newnative

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',

With Thais buying used properties, or anyone else for that matter, I think it's more a case of the condition of the property, pricing, size and layout, and its location, among other things, that determines whether a Thai would be interested in buying it. My partner and I have sold nicely renovated used condos in great locations to Thais and we just sold an older house, also in a great location, that we had totally renovated to a Thai buyer. The house had a number of other Thai buyers that also viewed it, undeterred by 'ghosts'. Now, had there been a new housing project with similar pricing, land, and house size near the house we bought and renovated, likely many Thai buyers might have gone for a new house vs. an older one--but, likely we might have, also.

'Performance'--dismal on everything. End of 'Review'.

As always, and with everything, the PM is 'pleased' with dismal results.

So the attacker is a 'menace to society' according to the police but, yet, they released him, even after he confessed.

What a bunch of bull releasing the suspect because the victim 'couldn't provide testimony'. Suppose she had died--she couldn't provide testimony then, either. No case because she's dead? Absolute nonsense saying a case can't 'properly go through the Thai court system' unless the victim provides testimony. How about a victim left in a coma? Sorry, guy! Wake up and 'provide testimony' or you're out of luck getting any justice! If that were actually the case, it would be a huge incentive to kill any witnesses to a crime so they could not 'provide testimony'--that way you'd apparently be home free even if you confess, like this utter lowlife did.

Should be a great asset to the north Pattaya Beach part of town, which has been very popular with domestic tourists. My partner and I were at T21 the other day and it actually felt busy for maybe the first time since covid hit. Lots of people around, most of the restaurants doing ok, including one we noticed that had people waiting for a table. Food court was busy and almost all the tables were occupied. More people seemed to be out and about on Second and Beach Road. Nice to see some signs of revival.

I don't know why--especially at night--she picked this off the main path section to jog in in when the main jogging path is better lit and has more people on it.

Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick that can down the road.

Correct, I am not a day trader and, yes, I buy and sell stocks for a stock portfolio I have of currently 30 US stocks. I do not pay a monthly maintenance fee nor a commission for non-broker assisted on-line transactions of US listed stocks.

I haven't bought any of my stocks in 100 share lots, including Amazon.

The Chinese are still buying, even now. My partner and I recently sold a house by Lake Mabprachan--an area that is getting very desirable. We had at least two showings every week it was on the market. A number of the potential buyers were Chinese. Of these, three or four of them were not here in Thailand and they viewed the house through video calls with the agents, as well as videos the agents made. We actually almost sold the house to the very first buyer we had, a Chinese who was one of those that viewed the house first by a video the agent made and then by video call. We couldn't agree on price and ended up selling to a wealthy Thai buyer.