brummiebob

I've nothing against Russians, I speak Thai and have learnt Russian, cause I need it for my Business. I reckon my level of Russian is about the same as average Pattaya Thai's grasp of English.

There's no expectation that short-term tourists should learn the local language,

If you want to communicate or do business with them, then of course, learn the language, Russian or whatever

But if any foreigner are staying long-term they should be able to survive on their own, that is able to communicate with shop assistance, taxis, so the burden should be on them to learn the local language.

So for most people who already speak English should need to learn Russian to enjoy Pattaya, is it unfair that in many of our home countries the language is English?

What about hotels gyms? Dusit seems pretty popular?

Not Fairtex even?

For those of you who seems pretty well-versed, could you please enlighten us why these choices aren't comparable to the likes of California Wow

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

I find it amusing and quite a bit insulting to the Thais that many foreigner who live here do not make an effort to communicate in Thai, or fair enough, English.

I see many Germans and Scandinavians who make by by speaking their language and gesture, the Thais replying in Thais, some of the older guys even reduce their communication to their wives/girlfriends to a series of grunts. Many scene in Pattaya is like Star Wars where each characters speak their own language and seemingly able to understand each other.

Does any one feels the same about Thai though? you get on the bus, and all these Thais are minding their own business, chit chatting, I should be able to chime it in Thai right?

Or we only feel that way with white people?

Anyway, I just thought of a slightly more compelling reason to learn basic Russian, at least for BAHT BUS riders.

As riders know especially during the heavy Russian season and to and from JOMTIEN, quite often you will find yourself on a bus surrounded by Russian speakers AND they quite typically are talking to each other. I mean total strangers.

Now that CAN feel somewhat alienating if you don't understand anything they are saying and they are obviously not talking to you.

Perhaps it would be a benefit to understand some of those conversations and even be in a position of adding a bit to them. I reckon for the most part these chats are quite mundane and are not about particle theory.

as for dog complaints, people in my soi have sucessfully remove aggressive pests in the past by contacting city hall too, the procedure is quite funny, they asks for picture of the offending animal and came in one day, only picking up the one dog we said was biting random people, leaving other dogs in peace. It was like a mob hit.

If they do turn up to the restaurant the owner could claim ownership of the dog.... does it have collar?

There is Public Health department at City Hall that does restaurants inspection,

They would have something to say about dogs in kitchen

Since the dreamboxes no longer receives True the vendor selling them seems to disappear, I remembered many who paid subscriptions in advance to these vendors receiving no service since.

Be prepared that the shop might not be around when the time comes to renew your Astro subscriptions, the next shop that does it might require you to buy the whole boxes again

unlike other banks, Bangkok Bank doesn't do international services like money exchange or international transfer at every branch, best to know which in Pattaya does.

What many of you may not know is that Makro was CP's first venture into retail to begin with, way before their Lotus, they were the Thai contact that brought Makro to Thailand in the beginning, and still hold shares in Siam Makro until these days,

This deal would means that CP would take controls of the remaining shares and Makro Nederland would exit

Makro's main market is never concerned with the middle or upper class, their bulk buys are mom&pops stores in the little shophouses around the markets throughout Thailand, sue there are high-end restaurants that shop there for certain things to...

Definite answer to where to get the yellow book done is to ask the people in your family where they get theirs blue book house registry 'Tabien Ban' from, in the blue book there will usually be a designated 'head of household' (usually the dad) who's supposed to take care of matters in his/her household like reporting birth/death, bring them along as well.

Technically you're supposed to inform the Amphur if you move and have your name transferred to the yellow book belonging to the new address, but even Thais don't always move and put their names down at their parents' so I supposed once you managed to get one and you'll be the only farang in that house, might as well take it with you and save the hassle.

For Thai blue book, there is a 'central registry' for those that don't have a place of their own, as most lanlord won't let them move into their bluebook, so they could go to the Amphur or Pattaya city hall to put their names on and can get certified copies when they need it for work, apply for loans and whatever, but they appear dodgy, essentially saying that you are 'of no fixed addess' I'm not sure if there are similar systems for yellow books

To show that I'm not a racist...
I also makes a point of taking notice with cars with 'back home' flag (like welsh, bavaria or whatever) on their bumper too, often these are driven by geriatric old farts in a hurry to get somewhere before they croacked.

the thing is they could be local, a lot of them seem to prefer Bangkok plates for vanity reason

Since the first time car buyer grant, beware of new-ish drivers in anything smaller than, or a Toyota Vios, especially with the new plates with numbers in front of the Thai letters, like 1กก 1234 , it is hightly likely that you have a newbie behind the wheel.

A slightly tangent topic, what's your opinion of the 2 Baht coin? seems badly planned that they first came out in silver and now due to all the confusion had to change it to gold.

I'm not too sure about these places in Pattaya, but in Bangkok, in Seacon Square on Srinakkarin Road, there's at least two stalls selling just remotes, having just successfully found a replacement for my aircon remote there

I've seen some in MBK too, but aren't too sure about the exact location.

Try the night market next to McDonalds opposite Bangkok Pattaya Hospital, that look promising too

most 'flea market' (not fresh market) will usually have one stall selling all kinds of electronics, cables, connectors, allsorts, some might even have a specialist remote guy with just one stall selling remotes, with chinese knockoff of the model of your aircon/tv whatever, usually they are labelled with the brand name,

if the brand name on the packaging matches, even if the shape of the remote is different, it will work. most of the time expect to pay more than 300 baht for one.(mind you sometime I have the exact same shape of the model I need, only with the wrong brand name screened on the unit but works too)

Caveat Emptor! most of these placed don't allow returns, so take you old remote and make sure

Amorn, being a brick and motar store is a good dependable choice but the selection might be a bit lower than the specialist guy at the markets, also the sales staff at Amorn will not have the knowledge of what alternatives is workable if the exact model of your remote is not available.

Failing that, the official company will stock parts including remote for your exact model, best to contact an air-conditioner repairman as they would have dealings with the company getting motors, fan blades, control units etc.

just read on the papers that they will start cracking down on vendors on pavements, things will probably be back to normal after a few months/years

softness is also why thieves can snatch gold chains off the necks of passer-bys so easily,

if they were to snatch a stainless neck-less of someone's neck that would results in some serious injury

The alloys used in some areas seem to gives off different colour to the gold as well, Indian, Middle East and European seem to have varying tint from reddish to green and yellow. Even just within Thailand, there are gold from some areas that is traditionally red.

carat, for gold here is a measure of purity, it is spelled using the same as the carat which is a measure for weight also used for jewels.

24 carats is the finest purity gold, 99

and 18 carats (often written as 18K) is 18parts gold and 6 parts other metals, or 75% purity

pure gold is too soft to make jewelleries with so it is melted together with other metals to make an 'alloy' to make it harder

More carat that's refered to in this case is in weight of pure gold that's in the actual piece, say if you were to molten them, remove the impurities/alloys, the weight of pure gold in carats can be measured this way.

A better, less confusing grading system would be to say the percentage of the gold

For example 100 grams of 75%gold melted down would yield 75 grams of pure gold.

instead of blabbering on about other people's ignorances, you could just ask politely or even google it yourself,

thai gold has more carats? <deleted> does that mean? first of all, carats are measurements of stones and diamonds, karats are measurements of gold. and gold is gold, there is no difference between thai gold, indian gold or any other, as far as karats are concerned. do you have any idea what you are talking about?

a jail term for traffic offence sounds harsh, sure

but

being held in a holding cell is not the same as being convicted and sentenced,

it is possible that the actual sentence include jail time as the law is written as either fine/time or both

and drunk driving is a criminal offence, you could ended up killing someone so that's fair.

Most of the dui checkpoint in Pattaya is on the dark side, I think there would be a greater ratio of Thai to Farang that got caught in the net

My Thai friends that got caught had to do community service too, they probably let it slide for the farang due to the difficulty of finding appropriate work.

a lot of new factories these days try to be green with solar cells on their roof, Toyota in Chachoensao for example

A few decades ago solar hot water heater on the roof was all the rage, what happened to them?

Water in my stainless tank in the back of the house gets pretty hot enough until 8pm even

Rainwater collection too, only certain parts of country seem to do it, in my other house we have to dig a hole for bore water, yet all the rain from the gutter just waste away down the drain, even for watering the lawn it would be fine, most Chinese Thai seems pretty thrifty, a grey water recycling system like in Australia would probably go down well too

the police do seem to try to make a point of making it inconvenient to get bail/hearing especially during the holidays where you might not be able to post bail until the next working day, this happens to Thais in Bangkok too, they could brush off a couple of ten thousands baht fine, but a night and a good part of a day in holding cell seem to do the trick

One thing about Bangkok though is that I've never been aggressively panhandled by the homeless here, where as most western countries...

I've walked a lot during the evenings in Bangkok, if you know what you're doing and don't look a total tourist you'll be fine, most trouble on the sidewalk you can spot and steer way clear off, only motorcycle borne thugs are harder to spot and avoid/defend against.

even certain areas that seems busy enough during the day becomes pretty sinister during the night, Asoke Intersection on the opposite side of Soi Cowboy for example, it gets pretty dark and there are all kinds of junkies sniffing glue there on old the market stalls

I didn't get why Lad Prao 101 deserved this reputation- it doesn't seem any different from a lot of other streets and areas in the city.

Probably more people use it to get to and from other place and the crimes happens and gets reported more often