stuarty

A busybody thou art. Report it thou shouldst...

For the phone card, if you don't want to use your (home) service roaming, then of course you can (like any other country) buy a (or one each) cheap local SIM card for local calls between you and your son. There is a phone shop every 20 metres. Just go and tell them what you want (only a few days local use, pay as you go, etc) and they will sort you out.

For the travel card, it is called an "Octopus" and you can get one any major travel hub, e.g. any MTR or bus station, but if you're only here for 3 days and only bumming around HK Island looking for computer parts or basic sightseeing, then it won't really save you that much. For average journeys just get the MTR or better still a taxi. Excellent value/air conditioned and fast and polite and plentiful (unlike Phuket).

I live in HK. Better to be based on HK Island. Forget Kowloon. Crowded and too many ripoffs/touts etc.

Go to the Wanchai Computer center (mall) O'brien Rd above the Wanchai MTR station. Entrance next to McDonalds. You will get anything you need there. Stay at any hotel in Wanchai such as the Novotel Century http://www.novotelhongkongcentury.com/special-offer/special-offer.htm or the Wharney etc. The new boutique Hotel Indigo is nice and great location, but maybe pricey.

Report it then What's your point? You've gone to the trouble of posting these photos here, why not simply report them to the hotline? What do you expect members here to do except, note that you don't appear to have a life?

It seems they have already killed the pr**ck.

I can't begin to tell you how much I agree with the above analysis. It was becoming very very hard to find (ON THE MAJOR BEACHES) any sense of "you ate in my restaurant/drink in my bar you can use my loungers free" Where it was busy with loungers they were absolute grasping territorial c***nts. 2 places I used to go on Bangtao Beach last year accused me of "breaking" their lounger and wanting compensation (I had caused no damage and am not a fat B'stard).It was as out of hand as the Jet Skis. Good F***ing riddance. You reap what you sow.

The Pian hotel advertising is still there. It alternates with the Twin Palms advert on the top section.

There is no truth in the rumour that he is big in white in BKK

Lemoncello is the name above the building in fromt to Toto.Still there..

48/1 Lagoon Road, T.Cherntalay, A. Thalang

Phuket 83110 Thailand

RESERVATIONS: Phone +66 76 271 430

[email protected]

Toto is part of Watermark group http://www.watermark.co.th/toto/

He also owned the Babylon Beach Club at Bangtao Beach which was cleared last month, and he has the big while elephant called Loft at Laguna (opposite Toto), which has tried but failed to stay open at least twice, and has been standing empty for years.

Monday.you say, Kn Prab? No problem. Just pop by when you're ready.

What about Toto and Limoncello at Laguna? Those are his.Still open?

Go to the (new, improved i.e. cleared) Bangtao Beach, and stay at either the Angsana, or Outrigger Laguna Phuket Beach Resort (make sure it's the one on the beach - i.e. not Ourigger Resort & Villas behind the golf course). Both are 5 star with great pools, and should be about 4000B in October.

Get a car from: www.phuket-car-rental.com

Eat at Tatonka, Bake/Flame/Pasta, Toto's Italian, Siam Supper Club, and Sunset Restaurant all just at the Laguna entrance.

You need to get out more, mate - It's Saturday night. Let's all head to the beach - oh, wait.....

I agree the food has gone way way downhill since 10 years ago, when it was actually quite good. Never eat there, now. . So, what;s you local?

EBlair

The Army are dealing with the beach encroachment first and not the National Park encroachment or the Building regulations violation. That much sticks out like doggies I hope I never meet you in Peppers or BBs, because I do not have any spare blood pressure medication..

By the way, It's not demolishment, or demolishing, it's demolition. Pkease stick to that.

EBlair - I have something appropriate to add.

I miss the Laypang restaurant, and the Reggae bar, but nothing else. You cannot pick and choose what stays and what goes. Beirut is not an accurate analogy, and in fact very wrong (and quite insulting in fact). At least admit that. It is not injustice, it is the dealing with the "low hanging fruit" and most welcome as a first stage of clearing the greed. The fat Mayor should be jailed.,and many of the police..

Your misguided sentimentality would not last 5 minutes with the self professed geniuses at the end of Peppers Bar. Mind you, most of them haven't been to Bangtao beach for years.

Who do those lights at the back of the sand belong to, and that hut?

Nikki Beach Club?. If you can't beat 'em.......

But seriously if I was you I would head down to Kan Eang 2.

"Many of those restaurants north of Banyan Tree were only one story. "

And were demolished meaning they were not on private land as suggested by AJBangkok

I was told that the strip of land west of the road running from Nikki beach to just after the turn into the Laguna complex is private land. There is a beachfront plot with chanote for sale right at the t junction when you come out from Laguna and turn right to go to Nikki or left to go up to where lotus was. If what I was told is correct then the entire strip is private so if they are knocking down buildings there it's because they violate the high tide mark or the height restrictions.

Really, now? Don't you thing that if that long strip was chanote, it would be full of swanky hotels rather than a few tin shacks and the now defunct tinpot little beach bars?

"Some hotel chain lost all in a day"

What do you mean?

I suppose its possible Banyan Tree PLC own right up to the sand line, as it was all one giant tin mine taken over by them, but more transparency is needed as to the actions being taken in situations like this. Otherwise it gives rise o a "them and us" problem. Certainly Reggae bar and all the little joints further up do not have a leg to stand on, and while some were discreet, others slashed and burned and reaped what they sowed.

Good, but (a) how does the Banyan Tree get dispensation?, and ( I bet that Icon hut becomes a drinks stall.