Kerryd

2 minutes ago, madmitch said:

If the writer did proper research he might have found out that a tourist visa allows a sixty day stay. 

 

No wonder the site changed its name from thaivisa if the writers can't get basic visa information correct!

Probably referring to the "Visa on Arrival". Certain nationalities have to apply for it at the airport and it's good for just 15 days.

If I recall, there's a booth a few meters short of the first entry to the Immigration queues. (I think there is one booth on the other side, just before the other entryway to Immigration as well.)

Won't bother copying which countries can apply for this (Australians, Russians, Indians and Chinese amongst others) but the details are here:
https://extranet.immigration.go.th/voaonline/voaonline/VoaonlineAction.do

Note - Visa on Arrival is NOT the same as "Visa Exemption Stamp" - which is good for 30 days of course.

LoL - they are expecting 150,000 Indian tourists between now and the end of the year, and think each will spend 50,000 baht ?



Or do the Indians in Phuket spend 10x as much as the ones who go to Pattaya ?

They seem to think they are going to spend as much, or more, than the "2 week millionaires" that used to flock to Thailand in droves. Until the current gov't decided they didn't like "white" tourists.

Not sure how 5 guys to a room, sharing 1 beer a night and (maybe) one street walker, are going to spend that much. Maybe things are super expensive in Phuket compared to the rest of the country ?

5 minutes ago, AndyFoxy said:

Flame retardant ovaries??

I'm guessing a poor Google translation (and proof-read).

The original article in the OP is from a Thai site (pptvhd36.com/) which was translated and posted on "Thailand Posts English" (thailand.postsen.com) and then copy/pasted into the OP.

The post on the "English" site uses "ovaries" but I think it is supposed to be "sponge".

Google translate comes up with "ovaries" if I past the entire sentence in, but changes to "sponge" if I delete some of the sentence.

"An extra 200 baht per panel" says it all.

They illegally modified a restaurant into a nightclub. I highly doubt they were looking at doing a quality job of it.

I suspect it was their plan all along - as there is already a large "Mountain" bar/bistro next door to where this place was (one of those places with a high, open, corrugated tin sheet roof).
The new "restaurant" appears to have been specifically built to be a low, enclosed roof kind of building. The kind you can use air-conditioners in because you aren't cooling a huge open, empty ceiling space.

And once they got their "restaurant" license, they probably went straight into turning the place into a nightclub.

Google maps shows the "restaurant" was under construction in Feb 2022 and the news articles say the nightclub had only been open a couple of months so it's not like they started a restaurant and weren't getting any business so they made the switch to become a nightclub.

They knew they couldn't get a license for a nightclub due to the area they were in. So they pretended they were a restaurant instead. 

Hence the use of the soundproofing panels, to try and keep the noise down so it wouldn't be as obvious from the outside. The bar/bistro next door seems to be a busy spot so a large number of vehicles around there wouldn't attract any "official" attention as it could be assumed they were customers at the two restaurants.

I'm curious though, does the "flame resistant" soundproofing do a better job (at soundproofing) than the "inflammable" soundproofing ? One would assume that the more expensive option would do a better job but the extra expense may be due to the inflammable materials used and not from being a better sound reducing option.

And this isn't the first place to burn down due to the material used. Last year (Aug 2021) there was a place right next to the Courthouse in Jomtien that burned down. The Fairy Sweet Village restaurant. 2nd time in less than a year that it had caught on fire actually (the first time being in Sept 2020).
From the news article about that fire:
"I turned on a switch before there was a bang and a fire broke out, spreading quickly across the roof of the building due to foam material used.”

In that case, the foam material was mostly used for decoration, not soundproofing. Probably not even "flame resistant" foam.

The original story shows 4 scooters in one photo.

But it was most likely 10 as they said 10 people didn't have licenses (and you can't bust a passenger for not having a license).

The ones confiscated were probably the ones without the proper tax decals (which would probably mean they also had no insurance).

And these were scooters, not big bikes. Probably like those annoying kids with bored out mufflers that go screaming down the highway all the time (usually without helmets as well).

Just over 16 years ago was the Route 999 Nightclub fire on #3 road (not far from #3/North Pattaya Rd intersection).

8 (or 15 depending who you believe) died in a fire started by someone (a welder I think) working on the air conditioners on the roof (or under it).

Same deal, people died when they tried to use the fire exits and found them chained and locked (to prevent people from sneaking in or out). It was fortunate that the club hadn't opened for business yet or the death toll would have been much higher.

And the New Year's Eve nightclub fire in Bangkok. (Santika Club - 1 Jan 2009.) 66 died in that one. The club had one main entrance/exit, a private staff entrance and a third exit that was locked "to prevent robberies".

And it's the same story every - single - time. The authorities promise a crackdown on (clubs/condos/hotels) and nothing is ever actually done.

Until the next tragedy strikes and then the authorities will - again - announce another crackdown (and then go back to doing nothing - again).

So tough that he admitted he carried (at least) 2 knives and a bottle of hydrochloric acid in his "man bag" in case he got into a scrap and his two balls buddies weren't there to back him up.

Like when he went into a rage because a much smaller man (Canadian school teacher if I recollect) said something about his tattoos so he whipped out a knife and slashed the guy.

How he managed to get away with that I don't know. Anyone else would have ended up in the slammer and then been deported.

He was arrested a couple other times as well and always seemed to get away with whatever it was they arrested him for.

He used to brag that he had a string of women paying him for "protection". (Yeah, how many women in Pattaya pay someone a weekly fee for "protection".)

I seriously doubt there is a "flood" of expats suddenly, for no reason at all, moving back "home". 
Nothing has changed, here or "there", that is dramatic enough to cause a sudden flood of relocations.

Any who wanted to return "home" could have done so at almost any time over the last couple of years. Now, just when the country is opening up to tourists again, those expats suddenly want to go back to (wherever) ?

I don't think so.
Sounds more like some lawyers trying to drum up business more than anything. Back "home" it's still freezing cold for half the year (or more - they just had a large snowfall in Alberta - in June !).
Prices for everything are higher than ever. No significant change in the politics (the same crooks in different stripes doing the same things as before).

Some will go back when their health deteriorates to the point they know they will need quality (i.e. free) medical care.
Reminds me of my old home in Canada, way out in the boonies in a very remote community. Lots of "elderly" types liked the solitude, until they got to a certain age and needed to be close to a hospital. Then they'd move to a retirement facility or cheap home "in town".

Personally, I can see no reason to move "home". It's unlikely they'll mess with the Immigration requirements anymore (for a few years at least). Prices, for some things, have gone up but overall it's still cheaper to live here than in many "western" countries. The weather is pretty much the same (not so much rain during this rainy season so far though).
Still love the food. Still love riding the Harley all year round. 

What reason is there to leave ?

Got to love all the people thinking "he's a fellow Brit so that automatically means he must be innocent and this is all a frame up even though they have evidence and he pled guilty to all the charges".

Remember the case a couple years ago about the (Brit) guy who was taken to the hospital after a motorcycle accident and while there admitted to having murdered a woman in his home ? Cops were called, they go to the guy's house and sure enough, dead woman.

But oh no ! On TV there were those who, without reading a single sentence of the story, decided he was innocent and the cops must have beaten a confession out of him.
(And they were still convinced it was a frame up even after it was pointed out that he'd confessed before the cops, or anyone else, even knew there'd been a murder.)

Meanwhile, if this guy is lucky, after about 5 years he should be eligible to apply for a "prisoner transfer" back to his home country.

For example. Some years ago a career criminal (Michael Karas) from Canada "stole" some ID while out on probation and flew to Thailand. He spent a year living with a Thai woman (with her renting the rooms).
They got into an argument (she caught him cheating on her). He broke her neck, then mutilated her face (trying to prevent her from being recognized), dismembered her body and hauled it to a local swamp (in Pattaya) and dumped her remains.
He then zipped to the airport and, still using the "stolen" ID, flew back to Canada.

He was arrested for violating his probation and while in jail, Thailand started extradition proceedings.
Karas even admitted to a couple of "cold case" robberies he'd done and ended up with a few additional years in prison.

But when his time was up, he was extradited to Thailand, found guilty of all charges and sent to Thai prison.

5 years to the day his lawyer applied for a prisoner transfer. They concocted a tear jerk story for a Toronto newspaper, going so far as to say that, instead of him being in prison for 5 years, he had been in for "half a decade" to make it sound longer. They figured Karas should be transferred back to Canada and immediately released.

It worked and the POS Liberal Public Safety Minister (Ralph Goodale) rubber stamped the transfer.

I emailed the Minister directly to let him know who Karas was and what he'd done.

I received a reply from some flunky in the Corrections Bureau who assured me that they would make sure all conditions were met (blah blah blah).

I found out that, about 10 months after he'd applied for the transfer, he was arrested in Winnipeg (Manitoba) for a string of armed robberies he'd done in Ontario.
Which means he was transferred back to Canada and released almost immediately after arriving. And then went back to his old job of robbing banks.

So he ended up doing just over 5 years in prison for murdering a woman, mutilating her face, dismembering her body and dumping it in a swamp.

(F'ing Liberals. Never met a criminal they didn't want to put back on the streets and never met an innocent citizen they haven't wanted to through in jail.)

This guy can only hope that he can get the same kind of deal from the UK a few years from now.

5 minutes ago, mikeymike100 said:

You must not get much! Apart from other areas in Thailand, especially in Bangkok, many other countries have areas where girls can be obtained for a small or large fee. Even in some countries you wouldn't think of like Indonesia or Dubai, both Muslim countries. But certainly Mexico, Philippines, Germany, even Nigeria!

And one of the most famous of them all ?

The Red Light District in Amsterdam.

And the "Reaperbahn" in Hamburg, Germany.

And half of Budapest. (I actually went to the seedy little "Bangkok Bar" in Budapest a few months before my first ever trip to Thailand. Was disappointed as it was basically a dank, dark room in a basement with a couple of (cold) short time rooms in the back and not an Asian girl anywhere. Most of the "working women" in Budapest at the time were from Russia or it's poorer neighbours.)
(In hindsight, I was probably lucky I got out of there without being mugged/drugged/rolled/murdered, not necessarily in that order ! Apparently the Russian mafia ran a lot of those bars.)

And when I did make my first trip to Thailand (Feb 1993) it was only because I'd forgotten my International Driving Permit (I'd planned on renting a car and driving to Germany) and then I found out what a ticket to Casablanca would cost (at the time, about 1,400 Deutschemarks) and that a ticket to Thailand would only be 300 Dms more, so I took that option.

I shared a row with 2 guys and when they found out I was going to Thailand,  told me that they used to go there but now they prefer the Philippines as the "girls were cheaper".
(At the time I had no idea what they were talking about as the only thing I knew about Thailand was the Yul Brenner movie The King and I and the song "One Night in Bangkok. Back in late '92, early '93 there wasn't really an "internet" so you couldn't look up stuff like you can now.)

So yeah, plenty of places to find "sin" around the world.

The hotel bars in Dubai are usually packed with Chinese and African women looking to make extra cash. Like packs of piranhas in those places.

Even in Kabul, Afghanistan, they had Chinese Restaurants were the "special meal deal" also included food ! (The girls came from Urumqi, in the NW corner of China and they'd "swap" them out every 3 months it seems.)

When Prayut first took over, he "vowed" to get rid of Walking Street and his first Tourism Minister promised she was going to end the "sex trade" in Pattaya.

That was 8 years ago and they did nothing in all that time.

Maybe someone "higher up" actually looked at some honest numbers and realized that all those hordes of "zero dollar" Chinese tourists and the "6 to a room, 6 to a beer" tourists from India weren't actually contributing much to the economy despite their numbers.

(Which was plainly evident pre-covid. All you had to do was look at how many Chinese and Indian tourists were "walking" up and down Walking Street and how few were actually in the bars, shops, restaurants and shopping malls.

I have not met one single business owner who says he was making money from that "demographic".

And the "Group of 100" (the people who own all those businesses on the "water" side of the street) wield a lot of clout and not just at the "city" level it seems.
Otherwise those buildings would have been razed years ago.

The city had no problem shutting down that Bali Hai condo and they had no problem going after the billionaire owner of Sukwatdee over buildings they decided he'd built on "public" land, but they haven't touched those businesses on WS.

Lol.
Never, in all the years I've been going to Immigration, have I ever had them tell me to go to an "agent" nor have I ever been asked for a bribe.

But then, when I go to Immigration I have all my paperwork in order and ready, before I arrive. I also shower and wear clean clothes (something a lot of Caucasians seem to think is a waste of time when they go there).
I've stood in line with some stinkers that would make your average Afghani smell almost bearable.
(And I spent 10 years working in Afghanistan.)

I do find it a bit odd that, considering the lack of tourists over the last 2 years(ish), Jomtien Immigration always seems as busy as it was before the covid crisis.

No matter which day of the week, there always seems to be lines of people, just like 2019 and before.

Oh well, still have a couple weeks before I have to worry about it again. Plenty of time to get all my ducks in order.
 

I know of a couple people who were "grassed" for drugs. Old g/f of mine got a 3 year sentence after cops found drugs in a room she shared with another girl. Supposedly the drugs belonged to the other girl but the cops busted both of them.

The landlady of a building I used to live in was asked by a former tenant if she could deliver a box the tenant had left behind. The landlady was stopped by the cops who apparently were waiting for her (having been tipped off by "someone" it seems). I was told that for a couple hundred thousand baht the whole matter could "disappear". (I wasn't about to donate any money for that.)

A few months ago, a guy I know through a friend got busted. He runs a hair shop and, because business is bad, makes house calls. I'm told a friend of his asked him to come over and give him a haircut.
Shortly after he arrived, the place was raided by the cops who accused the hairdresser of being a drug dealer. (He claims he never sold drugs and what they found in his friend's room wasn't his.)
Not sure how that went down. Can't tell if the cops were watching him or his friend or if it was just a set up (which wouldn't make sense as the guy doesn't have the cash to pay a bribe and isn't the kind to do anything that would p*ss anyone off to the point they'd go through the effort of setting him up).

He's still in the remand center waiting trial it seems.

Doesn't take much though, to p*ss someone off enough that they'd go to extreme lengths to get back at someone, like planting drugs in someone's house and then tipping off the cops.

I know I've only been coming to Pattaya for just over 25 years now so I don't have the same experience some here claim, but in those few short years there's 2 things, wait, 3 things I've never had happen.

I've never had a bill "padded".

I've never been attacked by security guards for any reason.

(And never been "mugged" or pick-pocketed by a ladyboy.)

Things I have seen during that time include;

T.W.A.T.S. pretending they are just "stepping outside to take a call" and then trying to wander off down the street without paying their bill.

T.W.A.T.S. waiting until they think no one is looking then crumpling and tossing their "bin" (bar bill) on the floor while pretending to have paid it.

T.W.A.T.S. thinking they should be able to walk into any bar with their 7-11 bought bottle of beer and getting pissy with the staff if they try to stop them.

T.W.A.T.S. getting pissy because some bird they fancy is sitting with some old geezer (that's buying her drinks) instead of with them (who they seem to think are so "hansum" that the girl should be grateful just to be in their presence).

T.W.A.T.S. getting violent because they thought all those tall women with the huge knockers still sitting in the bar at 1 am must the "real deal" and then finding out they are in a ladyboy bar.

T.W.A.T.S. staggering down the street deliberately trying to "bump" into people and then threatening them (also usually well after 1 am, when all the best looking women are already gone and they're too drunk to score anyways so they start looking for a fight).

T.W.A.T.S. haggling prices with a ladyboy (or a couple of them) and getting pissy (mouthing off, calling them names and so on) because they won't drop their prices. (And then whining to the police after that they were "mugged" or pick-pocketed.)

Yeah I know. Obviously haven't been here that long. Back between 2004-2014 when I was working in Afghanistan, I spent most of my holiday time (3-4 months a year) on Walking Street. It wasn't uncommon that I'd go back to work and realize I'd spent 4 months of "war zone money" during my 1 month on holiday.
I drink Jack when I'm in the bars. The smell helps to let you know you are getting the real thing. I recall nights at the old Polo where my "bin" would be 4,500 baht and that was a "quiet" night. (I buy usually drinks for the dancers/service staff/mommasans but rarely ring the bell.)

I even tried the trick of buying a "bottle" at a bar, drinking some of it, asking them to keep the remainder under the bar for me and then coming back 3-4 months later to see if they still had it. Did that at 4 different bars and they all still had the bottles each time. (One time, one was a little "shy" of the mark they'd made on it and the mommasan replaced it with a new bottle. It was only cheap Sang Som anyways.)

Funny though, never saw any security guys just start beating the <deleted> out of someone for no reason at all.

Oh right, the guy was from the UK so that means he must be an angel who would never do anything wrong.