brummiebob

only difference between the mini big-c and tesco with 7-11 is that they have some selection of 'fresh' meats and veg

You wouldn't believe the crap people would try to pull, I had a customer came in complaining, upset that a cake he brought back to somewhere in Isan was off by the time he managed to get it up there in the cargo hold of the coach

wow, it is really happening again, any recommendation on parking?

The problem is that although one 'operation' is supposed to only hold a few seats per concession, they ended up using relatives and bound together under the same 'umbrella'

I would say that there is no law against bringing your own chair except that the beach mafia would proves this wrong quite quickly, plus there is simply no sand left on the beach except under these umbrella

Tourism Authority should jumps on this case and pay him whatever he wants to make this go away, the longer this drags out, the more chance of damage to tourism her for sure.

Had this been a freak accident, the victims would probably be more understanding, but by now there would be many people that told him that this was an accident waiting to happen, and had happened quite frequently in the past years

doesn't look like the past two guys made a return on their 'investments' in getting the post

the last one that got fired for getting blames for gamblers going free when somebody switched off the lights, that case obviously looks like friction with locals at soi 9

I wonder now, what would the kua-gling turns in to if I add some coconut milk?

Just normal red curry(Kaeng Phed)?

that's what's called "kha kamnet" the shop's commission, not supposed to be over 5% of the whole amount by law

wow, you guys must be able to take chillies,

southern cuisine are pretty hot compared to even issan

I've rented at moms and pops rental place from Bangkok in the past where the cars looks like they were plucked from the secondhand dealer's forecourt that is old cars, but still had 1st class insurance (not in the company name though, looks like they 'borrow' the car of some acquaintance and get them a cut of the rents maybe), compared to professionally run rental company that would only use new cars and sell it once it starts to age. The one I rented from didn't even have an office, you phoned them up and they deliver the cars to you.

Also a couple of years back there were stories in the papers about people lending their cars to such company and getting a few months rents back, but the company disappeared with their cars afterwards.

Anyways, looks like most rental place in Pattaya have a fixed fleet of cars that's usually parked in their garages, so it seems to be safer that way.

The petrol station in Thepprasit opposite the market used to have a Farang 2nd hand car place, I think he had some for rental as well, is that still around?

This always gets me, you go somewhere foreign for a holiday and expects to have food from home? If you've been here for years I'd understand that you'd crave something from home, but first day in and you don't even want to try local food?

Not everyone goes on holiday to experience foreign culture. They may just be interested in the climate and beach.

Did it occur to you that availability of Russian food could be a strong selling point to Russian tourists?

I don't mind if they were to go to Russian restaurants for Russian foods, in fact I like Pattaya for the fact that you can get such a variety of genuine cusine that's catered to the expats, be it Farang German, Swiss, French, Korean or Japanese, I even like it that I can buy russian dumplings together with English pork pie in Supermarkets

but not every other Thai or English restaurants on Jomtien beach road should bend over themselves to have borsch on the menu,

Pattaya becoming more cosmopolitan is a good thing, I'd never imagine that I'd get to enjoy Russian Food or learn their language, but I have now.

But I don't want Pattaya to be to Russia what Corfu/Tenerife/Ibiza is to the Brits.

I'll bet if there's a Russian language forum about Pattaya you'll hear them bitching about plenty.

I don't really know that but I'm curious. Are they a whingeing bunch, the Russkies?

My Russian teacher told me that Russian are quite pessimistic, their culture expects them to suffer as part of the psyche or something , for example when they greet each other when one say "How are you?" at best the reply would be "not bad" never "good" and they would break the ice more if one were to have something bad to say like, "my business is bad as usual yada..., Met an Enlish guy on the baht bus today...."

They are complaining, because not everybody speaks Russian and there is no Russian food everywhere as they were told when they booked their trip to Pattaya( according to a nice Russian guy I met)

This always gets me, you go somewhere foreign for a holiday and expects to have food from home? If you've been here for years I'd understand that you'd crave something from home, but first day in and you don't even want to try local food?

There's already too many restaurant trying to cater to these guys serving frozen Russian food anyways

I'd settle for having Russian translation in menus but not Russian food in restaurants where they don't belong, it's bad enough that all the farang restaurants in Pattaya have to cater to the bar girls with a Thai menu tuck away at the back page, soon there'll have to be a separate Russian menus in French or Dutch restaurants too?

To be fair, the Thais does the same to when they go abroad in a big tour group, first meal in a foreign city, Europe, or even in Asia like Japanese or Korean is a visit to a Thai or Chinese restaurant there.

I didn't see the OP ask anything specific about cable, so assumed that Satellite installation service is what he's looking for

I don't know about installations, but the agent of Central road opposite Big C takes cares of my bills every months without much fuss, don't know how they operates but it seems that if you called True Vision directly the could be sending anyone, like in your case, random contractor from Chonburi,

Best bet would be to try someone local first, see if they are up to scratch answering your questions

The Brits charter flight holidays to Europe, Mallorca, Tenerife etc. all the time, why not Pattaya, Pattaya could do with a younger English speaking crowds. Thailand on the cheap would be quite a sell.

For similar views, the Vietnamese Restaurant on top of .... what's the hotel or condo on pratumnak, must offers similar views

Just in the (Thai) papers this morning there's a story of a dog mauling a child, the police didn't seem to think it was 'civil matter' in this case

Depends on your embassy really, some would attach the old passport to the new and stamping that the visas in the old passport remains valid

Totaly incorrect please do your rescearch

I said depends, (where you're from isn't it) Once I went home to get a new passport while the old visa is still valid, so my country's passport office attach the old passport to the back of the new one and stamp and signed to the effect that this is the passport of the same person, the visas in the old one remains valid

There is no licence to sell energy drinks. There are for alcohol, tobacco and playing cards, yes, and there are quite a few of them, separate ones for cigarettes, cigars, tobacco, but they are only 20-40 Baht per permit even the alcohol one there's a few from just looking at the sign I'm required to display (they are in Thai) the alcohol ones are a bit more expensive in the thousands of Baht

A few other strange ones I remembered are pet foods, foods processing if you're making stuff like pies or sausages, and doing a business that is potentially hazardous to health (knives etc.)

As for Canada, how would you feel if the Quebequois demands bi-lingual signs for them too?

You are welcomed to put signs up with no Thai, only that it'll be more expensive to tax

Having bi-lingual signs only means less tax on the signs that you pay taxes on, many of the hoardings around seems to be less than legit... and these taxes are self-declared, unless it's a sign on your premises, many business seems to ignore the tax.

Oh and the Thai letterings can be a token small print, most people do it

Your signmaker is a bit misinformed

As for what to do I have a separate tanks for cooking that gets filled with the big bottles water from the bottled water trucks, the water guys just empty their bottles into my tanks and I gets to save on the deposits for the bottle, but I didn't plumb in this tank so everytime I need water for cooking I have to go outside to the tank, inconvenient but beats brown water.

The water truck I uses that pumps into your tanks is no good, often the water smells of petrol from their pumps, muddy and cloudy, I have seen private water trucks queueing at the water works to buy water from the water company to deliver to their clients, but the one I manage to call seems to pump their water from Mab Prachan reservoir directly by the looks of it. So I only uses them when the supply is really bad. I tried to call a new company but they are all busy and they wont come, old customers only, so I'm stuck with the same guy.

Everywhere I go, water trucks that is doing the job of supplanting the inadequate infrastructure are everywhere, especially big hotels, they must be big business, and improving the water supply would put some of these guys out of a job

Most of the time the water quality can be blamed on people connecting water pumps directly to the mains and pumping in the water into their tanks, this sucking in of water causes the pressure in the mains pipe to drop, meaning that any leaks in the system, instead of just leaking out water, sucks in contaminants.

You're only supposed to runs the mains into your tanks, and then uses the pumps to pumps from the tank to your house, but once a few of your neighbours start pumping in from the mains, the pressure in the whole areas drops and your supply becomes a trickle, once that happens, you'll need tanks now instead of being able to just connect the mains up to your house. so it's an arms race.

Often the fault is with the water company too, when they were doing works replacing the pipes on Sukhumvit, the water was mucky for weeks, if this were not a third world country, the water company would be announcing what to do, eg. leave your taps running until the water is clear or something, but alas, tiT... they probably have a notice on a board at their office somewhere.

How I can find out when the gold is a fake or not? What is the physical process before purchase to find out its 100 procent real?

There are chemicals that gold shops uses when they are unsure of the gold, where they drop a small amount and see how it reacts, (acid tests) oftens on vintage jewellery you might see small dot in out of sight areas where the test has been performed.

still it only tells you what's on the outside, it could be gold plated items, or even stuffed with lead for density, it would be hard to tell without experience

What about the other Tony's place on the dark side and one in Soi Buakhao? is that not airconditioned like the main one also?