worse the passport having to be surrendered to the court. In both cases you are then not allowed to leave Thailand until the case is over.

12 hours ago, seancbk said:

 

 

Why is it that no mater what the discussion, people trot out a few examples of bad things happening as "proof" that any and every attempt to do something here will result in the same outcome?

 

Of course there are people that will get cheated, that doesn't mean everyone will.

Of course there are people who will have issues with a cheating spouse or GF, but not every relationship with a Thai woman ends in misery.

Of course there are bad drivers here, but that doesn't mean you are definitely going to have an accident or that if you do it will be blamed on you.

Of course there are some bad Police here, but there are also a hell of a lot of genuinely good ones.  


Do you people really think everything is that bad here?   

In my experience things are very good here, I've never been scammed and I think life is pretty great.

Sure there are things I'd prefer to be better, mostly to do with long term visas for under 50's.

But things keep improving, the quality of life in Bangkok keeps improving, there are new restaurants opening up all the time, more high end shopping, the middle class is growing.  Young Thais are travelling more and bringing back more international ideas.    In another 10 years Bangkok is going to be even better than it is now.   


 

" Of course there are people that will get cheated, that doesn't mean everyone will."

the issue is not that some people will get cheated but before investing one satang in any business in any country it's not unreasonable to expect where something does go wrong you should at least be able to expect the judicial system to help the victim and go after the perpetrator. When the opposite occurs twice in one case (as occurred with this story the BBC were covering) and then on top of that accuse you of being the criminal for simply wanting your money back (and chasing you out of the area with death threats) you'd have to be daft to invest anything here.

p.s. do you know anything about this case because if you did I find it very hard to understand that you can brush aside as easily as you do?

3 hours ago, seancbk said:

 

What do you base that on?

Foreign investors (big companies) would not bother putting money into Thailand if there wasn't a good reason to do so. 

Foreign Direct Investment in Thailand increased by 10095.86 THB Million in December of 2016. Foreign Direct Investment in Thailand averaged 20376.29 THB Million from 1997 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 125800.99 THB Million in December of 2013 and a record low of -95430.07 THB Million in June of 2013.  Source: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/thailand/foreign-direct-investment


If by foreign investors you mean small businessmen investing from zero to 5 million baht into little businesses, then the situation is slightly different because many of the 'investors' in these situations either have no previous business skills, or no relevant skills (pening bars, restaurants, etc) and their failure is usually a result of that.  

The main issue that cause small foreign owned businesses to fail is that the people starting them don't have proper Thai business partners.   Starting a business with a Thai woman who has at best a basic education and no business accumen might be ok if the business is a single noodle stall, but if you are trying to build a brand with 1000 noodle stalls you'll likely fail, unless you have Thai partners who really understand business, not just how to make noodles.


 

 " because many of the 'investors' in these situations either have no previous business skills, or no relevant skills (pening bars, restaurants, etc) and their failure is usually a result of that. "

That's not the only reason they fail. They also fail when they are defrauded by their partner as evidenced by the story that Jonathan Head of the BBC was so anxious to expose  to the world before he was effectively silenced by the Thai judicial system

https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/02/five-years-jail-await-bbc-journalist-charged-defamation-phuket-land-case/#IxeVlYWZLFBTS4bK.97

3 hours ago, Thechook said:

A known rapist and he is allowed into the country?  There is a huge amount of misfits and undesirables who seek Thailand as a refuge.

but a guy who started a thread in the Visa section of this forum last week who said he was holding a new tourist Visa, the required amount of Cash and a ticket out of Thailand was denied entry by immigration because he didn't have a hotel booking I think they need to get their priorities right.

1 hour ago, Peterw42 said:

You need to be careful, people dont like talk of making money or decent returns. Its all doom and gloom, lol

 

do you mean like this fellow LOL 

How I Lost 500k on My Condo in Thailand

  http://haraldbaldr.com/how-i-lost-500k-on-my-condo-in-thailand-part-i/

2 hours ago, tompelli said:

 Pattaya traffic police officials said operating red and green lights during the week simply created too much traffic congestion. So there is the answer, car is king pedestrians can run. In the same category as the computerised controlled traffic system in Bangkok that was switched off because 2,000 cops on motorcycles with walkie talkies can do a better job. Thailand 4.0.

I don't believe you because they promised they would take it seriously

what an amazing guy at 74 years old

at that age maybe he would appreciate an electric motor to assist him sometimes and some fancy lights!

I bet all the customers will be after him then in Surat Thani

1 hour ago, Watchful said:

 

One dynamic that Western property owners face is HUGE property taxes. This makes holding on to unused property very, very expensive. Failure to pay property taxes, of course, is equivalent to donating it to the government.

 

 

another dynamic that Western property developers face is banks insisting on a properly presented feasibility study before they agreed to advance any money

you will find it is a pet and belongs to one of the tenants in an upstairs shop. the security guards keep a watch on it  and don't seem worried about getting hold of it if he starts wandering too far away.

I wonder if we will see the same phenomena regarding shopping centres in Pattaya  that is being seen in  America where up to 1/3 of some shopping malls have been shuttered up because they have lost their tenants.

And now because of this a new crisis has developed which they have named collateral crisis-- i.e. the assets supporting a debt are no longer worth the loan balance.

9 hours ago, siam2007 said:

 

Sorry, but if you had read my words properly, you would have discovered that I said "AND THEN CHANGE IT AGAIN AT THE DESTINATION" - this means, changing the Dollars into local currency. Thus, you would have enough bundles of KIP to pay for the entrance fee at LPQ National Museum. Unlike most, I even get myself some RIEL when traveling in CAMBO, as RIEL always attracts cheaper prices than paying in US$ 

but  have you ever wondered why this phenomena of rejecting US dollars in place of their local fiat currency seem to have happened in all these Asian countries almost simultaneously.  What were the changes in economic fundamentals that caused them one moment to want nothing but US dollars but suddenly only accepting their own worthless bits of paper ? Zimbabwe has gone back to using US dollars after the use of its own dollars resulted in complete disaster.

Here is a picture of a sign on a pharmacy in Sihanoukville

1 hour ago, alex8912 said:

Why don't you read the post you quoted. He didn't say to use USD when you arrive in another country. He said to change your USD into local currency when you arrive in another country ?

I'm aware of that already and you missed my point entirely.

7 or 8 years ago when you travelled to any of Thailand's neighbouring countries particularly Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam they didn't want to deal in anything other than the US dollar and if you tried using their local currencies they would laugh at you.

Now in 2017it's completely the opposite and yet nothing has changed fundamentally regarding the strength of these local currencies.

3 hours ago, lopburi3 said:

That has to be satire.  

 

But it really brings a tear to my eye to lose is just a few years two icons of Bangkok; the Siam Intercontinental Hotel and now the Dusit Thani.  I was here when the Dusit opened and it was the building landmark of Bangkok for decades.

when I was visiting Bangkok last week just for the day I noticed another icon just opposite the Dusit -the Robinson department store also looked like it was being slowly demolished. Does anyone know what is happening with that building?