lapd

I would be interested to see hotel occupancy rates as these would probably give us a better indication of what is going on especially with the recent immigration changes as i assume there are less border runners now.

As i posted earlier, 75 room hotel has only 8 room in comparison last year it was full.

A 16 room hotel, has 3 rooms.

The bigger one rooms go for 2500/night the smaller one 900/night.

So pretty even in terms of occupancy, about 10% across both levels,

Still way too early into high season to draw any conclusions from that.

The numbers sound about right. Chinese and their herd mentaility are notorious for being easily scared away as they were by the coup last year. Now starting to come back apparently.

The Russian Ruble is way down from last year so the 23% drop makes sense.

I would rather have herds of Chinese in their buses than I would Russians.

I would say don't go to Thailand for that. Bottom line is you simply cannot trust Thai women.

And no...your girl is NOT different. Every guys girl is different (in their mind) which makes them all the same!

Thing about Samsung Note and Galaxy is that you pay a rather large premium just for the brand and Samsungs dominance with these products. I'm not impressed with the Samsung name and not willing to pay much of a premium for either of these products

In Thailand the one advantage of Galaxy or Note is lots of accessories and spare parts and all the IT guys know how to work on them. If you walk around Tucom in Pattaya it's almost all Samsung phones, tablets and accessories now.

I'm hoping the new Nexus 6 introduces some competition and brings the price down. Currently deciding between the two. Both are fairly similar. Nexus has a slightly larger screen. Same processor. Don't see a lot of Nexus stuff around Tucom though. So if you ever need to get it fixed or want accessories in Thailand it might be a challenge.

Why are they going after the beach chair people? Seems to me they are just caught in the middle trying to earn a living.

Go after whoever they are being forced to pay for ownership of public land.

Clearly someone who brings NTSC equipment to Thailand will have a leg up in the common sense dept. Surely they will make that 440v work for them even if they have to write multiple dissertations and visit every industrial park in Thailand scavenging equipment in order to do it.

Bicycle lanes , there will be stalls and motor bikes parked on them within a couple of weeks hours minutes seconds.

Fixed and fixed.

I could write a dissertation on 440v 3phases systems and the difference between 240v 3 phase Delta and Y systems with one of them having a high (208v) leg

Please don't....

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Never heard of a 440v system before.. whats that bad boy used to run?

440 very common in indiustrial buildings and applications

And with guys who can write dissertations but have never wired a house.

Buy a good fan, The noise from the fan and your ac running will drowned out enough so you can sleep.

You mean go buy a bad fan. Good fans are too quiet.

La Boulange hands down! I agree it is very difficult to get a proper croissant outside France but he is a professional French baker.

All others including la baguette are poor comparison.

Available from Friendship and Villa or their bakery on 3rd Road.

I took the recommendation and tried Boulange Bakery. I was hoping the croissants were better than the Boulange croissants you see around town at the markets.

I sensed there was a problem when the coffee was served with powder milk. Yuk.

The croissants?

Somebody is cutting corners. Not so good.

I would grade them 5 out of ten.

It's a bakery first and foremost. Not a coffee shop. My guess is the walk in's are a very small part of their business. They probably do a lot more by supplying the grocery stores. Not sure how you are able to find a reason to complain about their croissants vs....ah their croissants bought somewhere else. However you have managed to do that. Congratulations.

You could try a white noise generator app for your smartphone. You can get them on your PC as well.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tmsoft.whitenoise.lite&hl=en

I actually bought a standalone white noise generator. Has other sounds like ocean and rain but I always just use the white noise.

http://www.nosleeplessnights.com/best-white-noise-machine-reviews/

I use industrial 40db ear muffs or whatever they call it. The things that cover your whole ear. Can sleep with them on although not the greatest solution for that when you want to sleep on your side.

I've tried earplugs but after awhile I was getting ear infections. When you use them all the time they prevent earwax from building up and that is what protects you from infection.

I've used multiple brands of noise cancelling headsets and they are almost useless except on a plane because they reduce the low freq engine noise. You still hear most of the higher frequency noise. In an apartment with other types of noises they aren't going to work very well.

If you decide to go to Thai Immigration wearing respectable clothing, take a bath, shower, comb your hair, wear a collared shirt and have all your necessary documents with the required copies completed and correctly filled out you have a very good chance of obtaining the Thai priviledge that you are requesting.

So I take a bath and then a shower or just one of those?

Good point about having necessary documents. I'm sure that will help a lot of people who don't realize that having the necessary documents is necessary. I always just take blank documents so your advice to fill them out is very helpful.

What if I don't have hair? Do I still use a comb? Please clarify.

the parts on electrics and TV standards are just hilarious!

Just why would anyone want to have 110V or NTSC inside their Thai home is beyond me...

Maybe you should ask the OP to write a dissertation on it .

The kid was probably on yaba.

Reading the comments here, can't help but think Thaivisa forums have become a cesspool of cynicism.

blame the foreigner game has started

even foreign DNA of mongolian men were found inside the poor victim....

everybody should BAN this ban island

Yes please do. Might make it worth a trip once again. Used to be a nice place before it was overrun by backpackers.

Btw, friendship does not just have La Boulange bakery products. They have stuff from a place called Mikes Bakery and a few other places. It's usually labelled. So one could probably go there, write down the names on the labels, and check those places out.

Used this yesterday, very impressed. Taxi from Soi Nernplubwan to Soi Lengkee was 146 Baht. I had to pay a booking fee of 100 Baht because it was over 6km, so the actual fare on the meter was 46 baht.

Very good driver and service, picked me up at home 15 mins after booking.

So they have mult-tier booking fees? Not a good sign at all! That is a gouge plain an simple. Booking fee is to cover the cost of booking...duh. That is costing them the same regardless of whether it's 1km or 1000km. It's a gouge plain and simple. Not much different than trying to get the higher off meter flat rates. Eliminates the negotiating is about all you can say about it.

Also 6km is nothing. I'm guessing they probably have multiple tiers. 10km, 15, 20 etc. Why not call it what it is. Flat rate supplement. A step back to just negotiating flat rates with these guys. Oh well, should not be surprised.

Tried that "Pizza and Pasta" place on soi arunothai. It's that road that goes past Nurun Condo. It's an open air thai place. That can only mean one thing. Yup, flavorless cheese. I asked them where they got it and the guy said he got it from an Italian food distributor on the other side of sukhumvit. I asked if it's imported cheese and he said yes. So I suspect just being imported is not good enough. It needs to be the right type and the right quality. That must be why a lot of places like the good italian restaurants import their own cheese.

Good crust and sauce, flavorless cheese. So just like every other Thai pizza place in town I've tried. My advice is stick with Pizza Company or go to a good Italian restaurant if you want good cheese like I do. Thais don't seem to know what good cheese is supposed to taste like. Maybe that's one of the reasons they like to put that chili powder and ketchup and that chili oil on their pizzas. I find I like to do that too but only in Thailand and only because it helps to compensate for the missing flavor in the cheese.

Other than the dust, it's an improvement from what it was before. You would literallly be bouncing along in a baht bus almost hitting your head on the roof if they were going fast enough. It was really bad. Don't ever remember 2nd road being this bad.

They have almost ground down all of 2nd road now. They may be all the way to N. Pattaya road by now. So I imagine the resurfacing will be happening soon.

Tried to do it from Tuk com to Jomtien. Went through the menu and got a driver to accept. Then a few minutes later the driver cancelled. So I tried again. It waited for a driver to accept and this time it took a few minutes before a driver accepted. Then within a minute or two the driver cancelled again. I think it was the same guy. App shows a picture of the driver and I think his name. You can press a button to call the driver. Pretty slick app I gotta say.

So never got a driver and ended up walking down to the baht buses on 2nd road. Will try again another time. Could have just been an isolated thing. Maybe it will take some time for the drivers to get used to using the system.

Does that estimate I see in the app include the 40baht fee?

Any upgrade from an iphone would be exciting. The Note 4 doesn't look much better than the 3 (which is great BTW). Save yourself some money and get the Note 3.

That is what I am thinking. Note 3 prices have definitely come down since the Note 4 announcement. I usually just buy a used one from the people who must always have the latest and greatest.

Can anyone give some insights what it's like lugging a Note around compared to a smaller screen phone?

I'm thinking of upgrading to a Note for the 4g, dual sim, and bigger screen. Not sure how convenient it will be lugging it around though. Right now I use a belt case but a Note is too big for that. A friend of mine just puts it in his pocket. He doesn't seem to have a problem but seems a bit big for that to me.