Terminator

Nana is going down hill very fast, around gullivers its turning into little Africa and with the Arabs and Africans opening shops all over the place,

Its a place I spend less time each time I go there. even in gullivers I get hassled by the Africans to play pool 100 baht a game and they have first call on the tables,

I was in there last week nice and early for a quite beer and a game of pool only two thai girls were playing so I asked the pool guy to set a table up for me ,to knock about own my own.

But he said you have to play him pointing to an African guy, so I said no I will use another table , no you must play him, So i did and of course won the game , then out comes the money ,and the question play for 100 baht a game.

he keplt on until I was so p#ssed of I left Then out side they started asking if I want nice Afican lady,

So Please please Thailand claim back your soi's before its to late

A miffed colino.

Surely this area has become a real horror stretch especially when after midnight, so this are is off the map.

Soi 7/1 just makes it, but the Beat club just about had it, is times over us as well at the good ol' Thermae which now only caters for the Japs with their classical school girls (read pro's) line ups.

So where else???

PP is coming back, several decent normal'ish bars opening in newly renovated interiors and Lucifer is re-opened with a newly renovated place...

But those copy shopping markets are still a nuisance, however I was told Patpong 2 ain't to bad to go out the way for.

Have been in and out of Thailand now for the past 20 years or so, and last night in Soi Cowboy I was just wondering over a few beers...

First few years Patpong was the place to be with Nana just starting and Soi Cowboy with just a few laid back bars.

Then Nana start to expand, Patpong became a copy shopping mall and going downhill fast and Soi Cowboy, was still laid back but with more A GoGo's and bars opening up.

Next Nana was the place to be, you could forget about Pong which quickly was becoming a dive and good ol' Soi Cowboy with the Arab's arrival started to turn in somethings else.

And here we are today, Nana has had it, as well as Patpong, Cowboy now has become as commercial as it can be, so where we go from here??

Don't talk about Soi 33 which is what it is, while Soi 22 and Washington Square must surely be has beens.

So where are we going next, or is this truly the beginning of the end of the expat nightlife areas????

600,000 protesters!!!

this morning's news about 60,000 - 100,000 protesters???

so 500,000 more to come!!!

thus are we expecting major traffic jams in Bangkok today???

looking outside my window I can see little traffic and no red shirts, where are they, are they still coming???

looks like another big fizzer in the making to me!!!

Salim

Dhaka

i am 50 years old and wore glasses and/or contact lenses for 20 years

i had mine done in Bangkok Pattaya Hospital five years ago

it was 30,000 baht for both eyes

i have been delighted with the surgeon, the hospital, the aftercare and most important, the results.

my vision has faded a bit from the 20/16 i had within days of the operation but i do not wear glasses now nor do i feel the need to

maybe i was lucky but i did go back two years ago and asked about when they thought a re-do might be neccesary and they said save your money you do not need it now and my vision was and is still great.

judge that as you will

i hope that helps someone

and now 39,990bt. >>> http://www.pattayalasik.com/index.php?lay=...mp;Id=538869505 got mine done last month, no probs whatsoever...

good on ye, it makes my day...

i don't give a flying hoot, as it is not my money, they can do what they like....

I feel they will be doing well if they manage to get 100,000. One million is pie in the sky stuff.

well we all know how good they are with numbers...

It's about time the immigration site got blocked, it's been full of viruses since may this year. I use satellite internet from singapore, a hel_l of a lot cheaper than thailand, and have full access to everything. It's amazing twitter does not get stopped as well, because the PM and Takki use it to communicate.

Interesting can you elaborate on this a bit more? "satellite internet from singapore"

Maybe it isnt just a Thai thing but money/status/beauty is more important in Asia then the evil Western world, but it seems more important in LOS then any other nation ive been to in the region.

Not true, just go to China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, its the same thing over there!

Well 3-years ago, York Club Thursday night ratio was 10 guys to 1 girl and the place was packed, 2 weeks ago it was 1 guy to 5 girls or thereabouts and the place was half full. I hope that this answers your question, and yes the numbers are a lot less!

This is the whole problem in Dubai, once the expats leave and they are leaving by droves, their GDP will drop enormously! I was in Dubai/Doha two weeks ago, and Dubai is turning into a ghost town, Barastie's usually packed on Thursday nights was half empty! Also things are not going to well in Doha either!

Have all the Russians and Chinese left or are their numbers down?

This is the whole problem in Dubai, once the expats leave and they are leaving by droves, their GDP will drop enormously! I was in Dubai/Doha two weeks ago, and Dubai is turning into a ghost town, Barastie's usually packed on Thursday nights was half empty! Also things are not going to well in Doha either!

It leaves little doubt that the UAE families will back their own (family) interests first and see to the other hundreds/thousands of creditors later or not at all.

LaoPo

LaoPo,

I suspect (although I am only guessing) that this really just a petty domestic dispute. Imagine a playboy kid (Dubai) having fun and buying toys on the basis of the blank cheque he considers his rich Daddy. I again suspect based on the fact that some 30% of Abu Dhabi loan exposure is to Dubai, that it is likely to turn out that 75% of all Dubai borrowings were made through Abu Dhabi.

So rich Daddy knows he is going to end up footing the bill one way or another. He is really just making it clear that the party time is over.

Yes and no. I agree with you that big brother Abu Dhabi said: time's up...WE decide now what's gong to happen.

The problem lies in the fact that "Dubai" bought itself into major projects worldwide and owes thousands of companies money. You have to search and look into the structures of all those Dubai companies to find and see where they've invested (loaned and cheap) money.

Many governments are scared to death how much money these adventures are going to cost them, relying as they were on the Dubai/UAE governments, guaranteeing the projects!

Abu Dhabi will now decide which projects are to be sold and which ones to be kept.

BUT, there will be many governments, people and companies left alone, in the cold; we just have to wait which ones those are going to be.

It will be nasty.

What's more: the dream is over and a lot of eventual prospect buyers will think many times before investing in this Dubai bubble, again.

Meaning: WHO on earth will decide upon the prices of the present -empty- properties ? The Dubainese, the project developers, real estate agents (Before January 1, 2010 most of them have to leave the country since their working permits will end!).

The cake was too big...too absurd to be true.

Who's going to live in the thousands and thousands of houses and villas which are either empty or unfinished ? Who will buy them ?

Less than 20% in Dubai (and UAE) is of Emirati origin...meaning that the rest of the more than 80% is foreign expat/guest worker.

Go figure.

LaoPo

And again you are relying on unreliable sources with heavenly biased and censored newspapers, anything negative about the Middle East and they will be shut down!

quote What's your point Bizz ? I fail to see your own opinion.

LaoPo

end

My point is DUBAI is not finished

Global outcry over Dubai World restructuring is exaggerated

About 75 per cent of the $20b bond has already been subscribed

Dubai : When the US sneezed in the past, the rest of the world used to catch a cold, cough and probably pneumonia. However, things have changed dramatically indeed.

It seems now, if Dubai sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. It has become more evident since Wednesday, especially after the Dubai Government announced the restructuring of Dubai World, judging by the global media outcry. The impact of the announcement appears to have been felt more outside the UAE or Gulf Cooperation Council than in Dubai. The London Stock Exchange had, on Thursday, caught a cold — really. It had nearly frozen trading due to a technical problem.

The global knee-jerk reaction to Dubai's announcement that it is restructuring Dubai World — the UAE's largest holding company — has to a large extent overshadowed the main message: the government is taking a closer look "to ensure its commercial success".

Also, the fact that two local banks subscribed to $5 billion worth of bonds went nearly unnoticed.

Obviously you are not aware of hemorrhage that is Dubai today, beside some of the tourist and cheap staff, it has become a ghost town where at least 85% of the projects have been stalled or indefinitely postponed. The other project are moving at the absolute minimum pace. The Burj Dubai will still open but with interiors 50% incomplete.

Ask the poor expats who got terminated and got caught at the airport with bounced cheques and are lingering ijn Dubai jails with no hope of paying it back, as there will be very few jobs coming online in the bext few years. Don't read the heavenly censored newspapers there, they are always full of good news! Well you've seen the truth coming out now, now watch all the smaller developers falling over, the worst is yet to come, goodbye Dubai!

quote LaoPo

The so called Dubai assets will decline further and further since prospect buyers are nowhere to be seen on the horizon of the deserts and I don't see new prospect buyers return to the sandy shores to dump their hard earned money into a risky Emirate.

We'll see, but the future for Dubai is not very bright nor positive. end

future projects in the pipline

I for one agree 100% with this statement, having worked there for 3 years, only because of the absurd US$250K/year salary plus perks offer, I always wondered how long this "Disneyland for Adults" was going to last. My last project was the QE2, we had a project budget of US$750 million, we all thought Nakheel was really going bonkers. And right we were, happy to be back in Thailand now after a nice redundancy package.

It may also be remembered now that back in December of last year just six weeks after receiving 25B in bailout funds. CitiBank loaned 8B to Dubai. Once again one has to wonder who the bailout was bailing .

Dubai’s increasingly high profile spurred Abu Dhabi to break with its low-key investing tradition to purchase a big $7.5 billion stake in Citigroup.

reading between the lines------

and again

I don't think so and I also don't understand why you put two links of 2 year old financial news. Citibank is owned for the largest part by the US government which bailed them out for at least $ 45 Billion!

But, that aside.

Abu Dhabi is a lot more conservative (and right they are!) than their wild cousins in Dubai. They never needed to run along their wild speculating cousins from next door Dubai; apart from that: they could afford to lose a few dozens of billions since they will simply pump a bit of extra oil.

Dubai is practically bankrupt and the only -present- ones who can help them out are the conservative rulers (family!) of Abu Dhabi.

There's no bank in the world (including the Chinese) who will step in.

NOBODY knows how bad the situation in Dubai is at this very moment but you don't have to have a brain as big as good old Albert Einstein to realize that the situation is really bad.

There are many -Western and Asian- governments shivering right now about the consequences of this debacle since they (and large local banks) guaranteed many of the enormous building- and water-projects in Dubai. We're talking many Billions here.

I heard someone talk on television that Dubai has between $ 60 and 80 Billion in debts but more than $ 100 Billion in assets....

The big questions is; WHO decided and valued those $ 100 Billion ?

The absurd prices of houses which skyrocketed from $ 600,000 for a villa on the Palm to 2,4 - 2,8 Million and down to 1,8 Million now is an example of how crazy people are and how smart (at first) the developers and speculators are/were.

The Dubai working population consists of 85-95% foreigners and the masses are jumping on planes because their work permits are no longer extended by the government.

Dubai is one of the largest gambling developments of the past 100 years and built with other people's money but the present ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum from the Al Maktoum dynasty has lost face big time towards his family members in the other UAE states/Emirates, with Abu Dhabi being the most important one, who are needed to help him out.

He certainly doesn't have the cash (anymore) to save the building craziness in Dubai.

IF Abu Dhabi decides to step in (which they did already for a certain part) and help their "brothers" in Dubai you will see soft but definite changes of high positions in Dubai and all the wild guys will be put aside and replaced by more conservative family-members and highly educated chaps from Abu Dhabi.

MOST, if not all, of the new projects will be stopped immediately and will NEVER see a start-up again. It will take decades before Dubai will start to make a bit of money again.

The Dubai Bubble exploded and the so called World project as well as the other Palm islands will slowly sink into the salt water. The Billions, needed to save those idiotic projects are simply not in the Dubai wallets anymore and the chaps in Abu Dhabi will not put their "hard earned" oil dollars into the yellow sand -again-.

Basta !

LaoPo

Watch his red shirt brigade coming out in droves after the king's birthday weekend....

On a serious note, desperation is already surfacing in some very worrisome ways that can only get worse in the days / months ahead and yes it will breed and multiply his desperation

marshbags

Looks like the article may well have been blocked. The transcript is still there, but can't access the article.

Just to confirm the article now clicks over to w3.mict.go.th

Regards

Coming through fine on Maxnet for both article and transcript.

and through proxies also

Exactly right, the law here is not really on the property owners side, and nor is it the tenants side either. A farang can just hop on a plane and disappear...

To enlighten THEFALANG , my post was mostly 'Tongue in cheek'.

Your reference to most 'Civilised' countries do not apply in Thailand , hence the numerous threads on this and similar threads , wake up and smell the coffee , you may get the 'Odd' bout of laughter from comments here on TV , happiness is heart food .

I don't know why anybody wants to go through this anyway! I have eight tenants, I can tell you that I would not muck around with them either!

Just get a Thai bank account and set-up the monthly transfer to automatically pay on the date that the rent is due for the duration of the lease, if in an apartment, even including an allowance to cover utilities.

But if you live in a +bt.100k condo and cannot do this than it is maybe time to move down the ladder to a place you can afford to pay on time!!!

Of course, if you don't pay your rent by the lease stipulated deadline, then you will have to deal with the consequences.

I have the 12 mb, however nice that is it's the upload speed that really sucks, more that often I get messages that tells me that the upload test returns errors!

I am looking already for another provider, TRUE customer service only tells you crap!

And True is screwed up again! <deleted>.....

This Page Cannot Be Displayed

Internet access is not available without proper licensing of the security device.

Please contact your corporate network administrator and provide the code shown below.

Note: To access the management interface of the security device, enter the configured IP address with port 8080.

Notification codes: (1, PROXY_UNLICENSED)

Called them and was told the problem is with my computer, so I ask her for the login details to the interface of the serity device and she was really lost!

And 'visible' has become 'invisible' .... sure was a troll in my book

See an appeal by the yankees coming...

So he can go home now???