newnative

Duh. And, it's not just the north or Bangkok. I smell burning almost every evening here in Pattaya on the Darkside. This morning I opened my door after a night with the aircon on and was hit with a burning smell in the air. Closed the door again. Authorities do nothing.

Agree. Not married, not, apparently, in any Will. Should receive nothing and be happy the sons aren't going after the house.

Before our move to Pattaya's Darkside, spouse and I lived for a time in Wongamat, which I consider to be one of the neighborhoods of Pattaya, and it was our favorite place to live in town. Much of the nice, new development is happening in the north part of Pattaya, away from Walking Street, Including, of course, T21. We liked Wongamat's quieter location, it's size, the variety of beachfront condos available, and the back streets we could use to get to T21, Central Festival, Big C at Marina, the hospital, etc. We also lived in Jomtien but would likely never live there again as it is getting just too congested and there are a number of massive, new condo projects under construction, and others about to start, that will make the congestion even worse when they all come on-line. Also, the majority of the places we frequent are more in the north or central part of town rather than to the south.

Years ago, my family had a reunion in Florida. My brother drove his Saab 2-door coupe down from Pennsylvania but he had to fly back to get to work on time and he asked me to drive his car home to PA, which I did. At the time, my car was a cheapo Dodge Colt, a lousy, small 2-door hatchback so barebones it didn't even have a radio--and which I did not even attempt to drive to Florida. After I drove his Saab back to PA I got in my car to return to Virginia. I still remember to this day what a difference in the driving experience! Literally night and day--I wanted to roll the Colt off the nearest cliff. My brother still has a Saab--a beautifully maintained gorgeous red convertible.

Had a Nissan Pulsar NX which was a fun car. My most memorable was the first New Beetle I bought, when they started making them again. Had a couple of them and loved them.

Glad I am here and not in the US, with the high prices on the way.

The forums can be very useful with information for expats living in Thailand and those, like yourself, who are planning a move here. It always amazes me that there will usually be a forum member who can answer a specific question posed by another member, especially on things like visas and immigration, but also on other topics, as well, everything from health care to solar power. The forums can also have plenty of not-so useful, untrue information so you do need to be aware of that when some topics come up, my favorite being Pattaya, where I have lived with my spouse for 14 years. Since I actually live here, I know that a lot of what is posted is just completely untrue. Some of it may have been true years ago--such as Pattaya Beach being having lots of trash on it--but not true today. Love when a poster starts out with something like, "When I visited Pattaya for a day 12 years ago . . ." Blah, blah, blah. Sometimes their visits weren't even this century. Lots of chaff with the wheat. My best advice when you are looking for a place to live in Thailand, give every place on your list a good, hard look, yourself, and pay close attention to what housing is available and at what price ranges, what types of neighborhoods are available, what shopping is available for all your needs, what services are readily available, and does the place meet specific wants and needs you may have. If you like to bowl twice a week, is there a bowling alley nearby? I would also take the 'news' featured on the news feed with a grain of salt. Often, they are rather petty crimes that are highlighted; apparently, popular for some expats here, and others not even living here, to read and comment on. Pattaya and Phuket seem to be featured a lot--as both have millions of tourists--being the 14th and 15th most visited cities in the world, according to Mastercard. With millions of tourists, some crimes will happen--anywhere in the world, not just here. Don't let the abundance of these stories leave you with a false impression--which has been known to happen. For awhile, we had a string of top-of-the-page stories of hapless, mostly Indian tourists, having gold necklaces snatched while they were visiting Pattaya. Were the necklaces actually gold? Were the snatches actually planned as an insurance scam? Were there even actual snatches? Who knows? Who cares? Non-news stories for big cities. It's the same with drunk tourists behaving badly, often at 2 or 3am. Usually a lead 'news' story, as well. Do read the forums and the news feeds, but, hopefully, with the above caveats in mind. Good luck with your move to Thailand, when it happens.

"The louder you howl, the better he's doing." Likely true, key word HE, not the country. I must say Trump is keeping busy and getting some much needed exercise--walking back all those ridiculous things he promised during the campaign.

No, it wasn't a positive step--or perhaps you were being sarcastic. It was a total failure, as the poll results show. It just made riding public transportation during rush hour an even more miserable experience than it already is, with far too long waits between trains and trains with not enough cars for the many more riders now using metro. Even non-rush hour, it was awful--as my spouse and I found out. The week we were in Bangkok-during the free rides--we ended up driving our car or taking taxis--I'm sure many others did, as well, after one horrible experience on the trains that week. So much for reducing pollution. And, how's a horrible rider experience going to get people out of their cars and taxis? It was an easy, lazy, no hard work involved, no hard decisions involved, publicity stunt, nothing more. It was a glaring example of a government bankrupt of ideas, willpower, and initiative in the pollution fight. The millions squandered on it could have been used in far better ways.

Agree--the charge time is the problem--I am super impatient and 15 minutes would be too much for me, too. I am also too lazy to look for charge places in the first place--and the ones I do notice seem to always have cars already plugged-in--so you are waiting even before you plug the car in--then, for more waiting while it charges. No thanks. Spouse and I have had a new plug-in hybrid for a couple months now and we are liking it a lot. For now, we think it's a great compromise between gas and all-electric. Around town, we never use gas. We have an EV charger at home, plug it in in the evening, and it's ready to go for our next day's driving. The first time we used gas was on a recent trip to Bangkok. Our condo there does not have any EV charging stations but, no problem--we just used gas when we were in Bangkok and to get us back to Pattaya. No worrying about finding a place to charge an EV in Bangkok's awful traffic. We're saving some money on what we were spending monthly for gas so that's a nice benefit, too.

Nonsense. Pattaya is a large, diverse, and growing city and, according to Mastercard, the 15th most visited city in the world. There will be a few bad apples in the millions visiting. True anywhere. Incidents like this one are always given headlines here but would not be considered worthy of mention in the west.

Aquatique will be a great asset for Pattaya, and the large numbers of regular tourists it is attracting, as are Grande Centre Point, Centre Point Space, and the massive Centre Point 3 Resort now under construction.

"Former President Donald Trump" again. Somebody tell the AI robot writing these articles that Trump, sadly, is no longer "former".

More a case of not enough staffing. Did anybody catch Trump being referred to as "former President Donald Trump" in the article? Wishful thinking on the part of the writer, I guess.

Rubio's just as dumb as Trump.

He'll have a brief honeymoon period with his approval rating, then it's likely all downhill with the ratings. #47 will be fighting tooth and nail with #45, also Trump, to see which one is ranked dead last as the worst President in history and which one will be ranked second to last as the worst President in history. Let the competition begin!

Deport them. Zero tolerance.

Now let's get lots of new rail cars for MRT, BTS, and ARL to make them all 6-car trains, which should have been done years ago.

Maybe some rethinking on training: Army Secretary nominee Daniel Driscoll said during a Senate hearing on Thursday that the crash may prompt the military to reconsider conducting training operations near the busy Washington, D.C., airspace. "This seems to be preventable," Driscoll said. "I think we might need to look at where is an appropriate time to take training risk, and it may not be near an airport like Reagan."

All that money spent uselessly on free metro rides in Bangkok should have been spent on more machinery for the farmers.

Total joke. Headline should read "Thailand not enforcing burning ban. . ." I've been smelling burning the last several months, including today, and soot on my terrace most mornings. More useless blah, blah, blah.

Madness. No extra trains, no extra cars on the trains. Just idiots in charge, starting at the top.

This crackdown will last just about as long as I can hold my breath. What they need is a squad of permanent meter maids, handing out no parking/double parking tickets, with the meter maids keeping a percentage of the fines collected, with the squads patrolling all the major roads. Of course, what they really need is to eliminate parking altogether on the major roads, with the meter maids enforcing the no parking. Somewhat unrelated but I finally figured out the wacky, swoopy yellow striped lines painting scheme on Thepprasit Road by the U-Turn intersections. If you look at the parking lane by these intersections, you will see forward white arrows painted on the parking lane, indicating that it is actually a travel lane, not a parking lane. So, I think the idea was for the 2 lanes of traffic to segue to the parking lane and the adjacent traffic lane as you navigate a U-Turn intersection, neatly getting by the traffic stopped making a U-Turn. Ahh, how lovely! Now we all segue to the left and, past the intersection, now we all segue back to the original two traffic lanes. What fun and what wonderful traffic flow, segueing this way and that! Delightful! Well done, Pattaya! Screeching halt! Unfortunately, the brainless in charge never got around to marking those parking lane stretches where we are suppose to be segueing to as no parking. My car does not yet have the ability to magically travel through a parked car so all the city's work is for naught. No segueing around the cars waiting to turn. No smooth traffic flow through these awkward, congested, too narrow U-Turn intersections. Still a big mess. Still my least favorite road in Pattaya. Luckily, I no longer live in Jomtien and am not on that mess of a road too often.

And, why were they training near a very busy airport?

Those noisy big bikes should be outlawed.