KittenKong

2 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

At immigration, tax, land and transport offices, including Pattaya/Jomtien, I see MOST Thais wearing long pants.

Great. As long as only most and not all of them do, I wont feel at all unusual.

9 hours ago, KittenKong said:

I have a current one-year Thai travel insurance policy that includes rental excess cover so I needed nothing extra.

Someone asked me what this is.

Mine is with AXA but MSIG also do one as does at least one other Thai company. I pay about 9,000B/year. Cheaper packages are available.

Cover is OK without being exceptional.

4 hours ago, CygnusX1 said:

what do the developers of Luciano and Marina Golden Bay know that we don’t?

That many people are stupid enough to buy such things as an "investment" rather than for their proper purpose which is to live in.

I've used Europcar/Keddy many times at LHR without any issues at all and they are usually the cheapest (ignoring the companies that have really poor reputations). This year however they were more expensive so I ended up with a Corsa from Hertz for 8 days for £102. No problems at all.

I have a current one-year Thai travel insurance policy that includes rental excess cover so I needed nothing extra.

In the USA I have used Dollar without any issues, and the same for Avis in Portugal. All monthly rentals.

3 hours ago, marcusarelus said:

Shorts and tee shirt are not appropriate at Temples, Palaces or government offices.  

Great. I dont go to any such places apart from the Jomtien tax office and the Pattaya DMV office, neither of which has any problems with the way I dress. Indeed I see many Thais wearing shorts in both places.

20 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

Not being prepared to make an effort to be respectful may be one the reasons you don't have Thai friends... Just sayin'....

The reason I dont have any Thai friends is that I'm not interested in having any.

I spent a few days in Phuket earlier this year. I saw nothing that would give me any reason to return. Expensive, overdeveloped and crowded.

1 minute ago, marcusarelus said:

You need it to go to Immigration.  

Not so far. If it does become a requirement in the future then I certainly wont be doing it.

9 hours ago, marcusarelus said:

Many of us have Thai friends and family and do formal occasions so the need is there to have appropriate attire not to be an embarrassment to our Thai family. 

Absolutely. But I dont have Thai friends or family so I just dont need anything more appropriate than shorts and a t-shirt. I'm clean and tidy and that's all that should matter to anyone.

1 hour ago, trevor67 said:

So if I cant find some free wifi I have no google maps.

Google Maps allows you to download and store several map areas for this reason.

https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838

11 hours ago, CLW said:

I was looking for some control unit where I can set the moisture instead of manually switching through fan speed levels and the dehumidifying mode.

I've never seen anything like that on domestic air-cons.

I dont use dehumidifying mode at all: the standard cooling mode does both jobs and keeps both the temperature and the humidity very even, which is what I want. In fact I never touch any of the settings on my air-con, apart from the "on/off" switch if I go away for a few days.

The sensor on my coffee table indicates that the air in my condo is currently at 26.6 degrees with 54% humidity. That is due to my entirely normal inverter aircon which I leave on all the time.

Dehumidification is a normal function of aircons. I dont think you will need anything special.

18 minutes ago, Confuscious said:

- What will I expect as an owner from a Comdominium?
- Hidden or unexpected costs?
- Problems with the owner of the Condominium block?
- If problems with the water/electricity/others arise, have you been helped adequatly or was there no help?

- Long term problems.

Strange questions.

Q1 makes no sense.

Q2. There will surely be some one-off infrastructure costs (elevator replacement, pump replacements, CCTV/alarm replacement, pool retiling etc.) but they cant really be described as unexpected. Funds may get stolen or misappropriated. There is safety in numbers and if your condo building has few units and/or many facilities the cost to each individual unit could be quite high. There may be other financial issues affecting the building and you will always have to pay your share of the cost. The time to investigate that would be before buying.

Q3. You are the owner, or at least one of them. What sort of problems would you expect to have with yourself? Or do you mean problems with your neighbours?

Q4 makes no sense either. What sort of problems could you have with water or electricity, and why would anyone help you with them apart from an electrician or a plumber? Your building may have in-house general maintenance men, and they may or may not be competent.

Q5. The building will wear and things will need replacing. Whether this is done well or badly will be largely down to the competence and honesty of the building management and the committee of the day. The odds are against you as Thai building management is generally pretty poor, and committee members are volunteers who usually have little or no knowledge of anything relevant to running a building. They also often still have their "isn't-thailand-wonderful" tinted glasses on. They are easy prey.

The problem here is that the OP was trying to buy a ticket online using a credit card that was not in the same name as the passenger. I find it entirely normal that such a payment should be refused, especially for shuttle trips within Thailand. Far too much scope for fraud using a stolen card number.

On 6/29/2019 at 11:53 AM, KhunBENQ said:

crappy cheap PureVPN

Works fine for me.

5 hours ago, Number 6 said:

Pattaya's sell by date was 2006. Anyone there after that has no life.

I have a life but it doesn't include bars. So I don't really care very much what happens in them.

I see a dentist at Phyathai hospital in Si Racha. They always take my BP there also. It's just part of what they do for the hospital fee. They also provide a translator.

Anyone who doesnt want to have his BP taken when seeing a dentist (or to pay for it) can always just go to a dentist that doesnt work in a hospital.

Just now, smutcakes said:

You think someone who has been running one of the most popular bars on Soi 6 for well over a decade has never considered or thought of the above possibilities?

I dont know and I dont care. I have seen some very smart people being taken in by that sort of scam here, and I have also seen some very stupid people running bars here, even for a long time.

It was just a suggestion of something that he might like to consider. It makes no difference to me whether he does or not as I certainly will never be setting foot in his bar or indeed any other.

1 hour ago, corner bar said:

i do have cctv system and electronic tills so EVERYONE who orders a drink gets the bill on the table which is all electronic and gives out exact time who served etc, so i dont understand the payg system you refer to, if that had happen on our till system it would be there in front of you, ie it would say 5 x san miquel light, nd 1 lipo? which is to be fair not what ya average girls drink anyways, sounds like a group of lads, you hand the bill you already know the amount its all clearly printed and money to the girl it cannot be added to?? we dont write hand written bills at all and havent for around 8 years so this cuts out any arguments

Here is something you may not have considered:

Your staff dont ring up the sale on your POS machine at all but just make a hand-written bill from their own pad and present it to the customer for payment, which they pocket. If your stock control is really tight they can make up the shortfall just by adding bottles bought from outside.

Or:

Your staff do ring up the real sale and the POS machine spits out a printed bill but the staff just write out another bill by hand for extra items and present it to the customer, many of whom will pay up without a murmur (as indeed the OP did). If anyone does complain the staff can just "find" the real receipt and apologise. The staff put the correct amount into the till and pocket the difference. No stock control problems.

OK, for that to work they would need a stupid or lazy or absent (or crooked) manager, and/or a stupid or lazy or absent owner, but all are quite possible here.

As for staff of long-standing being more trustworthy, in my experience (limited to condo building staff, admittedly) they dont seem to care much about that sort of thing. I have seen both the scams I described above happening in condo buildings here.

I bought the latest Dot in the UK for £30 directly from Amazon in one of their many sales. Brought it here, plugged it and it worked fine. Change the location to Pattaya and it adjusts its local information accordingly.

Not as useful as I thought it might be though and so far I only really use it for telling the time at night or starting BBC podcasts with the lights out, or checking tomorrow's weather (which currently is always hot with a chance of rain). I tried it for getting driving times based on local traffic conditions, but it is way out, even in the UK.

The audio quality of the built-in speaker is nowhere near good enough for listening to music, at least as far as I'm concerned. Connected to a hifi system it is OK, though it is annoying to have to do it via an analogue cable. In that respect Google Assistant control of a Chromecast is better, though that also has many failings.

I also have Alexa on my phone (free app), and that doesnt do as much as I thought it might either. If I had the choice again I would not buy the Dot, even for £30. But maybe the skills will improve.

If the Lazada ones are real and not clones then I see no reason why they should not work with a UK Amazon account.

6 hours ago, Number 6 said:

I don't frequent bars much anymore, especially these sorts. Not been to Pattaya in a decade but I don't recall bottles being stacked on my table. The fresh one comes and the empty goes back.

Shows how little I know about those sorts of bars too!

I remember in the Philippines that they used to put an empty crate under your table and you put your empty bottles directly into that. It certainly avoided any arguments at the end of the evening, though of course a beer was under 10B (equiv.) anyway, and a "lady drink" was just a beer drunk by a lady.