newnative

Last time I did the extension I was not given any date to report back so I didn't. My 1 year extension is in a few weeks so I'll see how it goes this year.

Yes. This is not unique to Thailand. If it's too expensive or if just the idea of paying more offends you, don't go. I, for one, am happy to pay because I realize I am saving so much more on many other things by living in Thailand vs. the US.

boo hoo

Arms, yes. Assault rifles, not mentioned--which allows for flexibility in interpreting the law over time as technology changes, not to mention the changes in the need for militias. In any case, just adding an age limit does very little. Assault rifles should be banned, period, along with all other types of multiple-fire weapons.

Have to disagree. It's been nicely busy every time my partner and I have visited recently. At one visit we had to search for an empty table at the food court. At another visit we noticed that most of the stand-alone restaurants were doing a good business--one even had people waiting for a table. What has surprised me is the majority of the stores have stayed open during these years of covid. And, this with a mall focused on tourists. Yes, a number of the small, marginal-at-best stalls in the low-traffic outer areas closed but the majority of the stores surprisingly have remained open. Compare that to a recent trip my partner and I took to Asiatique in Bangkok--also with a tourist focus. We were shocked that at least two-thirds of the stores were closed--maybe even more than that. Some of the buildings looked completely empty. Only a few stand-alone restaurants were still open. Very few people around and most were waiting, as we were, to go on a dinner cruise. Very sad to see it in such a state compared to our last pre-covid visit, when it was packed.

Yes, I've noticed that, too. The numbers they tout seem to vary from day to day but every time I add them up they don't reach the low point they are predicting. A few days ago they said Thailand would average 500,000 tourists a month in 2022 with 7 to 10 million tourists for the year. 500,000 a month is only 6 million a year--a million short of the 7 million low point. What we do know is there were 1,360,000 international tourists thru May. That leaves 7 months to attract 8,640,000 tourists to achieve the 10 million figure. That's 1,234,000 a month--higher than their prediction of 1 million a month for just the 4th quarter months. For the low 7 million figure, they need to attract 5,640,00 tourists to hit that mark. That comes to 805,000 a month. January thru May they were averaging 272,000 a month. The low 7 million figure seems very high--and, highly unlikely.

As I said, two choices for the OP to consider. Perhaps one will suit his needs. And, perhaps, there will be other choices put forward by other posters.

The unit I mentioned does have 2 bathrooms. The project is beachfront--there are no other projects in front of it--just the street and then the beach. If you're in the 'A' building at Lumpini I doubt you're any farther back from the beach than your choice. LPB offers the chance of having a seaview unit, which we did. Your choice is low rise, older, and most units don't have a seaview, or much of one--I remember looking at a unit there and being disappointed with the view. But, you're correct about larger room sizes there. Two choices for the OP to consider.

Lumpini Park Beach at the south end of Beach Road is beachfront. My partner and I used to own a 56 sqm 2 bedroom/2 bath there. Bathrooms are small but there are two of them. Second bedroom is also small but can sleep 1, or 2 with bunk beds. Nice size balcony. Two big pools and a small gym. Library, sky lounge, ping pong, baht bus on Beach Road. Might suit for a short stay. Can't think of much else beachfront at that price point for 2 bedroom/2 bath with both gym and pool.

I don't care if they're Harley's or whatever. As another poster mentioned, some of the noisiest can be smaller ones. It's a bad problem in Bangkok, too. No reason for a bike to be that noisy other than to say, "Look at me, look at me!!! Look at me being a big annoyance!!!"

Drove in to Pattaya from the Darkside this afternoon around 3 pm on the motorway. Traffic was backed up past the Sattahip exit. At 3 pm. Took forever to make the right turn with cars trying to cut the line and bad congestion on Sukhumvit limiting the number of cars that could make the turn on a signal cycle. Total mess. Not a cop in sight, of course. Yes, a holiday weekend but still few international tourists and tourist buses right now. I don't look forward to what it's going to be like on a holiday weekend when the tourists are back in force.

Happy to see Depp win and I think it was the correct decision. But, it took a great deal of money and a long 7 week trial to refute the lies. And, even though he won, he has ultimately lost. Scary some of the things happening in America--so easy to do something minor and unintentional and be immediately cancelled. Or, have someone dredge up murky memories from years ago in hopes of a payoff. Actors such as Frank Langella fired for 'inappropriate behavior' and essentially cancelled without having the opportunity to argue their case. With Langella, he was rehearsing a love scene--both actors fully-clothed--and apparently he touched the actress's leg in a way which was not in the blocking of the scene. He also told a joke the actress didn't like. Actress took offense and he was fired. If you're doing a love scene in a movie isn't there going to be some touching involved? Did the actress not realize they were acting and playing characters, not themselves? If they were rehearsing the scene they should have both been in character--he was and possibly was improvising a bit, she apparently was playing herself and not her character, hence she was offended. But, was her character? If a scene calls for an actor to slap an actress can he then be charged with assault if the actress decides she didn't like the slap? If I were an actor I'd be scared to death that some actress that might not like me could easily find something flimsy with all that goes into making a movie and scream 'inappropriate behavior'. Ditto for the regular work place where we now have to be aware of every little thing. Hmm. Can I tell Sally I like her new hair style? Probably not. Best to keep quiet. Even scarier, three middle schoolers in Wisconsin are being charged by their school district with sexual harassment. Their supposed crime? Failing to refer to a fellow student as 'they and 'them'. Apparently, the student wanted to be referred to in the plural and the students forgot. Likely an expensive legal bill for the parents as they have hired a lawyer to try to fight for their children not to have a sexual harassment charge on their records. Madness--but the lawyers must all be grinning widely at the state of things these days.

Umm. Not this American.

OP should have clarified his sweeping 'West freehold'. Every country is different and one size doesn't fit all.

Yes, it seems worse to me, as well. The road works are taking far too long. Often when we drive by a construction area there are only a few workers on site--it looks like it's all being done as cheaply and as slowly as possible with the bare minimum number of workers. Sometimes when we go by an area being worked on it will look the same as a month ago with no progress whatsoever. It's nice the mayor was out taking a look the other day and got a large dangerous open hole covered--but instead of covering up the problem how about getting the work finished quickly instead. A hard look needs to be taken with some of the congested major roads and parking eliminated on those that now need an extra lane to handle all the increased traffic.

Cue the wringing of hands, the heartfelt thoughts for the victims, the prayers to God, and, perhaps, a few words on looking at tightening gun control laws so this tragedy never happens again. A respectful pause and then it's back to doing nothing. Repeat with the next tragedy, likely a few days from now.

That's what I worry about, too. Traffic is often bad now, what's it going to be like when tourists start coming again? They should have never allowed parking on the beach side of Beach Road--looks awful and hinders traffic flow. North Pattaya Road is sometimes gridlocked as so much traffic is going down to Terminal 21 and all the hotels and other businesses--the new Centre Point Space and the other new hotel across the street will just be adding to that. It's long past time that North Pattaya Road should be made no parking the entire length--adding another lane to help traffic flow. Much of it is red and white striped already--just do it all. For the convenience of allowing a few dozen cars to park thousands of other cars are stuck in traffic.

46-year sentence for involvement in making a car bomb. 8-year sentence for brutally killing someone. Liked the car bomb sentence. The murder sentence makes no sense in comparison.

I don't agree but, in any case, how an individual hotel operates and prices its rooms has no bearing on tourist numbers and tourist revenue for the Thai economy. More tourists means more tourist revenue for Thailand, not less, per Leaver. Just for argument, though, if you have more tourists coming to, say, Pattaya be they from China, the Middle East, or wherever on Earth, that means more demand for hotel rooms, which should help keep hotels from going into your 'hole'. If a hotel does go into a hole due to poor management and closes, that just means one less hotel, making supply tighter for more demand--also helping to maintain prices. And, finally, we've heard time and again from pundits here that Chinese tourists to Thailand only stay at Chinese-owned hotels, providing no tourist revenue to Thailand, so none of us should care if that hotel you mentioned ends up in a hole.

Had a big laugh at your 'tourist numbers up but money down' comment knocking TAT for, in your words, 'targeting tourists from developing nations'. Not good, according to you, to bother with these tourists because they don't spend as much. Somehow this translates to 'money down'. And, apparently too many are doing the no-no of choosing Nong Nooch Gardens or an island trip over a go-go bar on Walking Street. It's true that a Chinese tourist spends less--only 49,000 baht on average vs. a tourist from the Middle East who spends the highest average amount, 81,000 baht. But, if you're Thailand with a large tourist industry vital to the economy, do you want 700,000 Middle East tourists spending an average of 81,000 baht in 2019 or do you want nearly 11 million Chinese spending an average of 49,000 baht each? Well, the answer is Thailand wants both and, obviously, Thailand is correctly thinking that more tourists, even if the average spending varies, equals more tourist revenue, not less. Just as obviously, if a tourist attraction is not attracting enough customers to survive, whether it's on Walking Street or anywhere else, it will close, to be replaced by something else. That's just business.

I mentioned Amari in my post because they built a new separate hotel on their grounds geared towards families--just one more addition to all the new, large construction projects in that area. Big developers may target the WS area at some point but currently they seem to be focused on other areas of greater Pattaya.

I think if big developers want to be in certain areas they will find a way. Sansiri bought and tore down an old hotel to make way for its Edge condo. I think there was something already there that was torn down for its Base condo project next door. Some old project was torn down for Terminal 21. Ditto for Centre Point Space. Chang has bought a number of land parcels with old buildings on them for its proposed Aquatique. The land with low-rise buildings across from Terminal 21 has been fenced off and likely will be demolished at some point to make way for something new--and probably high-rise. Certainly, as you say, we'll see some nightclubs and other small projects popping up around Walking Street. But, the major developers have seemed to want some distance from WS with the numerous large projects that they built in the past half dozen years--and that has continued with current and proposed projects.

If you want to see the future of Walking Street you need only look at where big businesses are spending their money. And, it's not Walking Street. As I've said before, most of the new development is as far from Walking Street as they can get and still be in Pattaya. Pattaya's mayor can talk about this and talk about that but it's all just talk. The private sector spends the serious money and what have they been building recently in Pattaya? Probably the newest and biggest is Centre Point Space. Anywhere near Walking Street? Not on your life. Same for the new highrise hotel going up right across the street from it. Same for most of the other new hotels that have been built recently: Mytt, Brighton, Ozo, Amari new wing, D'Beach Hotel third highrise wing, Somerset, Grand Palazzo, and numerous smaller boutique hotels. Plus Terminal 21, of course. The proposed massive Aquatique project is a comfortable distance from Walking Street, as well. How about large new condo projects? Most nowhere near, either. Instead, you have the impressive Arom going up in Wong Amat, to join other new projects there such as The Palm, Baan Plai Haad, Zire, Northpoint, Riviera, and others. If they don't choose Wong Amat, they are likely in Jomtien/Pratamnuk/Cosy with the many new projects in those areas. With big business, it's anywhere but Walking Street.

My partner and I lived at the bottom of Soi 6 at View Talay 3 condo when we first moved to Pattaya. We liked the area but, as others have said, you need your own transportation. We are in north Pattaya now but if we were to move back to Jomtien we would look for housing closer to the baht bus line.

I think you need to change the headline and replace 'public' with 'police',