Kaoboi Bebobp

It's a great idea.

Wonder if any other country in the region will follow suite.

edit: Apart from Cambodia. Post #156 says Cambodian e-visa extension gives multiple entries. But presumably the e-visa (even with extension) is not a 6-month visa.

Post 156 is not clear, confusing Cambodia's self-titled e-visa program (online application for a Tourist visa) with an Ordinary (business) visa whose visa serial numbers start with the letter E. You can buy the Ordinary at the airport on arrival. Further, you have to be in-country to get the 30-day Ordinary visa extended via a travel shop. Of these extensions, only 6-month and 12-month Ordinary visas are multi-entry. (A normal Tourist visa of 30 days is extendable only once inside the country.)

Its a thread. People dont expect courtesy as we dont really know or care who they are.

I don't share this attitude at all. You don't know the person you stop in Central Festival to ask where the AIS shop is. I'll bet you thank them too. Unless you are saying you turn on your heels without so much as a word or a nod.

The low season could account for the fewer people in the shops, malls and restaurants. However, I believe that's hardly the whole story. Today at the Tuesday-Friday market on Buakhao, the coffee shop terrace in the hotel at the north end had loads of empty tables. Used to be, a few months ago, you could not find a chair inside or out. I go to Benjamit cafe a lot on non-market days. These days it's shockingly mostly empty. A couple of inside tables and several outside tables are occupied but the vast interior was empty. It's very popular with the Euro crowd. A few months ago it was usually packed. I remember sometimes arriving and departing because there was no room.

Up on Naklua, I went to Anton's a couple of times a week. There'd often be 4-6 inside tables and many of the front standup chairs occupied. The last few times (before the recent move) say over June, July and early August, mine and one other table would be occupied. It's maybe no wonder Anton's abandoned that big space and moved inside soi 27. (By the way, was there today. It appears to be fully functional and looks nice.)

I'm sure some of you have heard of Cactus John, longtime proprietor of Cactus go-go bar in Soi Cowboy. His latest (infamous) newsletter, largely unquotable here, finds him wondering why theres so little business. He wanders next door and comes back with the conclusion: "#!#!*^! is it slow!" He's given to high hyperbole but it's usually spot on.

I'm surprised it wasn't labelled a crackdown. Anyway, this announcement will vaporize like all the others.

For what it's worth, here's a NASA table of "Fireball and Bolide" reports, with Thailand's at the top. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/

With all that new traffic from the new condos (most Thai owners will have cars/motorbikes) and likely Asian influx (buying up holiday condos), Pattaya could come to a standstill. It's already so bad on weekends and holidays, traffic and pollution will be nightmarish. I'm on the way out this fall.

I don't go to the bars very often, but can say the "big box" stores all are very quiet. Even Makro seems quiet. I was in a BigC the other day and there were literally only 5-6 shoppers in the entire store, right about 1pm.

I think the crackdown on drinking and driving is taking a toll also. More and more are staying close to home and not risking a drive.

^^^ This.

I'm much the same in that I don't drink very much. Last November and December, I remember there was a lot of police/military activity at night among the beach-sde bright lights. I used to have a couple of light beers and maybe a whisky. I stopped the whisky and after while I even stopped drinking alcohol and had soda water when out with the GF. She doesn't drink.

Then I started stopping in at a local pub on Nern Pub Wan where I live. Never used to go in there. They used to be dead most evenings and there'd be maybe one or two other customers, all locals. But as December, turned into January and February, they were getting busier and busier. After while, they were as busy as any Buakhao bar. And it has remained so, with few exceptions. Visitors were even booking their rooms there and staying on the Darkside.

And the horrible construction barrier has largely put a stop to my going across Sukhumvit at night as well as the police activity, although that seems to have slowed a lot.

I think there's been a gradual erosion of interest in the bright lights of Pattaya and expats living over here in the "dark" are finding what they need in the neighbourhood. It could become a more permanent custom.

In Chaing Mai?

thought u loved Cambodia?

IF I didn't love the sea i would move up to the area around Fang

But ......

I do love Cambodia but I don't love its banking system. It may be easy to open an account but to get money into that account from overseas... is a total ball-ache and an expensive ball-ache at that. However, I don't love the sea... so I'm going North. :-)

What bank were you using? I just couldn't make Canadia work as a receiver of Canada-sourced funds. However, I recently found out ABA is 30% owned by a Canadian big bank. So that might work. (Yeah, I know, it looks like I might move to PP anyway. The last 2 months I have been seriously seesawing on where to live. Just the other day I just couldn't make myself sign a Bangkok apartment lease. My heart just wasn't in it. So . . . Like I said above, Never say never.)

for $700/month you could have a 2 bedroom house with land in Phuket 1-2 kms from the beach :-)

you can also get a studio apt with wifi, air, cable for under $200

Cambodia is NOT cheap

This is exactly what I have, only it's in a resort-like setting on a private road, on the "wrong side" of the tracks from Pattaya. Big balcony, big washroom and drying room and 42 sq metre main room. Lovely, tasteful, older Thai wood furniture. Free wi-fi and cable. 7000 baht. Phnom Penh can't touch this. I don't think even Siem Reap can match it.

A friend in Bangkok pays 30,000/month ($850US) for a gorgeous two-bedroom ground-floor condo, with large outdoor patio, modern, all wood floors and furniture, beautiful modern kitchen on Sukhumvit soi 39.

Anyway, we can do this comparison and contrast all day. My budget just can't reach anything like a decent size Khmer-western design with ordinary dimensions and some basic stuff like an OK kitchen. I'm not seeking full western amenities at all. But my needs would require a budget of $500US and up, it seems. My Canadian dollars don't reach that far any more. What I"m saying is, PP is too pricey for a third-world capital city. Just look at all the people on FB PP housing pages seeking shared accommodation. Must be 90% of the listings.

I definitely have a soft spot for Cambodia. I have lived there before. But I recently decided, not so much to stay in Thailand, but more accurately not move to Cambodia. For most of the negative reasons above. Hugely substandard medical care, really dangerous driving conditions, almost complete lack of public transit in the capital, poor accommodation vs cost consideration (the latter became dire when my country's currency tanked against the US dollar). But, never say never.

Poster shirtless talks about $100-$150 rooms. OP, have a look at them to see if they fit your standards. Those kinds of (nicer) rooms are far from the core (remember, no public transit, just tuk tuks) or the worst ones right downtown. The latter accessed from the garbage strewn street down a darkened, dirty alley, with entry through a heavy locked steel door, up a narrow unlit staircase, with steep pitch and irregular steps, twisting and turning to the 2nd or 3rd floor where you will unlock another steel gate to enter a room barely big enough for a bed, with no a/c, a ceiling fan and upper wall air vents and washroom with shower spraying your toilet seat and sink. While those might run $50-$100 a month, I'm not exaggerating -- much.

I am not American but it seems you're not getting much response. Unfortunately too, there's no good public forum for Viet expats. There is one you could search on though. But because of the bloody stupid rule here of not being able to link to blogs, type in Google "expats blog vietnam". You will be able to search for banks. I tested it and there's quite a lot of info.

I lived in Veitnam and wired money to Asia Commercial Bank (ACB). Worked well. But I keep my pension money in Canada and do regular wire transfers. You might consider that.

I think Vietnam will become an ASEAN superpower in terms of economy, industry and tourism. There's a long list of massive projects underway and new ones ready to be signed -- I won't go into them.

But VN has two big things it must do: 1) fix the expensive and annoying visa entry system (which I think will come soon) and 2) remove layers of bureaucrats and regulations to make it easier for FDI and local startup companies to get going.

I love going to Saigon, way cleaner and better laid out than Bangkok. Saigon recently opened a wonderful, beautiful, huge pedestrian park right in the middle of the city. Fantastic food and service. Cheap, too.

I will probably move there when they fix the visa system and allow long-stayers. The current three-month visa is not enough.

Hooters_Slide710x410_20140925-02.jpg

10 chicken wings for 399 Baht sounds like it will be giving Pattayas

Cheap Charlies a heart attack..

There will be nothing cheap about Hooters prices...

Smacks head! Really? At the terrific Fatty's American diner in Bangkok, 6 super wings (attested to by 6 people from 4 nations) are 95 baht. Just for comparisons sake.

I'd like to call foul on the OP for using this old part of East Pattaya as his reference for his post. It isn't representative of a fraction of the East Side.

It is actually a busy, narrow thoroughfare which contains mostly low to medium priced houses, although a few at the top of the hill might be pricier, maybe 3.5 to 4 million baht range.

Houses would probably be up for sale because of the narrow road, the heavy volume of traffic, and it sure ain't going to be quiet at night.

It bears no relation to the newer moo bans which make up the majority of East Pattaya

Good grief. Read the OP again. I didn't pick this street to look for houses. I went for a walk, for crying out loud. I saw 10 houses for sale. It's no more complicated than that. This generated a decent discussion.

I would bow to your superior knowledge, if you were correct. There are some nice homes set back from that street and surrounding side streets. There are also homes that would likely be very affordable, meeting the lower budgets of those who throng Pattaya and area. I'd live there. And where did I talk about house prices and quality and age of the housing stock anyway? I don't care. I went for a walk.

The street's not that busy either. Largely because there are some 15-20 speed bumps from beginning to end. Very annoying for commuters but good for the locals. The only potential annoyance for noise would be the Dao Hotel and bar near the top and the Russian/Chinese oriented hotel Chatkaew.

There are not enough offices, factories, distribution centres and headquarters to provide a solid customer base from which to draw a steady flow of commuters. Add in the seasonal ebbs and flows of tourists and workers, and the fact people don't earn Bangkok salaries. Not a bloody chance, JT, of ever seeing fast, cheap, air-con transit system. This is definitely one of your battiest thread ideas. BKK, a very mature major city, didn't get the BTS until 1999.

The only way this could happen is if Bangkok sinks into the swamp and they need a dry area to put up offices. Ha! Imagine, Pattaya, the capital of Thailand. LOL

Heard a rumor yesterday that an Ikea store is in the works for Pattaya - supposedly in the Maprachan area. Looking forward to anything on the dark side!

Anything is possible, I suppose. But news stories last month put IKEA's newly announced second (CP Westgate in Nonthaburi) and third (northern BKK) giant stores in northern Bangkok.

Ikea plans to have three stores in Thailand in the next five years, with the third one in a new CentralPlaza project in northern Greater Bangkok. There are two Ikeas in Singapore, two in Malaysia and one in Thailand.

Link source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/610296/ikea-to-open-second-store

Some bars have the "buy one, get one free" policy. Trouble is, you are paying not the price of a single drink, but an inflated price and therefore, are being forced to pay for two every time anyway. Albeit, maybe a bit cheaper for two than paying for one drink at a time. Nice practice. It's why I stopped going to these places. Yes, I don't drink that much and being forced to buy two drinks when I only want one more is hardly a deal.

However, the policy does get you two hard liquor drinks but I do not believe the pours are, well, exactly two shots in a mix.

From anothet Pattaya thread, meds are cheaper in BKK. A recent example, I bought Aussie brand Blackmores B complex for almost 100 baht less in Central Plaza Rama 9.

While it won't cover the bus fare, many items I buy at Foodland on Klang, are cheaper at BKK Suk soi 16 Foodland. Checked this twice. Same with some Villa items. Plus, BKK Villa sells huge number of prepared foods the Pattaya branch can't touch.

Want American food? Fatty's on Rama 9 BKK is terrific. Bunch of us mixed nationals (US, Cdn, Dane, Thai) ate there this week. All impressed, especially by the wings.

Also, they have some delightful Thai craft brews. Recommended!

I completely forgot about Proper Job pub on Ratchada soi 3. Good Thai food with some pub grub. Rob is a great host. Its about 150 metres from Yu Charoen intersection on the south side.

I used to live around there. Felt perfectly safe behind F Town mall.

Lots of good food behind Fortune Town, up and down Yu Charoen. You're also near terrific Fatty's American food place, on north side of Rama 9, other side of canal bridge, 10 min walk from Ratchada.

Drop in on the food court at the Tops Market in central Pattaya and see how many are there. The Ruskies love the place.

which is the tops market?

If he's talking about the TOPS supermarket at Second Rd and Klang, it will be closing forever this month. It's in another thread.

Do you have a link to that thread? I'm hopeless with forum searches. The most recent Tops-related ones I found were from early to mid-2014, and mention nothing about the Tops on Second Road an Pattaya Klang closing.

Here you go: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/846043-low-season-is-really-low/page-3

Drop in on the food court at the Tops Market in central Pattaya and see how many are there. The Ruskies love the place.

which is the tops market?

If he's talking about the TOPS supermarket at Second Rd and Klang, it will be closing forever this month. It's in another thread.

I came to Bangkok yesterday from hometown Pattaya, a trip I've done probably two dozen times already this year. It was full at the 11:50 am departure. However, both stations were decidedly not busy (they were empty last weekend too when I came to BKK). A vast contrast from pre-bomb blast days when there would be two to three bus loads of passengers (dozens of Chinese and Koreans) waiting for their departures. Now, there's just enough passengers for one bus load, with intervals between buses growing. And they just dropped the fare to 115 baht.

I ate there Wednesday. It's way smaller than the old place, which probably means the owner's rent is a fraction of the big place.

A number of small things were still under construction and it was a bit noisy. It should be a nice place when finished. My guess is by next week. But it is down soi 27 quite a distance, about halfway to the Third Road extension, north of North Road.

I've used three different online visa request services over the last four years. They all worked out, including myvietnamvisa, which you referenced.

But I really object to having to go through a non-government third party to obtain a visa and them sending one's vital info with 9 others on a single sheet of paper. Until VN changes the system and accelerates the VoA processing service at SGN airport, i won't be going back. With the 13-straight-monthly plunge in tourist arrivals to VN, I am hoping Vietnam gets some sense into the visa system, cuts the price and streamlines the airport service.