digbeth

Nope, I don't fish, but I see lots of Thais on motorbikes hauling their catch from the place all the time

That Khlong Bang Phai looks massive, what about there?

https://goo.gl/maps/TuuZmtEH4PN2

That one is a bit difficult to access the water, while there are roads around the dyke but the water's edge is a bit overgrown, so you can't just park up on the road and cast from there.

There are some paths to the water the local use, often you'll see a lonely motorcycle parked on the path's entrance

The Mab Fuk Thong 1 one here if you keep going down the path to the right after the dyke, pass a rubber plantation, you'll come to a shaded area with plenty of space to park the car right on the water's edge, perfect place really, but sometime groups of Thais do come on the back of the pickup truck with music. If you enjoy 4WD the path does lead out to highway 331 or you can summit a few of the hills there too

https://goo.gl/maps/hPWJYJdt9tE2

That one is fine

Just be careful, there are a couple of reservoir north of silverlake in Soi Wat Yan, the one called Mab Fuk Thong 1 and 2 are okay but is a bit isolated, so bring a friend

The one next to the temple is a no-no

There are shops lining the road that sell live fish for merit making, Thai people buy the fish and release in into the water for good karma, even though at night the shops cast nets to 'get back' their fish and the locals do fish there, it's probably bad form and is frowned upon

On the subject of safety... has anyone come across any Thai building code regarding stairs? in many place stairs are unevenly spaced between rungs and is quite a hazard, some have too narrow rungs and very poorly thought of handrails, obviously some building extention/renovation are done without architect's supervision or plan

the ban seem to only applies to tertiary level education like university and colleges, 7-11s close to primary and highschool should be okay for now

Went pass Na Jomtien Fire house near Ban Amphur yesterday, no big crane, so if any of those tall condos south of Jomtien needs firefighting crane, it would have to be driven out from Pattaya Third road.... horrifying if you think of the traffic to get out of Pattaya

Not sure about Baht Buses, but there seems to be a lot of romantic notion about being a motorcycle taxi guy, being your own boss, living free and all that

Whenever I've used the walking/running trail on Khao Pratumnak there have been some people who have their dogs with them and every morning I see people with their dogs walking along Pattaya beach front.

Most places you go will have some street dogs about that could be a problem, but in those two places it doesn't seem to be a big issue.

There are lots of stray dogs/cats on the jogging trails on the Big Buddha hill side of the hill, so beware, but people do go on walks with their dogs in leash there too

Their office on Jomtien 2nd road looks pretty derelict, with faded signs for an unopened park, this is not promising

I've just been down Jomtien 2nd road, which I think, is the cycle track portion of the Triathlon some stretch of the old Thapphraya from South Pattaya towards Thepprasit seems to be resurfaced, new plants on the median just planted and on the 'new' Jomtien 2nd road, the road surface is atrocious in parts still, not really suitable for a bike race, maybe that's also why there are now a roundabout in the middle of intersection with soi wat boon too....

at least the stretch of Jomtien 2nd road that connects to Sukhumvit looks nice for a bike ride

looks like a lot of money has been injected into city hall's contractors...

There are specific antifungal solutions that you an paint on in HomePro too, pure bleach like Clorox is not available in Thailand at the moment

Holy cr@p. What was I thinking: Foodland in Tukcom? It was TOPS in Tukcom!

Isn't Tukcom coming to Foodland?

No, Harbor Mall is being built next to foodland.

Harbor mall is by the same group of people that operates TukCom

In their promotional photos and signage for the new central road location, there is small TukCom branding too, maybe relegated to just a floor instead of the whole building

There are 'services' advertised around various thai websites that offer access cards to various condos, seemingly installed or compromised by them.... you needn't even send the original card in, they have a list of buildings to choose from and they mail the card to you no questions asked.

the legality of such service is dubious

the access control system's supposed to have a 'master key' and reading one valid card to make another shouldn't work, but older systems have been compromised and indeed can have duplicate keys made from having a known good card to read off from...

but by giving the card to these people to get cheaper copies, that means they will now have your condo in their list ready to sell to any random guy

Within the 12 years I have been here, I wonder if the firefighters have upgraded their equipment with all the tall condos and hotels that have mushroomed around here. Also, this is another reminder for us who live in tall structures to make sure the fire escapes are NOT blocked or locked and to think what we would do if there was a fire. It is not the fire that kills people, it is the black smoke full of chemicals that make people lose consciousness. Knowing how the city budgets (not) for various projects around here, they seem to neglect items such as this since it is not as glamorous as removing old trees in order to renovate the beach promenade

There are 90 meters firefighting crane that can reach about 30 floors now, I know that Bangkok has a couple, I'm sure Pattaya could afford one, Pattaya's fire brigade do get called out to help industrial fires in the various factories and chemical plants in the eastern seaboard too, so I'm sure they're trained

In my condo, one of the stairwell is used to hold the garbage for the floors until the cleaner lady comes and empty them every day, the practical result is that, for convenience the fire escape door for that stairwell was kept open on most floors...

should there be a fire, the fire escape stairwell that have doors ajar would result in smoke going into the stairwell or fire, rendering it useless, I always make a note to use other stairs when there's a fire....

After 10 years, only recently that there must be some new rule or inspection that a recommendation is made to put a stronger closer mechanism on the doors so that they can't be propped ajar,

There's also what looks like smoke/ heat? alarm and sprinkler points in my room but I wouldn't trust that the valve is open either, in decades of living in my condo full of Thai people cooking, I haven't heard a false alarm once, where as living in apartments 'back home' there would always be odd false alarm from somebody's cooking every now and then

So, don't trust the system

Maybe a good reason to carry a gun for protection and learn how to use it, I would hate to be a helpless victim

You must be keen to stay in a Thai jail! Can a farang even own a gun in Thailand?

Yes

Own, yes...

Carry.... as in having a loaded gun and walking around... technically possible for a Thai citizen, but practically getting legal permit for carrying is beyond's most people situation

I still see bags of Quakers around, I think it's only the one in tins that's disappeared

Gold is suprisingly easily convertible to money in Thailand, there's gold shops in practically every town and most Tescos have little shops too, seem to open longer than banks even,

Although most banks offer gold price indexed funds that you can buy into just by depositing money in and sell back when you see the price is right by making a withdrawal with a debit card

There are also 'gold markets' around town now too where you can elect to hold pieces of paper instead of gold or gamble away with various derivatives and future contracts

Try Sainsbury's

I suppose the value of the wing orgy (and their other odd promotions) is in the context of a very high price for their regular order or wings. So relative to that, it may actually be a good value. I'm sure their number crunchers have worked it out and people go for the promotions big time. So compared to a regular order an eater wouldn't need to eat all that many wings for it to be a good deal, assuming he wanted to get a good fill of wings.

I reckon they also know the average number of wings eaten on the promotion, some might eat 10, some might eat 30 but surely most don't eat 30.

Did you get to try the Korean Bon Chon wings in the Royal Garden Plaza yet, I seem to recall some murmurs in the Hit and Run Restaurant Review Thread when it first opened,

that chicken is already quite expensive end of the chain restaurants spectrum, but that's only around 400 baht for about 10 wings, drinks&tax included

the waitress at Royal Garden is quite a looker, hooters or not

The concept of the police force in Thailand is not the same as what it may be in other countries.

My view is that the police force in Thailand is more of a business rather than a service (they have no issue awarding themselves the recent rewards put up for the scumbag bombers).

Why would they want to be more pro-active if the profit is marginal?

Far easier to extort passing motorists / motorcyclists, and the beach run enterprise is an established success already

Business is too kind, legalized organized crime/protection racket is more like it

.... their regular prices are already reasonable,

580B for a pizza is reasonable? Not in my book.

I'd be williing to pay 600 Baht for a decently made pizza than 300 baht for what's the Pizza Company or Thailand Pizza Hut called pizza in their menu

Am I correct in that like all the major landscaping done in Pattaya this beach project too is designed by the big garden attraction place that keeps winning awards at the Chelsea Flower Show year after year? surely they can't fail that badly

also they're planting the wrong kind of palm, the corner at the start of Jomtien beach road is Dong Tan beach, and there are hardly any Tan palm trees left except these ones

I would have thought that there would be some kind of 'self regulation' in that the Pattaya baht bus mafias probably wouldn't tolerate the white bus from out of town to encroach on their territory like that

Problem with Lazada is that there are now many little shops on Lazada's website that 'drop ship' their products directly from their own warehouse, often outside of Thailand like from Hong Kong and not directly from Lazada's warehouse, it's often hit or miss with these little shops within these website. It would be a nightmare trying to returns to sellers in Hongkong.

Also the product descriptions is often inaccurate

Even Lazada's with own stock they do make mistakes all the time but ringing them up they'd send someone to pick up the returns without much fuzz,

I see that now the Kerrys logistics that deliver most of Lazada's cash on deliveries shipment now has motorbikes doing the rounds in Pattaya, it used to be that they have trucks coming from Bangkok directly daily, the volume of sales in Pattaya must be so great now that they have warehouse /sorting office somewhere near just for Pattaya deliveries