digbeth

If that right turn coming down the hill is illegal they shouldn't have made a one-way system coming out and into South Pattaya

It's no better in Bangkok

as a Farang, getting metered taxis even in Bangkok has become increasingly difficult, especially in touristy areas, they see white skin and expect an easy rip-off, a 100-200 baht might seem like a few euros or dollars to naive tourist....

Try speaking Thai to them and they'd reject you.

It has gotten to the extent that the Taxis will reject Thai passengers for a chance of picking up tourist instead.

I've known of a single blue and yellow taxi that uses the meter in Pattaya, but he only do so when picking up regular passengers that has phoned him or a security guard at a condo called him... never from a rank or when flagged down (No I don't have his number but the security at my condo has)

For Bangkok taxis after they've dropped their fare of in Pattaya, there is a few rank that they can go and queue up to get jobs for the return leg to Bangkok, I've heard stories of clueless Bangkok taxis that dare picked up fare off the streets of Pattaya to Jomtien and thus attracted the wrath of the local taxis... it's clear what kind of town we're in

Samed Island feels like a different world to Pattaya, Drive down and park at any of the piers and get a ticket across, from all-inclusive resort or explore and find your own corner of the island...

Came for walking street joke... leaving disappointed....

Which pharmacy did you use? I'd like to be given a paradox from time to time, sounds fun

Why aren't Thailand a developed country yet?

Looks like there's a new Pizza place in the Welcome Town (the street shopping mall on Central road next to Powerbuy Near Suk.)

It's a Pizza buffet with a little oven in the middle of every table and you put your own toppings on the pizza and bake it yourself, the crust looks very thick, so I'll pass, it's more of a novelty for the Thais and might be a fun day out for the kids

MCC Factory, while not in Pattaya is in Chonburi, close enough, not sure if they have already made such bumper for the new Pajero Sport yet, but if you're the first person, usually they'll give you a discount if you let them model your car

You're really trying to say that getting ripped off by a Songtaeuw driver is better than paying almost nothing for a bus ride?

Not saying that the baht bus is excellent and service is great, but having used Bangkok's bus, it just put things into perspective.

and 10 baht is not much more than the 8 baht I paid for the un-airconditioned bus in Bangkok, ok, the free ones do exist

Charter-only bus is a ripoff sure, but pay 10 baht and walk away, most of the time the driver is not going to be high enough to get out of his cab and chase after you for not paying his extortion

Had a visit to Bangkok the other day.... never thought I'd say this, but after having to use various buses in Bangkok.... our baht bus is safer than proper bus.

1. High floors, with most of the Thai bus being converted truck platform, the floors are very high, with steep steps, which makes getting on and off (especially for the elderly) difficult, getting on baht bus is a breeze
2. The Bangkok bus tend to not stop completely, requiring you to make a run and jump to board it, and to disembark you'd have to hit the ground running...(lucky I remembered my paratrooper training) with baht bus, the need to come up to the driver and pay means they must come to a complete stop.

Okay, maybe the air conditioned mini bus might behave a bit better but not by much... and the driver might be merciful to the infirm looking and let them get on and off nicely and the ticket girls do seem to serve as a spotter yelling to the driver if the passenger is yet to get on.... but from my experience, Bangkok bus is an extreme sport suitable only to the brave

This is more for the younger crowds...

The dance music festival started out a few years ago as a copy of Singapore's Zoukout.... ok, the DJs might be international enough, but normally the city's dance music doesn't hold a candle to most of the international beach destination... even Bangkok has better night club scene...

It seem to comes down to taste mostly

Are there any difference of familiarity to your 'home' country's law that could affect how the lawyer explain things to you?

Like lawyer that can compare things to UK law is going to be more use to British people and vice versa for American

Otherwise, a good Thai lawyer with good command of English should be enough

The farang ones that seem to have a lot of presence though...can they even practice law legally even? look at how one we should mention turns out....

So you want to celebrate the arrival of the British fleet in 1788.

I think that's fantastic.

Happy Invasion day cobber.

P.S. No ankle bighters and only second generation ozzies welcome. No sweat if your a distant pom.

White Australian only I take it?

If you know your history, like i do, Australia was not called Australia till the white man came here. So , to say the aborigines are the only original ozzies is completely false. Your barking up the wrong tree calling me a racist .

So, there's plenty of first and second generation Asians Australian like Vietnamese... why exclude them? Although I doubt any Asian Australians that's in town would be interested in joining a bogan party

Curios to what extent of 'performance' does 'Performer visa' entail

Also see many Russians tour reps in the various tour company's uniform staying for months on end... Tour guides are protected job for thais... they are probably classed in other capacity in their work permit(if they have one at all) but they are essentially working as tour guide....

So you want to celebrate the arrival of the British fleet in 1788.

I think that's fantastic.

Happy Invasion day cobber.

P.S. No ankle bighters and only second generation ozzies welcome. No sweat if your a distant pom.

White Australian only I take it?

wrap the straight wire around a pencil or something of suitable diameter.... heat with hairdryer, but not too long or it melts... voila! coiled cable

Motorized food cart seen on the street -- Mouth Bum Wing Duck. Duck bums the other dark meat.

See that cart on Beach Road a lot.

First time I did a double take, when I saw "Gon Pet" on his sign

Had a chinese restaurant brought out a 'special' on the house once, it was a stewed poultry meat of unidentified part.... I was having lengthy discussion with the wife about which part could it be? at first it looks like the mouth... it was beaky but that can't be.. there aren't any meat on duck bill is it? only when I turned the piece around and there is a distinct, round sphincter puckering in the middle did I realize what it was.... didn't tell the wife that we had stewed duck <deleted> until we got home though, since the restaurant loved us so much they brought this 'special' for us.... it would be bad form to not eat it all up

I haven't used eatigo... is it mostly chain restaurants and restaurants in hotels that managed to join? are there many sole proprietor run type restaurant where you might have the one expat chef/restaurateur managing the place that's typical of Pattaya restaurant scene?

eatigo.com in Pattaya.

http://eatigo.com/home/th/en/pattaya/

Anyone noticethat the PARTICIPATION of local restaurants is VERY WEAK compared to Bangkok?

Obviously we don't have the number of restaurants that Bangkok has, relatively speaking, I had hoped the participation would have expanded greatly by now.

But it hasn't.

What's wrong?

It's up to the app/service company to go around and get restaurant to join up.... hotels apps like agoda or discount coupons deals company has their local rep that go around hotels and restaurant to ask them to join...

otherwise most restaurateur wouldn't even know that the app/service exist. Some discount service just disappear overnight, even the big one like groupon... I remembered a while back that restaurateur were complaining that the discount service were bringing in wrong kinds of clientele and some that oversold their coupon and can't deliver.... look like the bubble has burst for online restaurant review/discovery/discount service...

even the premier thai review site/app wongnai.com Pattaya's coverage is only a few restaurant

If eatigo really brings in customers, I'm sure the restaurateur's word of mouth would pass on quickly....

but for now

From the restaurant's point of view, you'd probably only need to care about tripadvisor and you'll be fine... anything else, unless the sales people from the company beat down their door to offer the service... why should they care there are myriad of deals to sort through like the ones from credit card companies and mobile phones companies... the good restaurant that you'd care about are probably not savvy enough to offer these... those that do seem to only be hip/modern thai restaurants that caters more to the middle class/ bangkok clientele

I notice how when the tour bus stops at 'body massage' palour and not just the traditional 'thai masage' but the one with bath and satisfactory ending included.... there seem to be perplexed women tour member standing around not knowing what to do while the men goes to get relieved....

walked past the 2nd road place and I now see sign advertising 'couple' massage service where you can go in with your wife and get off at the same time.... Good for them!

Local businesses has to be creative and adapt to take the Chinese money

There are bus shelters on the corner and if I remembered correctly, along the new stretch of Jomtien 2nd road where it joined Sukhumvit south of Chaiyapruk... I have yet to see any unchartered bus service down there..

The defunct mini-bus down to Jomtien still has their stops along beach road too, I still see one in front of what used to be the 'Kuffa' restaurant on the corner of Dong Tan beach where the 7-11 is... the advertising on the bus stops look to still be updated too

Sheperd's pie, it's just meat and potato

Police report for loss documents at soi 9 is probably the most efficiently run service there.... in and out (after paying of course) so don't be afraid to go down there and brave through the red tape

their rationale is sound,

should the old bank book fall into the wrong hand, or someone want to steal your identity and issue a new bank book without your knowledge, when they go to the bank to make a new book, at least they have made a statement with the police somewhere claiming that they have lost the original book... how much of help should that turn out to be false? at least the bank are covering their <deleted> by having the police report... that the police doesn't determine the veracity of such claim of loss documents is of no consequence... Should it comes to that at least the criminal who ask for false police report would have added charge of making false claim to police too

I was looking forward to using the evaporative cooler fan this 'winter' on the couple of days it was dry it works great.... but most of the other days... with humidity 40% and up, it just made the humidity in the room worse, even with doors and windows open I'm surprised they're still selling well with most homepros has loads of models on display... Inside the airconditioned shopping malls these evaporative fans seem great.... bring them home and into the humid climate and they're just expensive fan that you can only use the cooling functions once or twice a month

I don't know where your from but in the UK every major car dealealer has at least one model of every car of the manufacturers albeit in various specs.They will have other models available on site but not on show. They also have a computerised list of the current cars available or when they will be released by the factory.

Ok the manufacturers might have a different way of supplying Theo cars which means they do not have to pay for the car until it is sold.

Yesterday as I quoted the showrooms had 1/2 cars and loads of sales girls playing on their mobiles.

Discount is not normally available for cash in the UK, like here they want you to take finance, extended warranties etc, there isn't normally much profit in just selling a new car.

Test drive, it will give you a feel how the car handles, steering,acceleration, cornering braking etc, paying thousands for some thing without testing it is a no no for me. Surely it's in the manufacturers interest to provide a car or two which in the UK are normally sold on as 'demonstrators'

Is there a shortage of new cars in Thailand or do they have pay up front for them meaning they don't want thousands of baht sitting in their showroom.

There is a list of all the upcoming productions and allocations from the factory, on occasion with better salesperson, I was shown the printout of this list, if there is a vehicle in the colour and spec that I wanted but that car belongs to another dealer, they would ring around and swap it with one of the car they have in stock, or if the worse come to worse, refer me to their colleague in the showroom that has that car (and that salesperson probably now owe them one) .... but that's probably too much work for most lazy salesperson.

The way the dealer pays the factory is another source for frustration... looks like they have a clearing system where the factory send the cars out first, and once the showroom make the sale the factory send along the relevant documents needed to get the car registered... with the result being that cars are delivered without plates for months (resulting in use of the red 'trade' plates) Some dealer get their act together and register cars quickly, some waits until they have a bunch of customers and do it all at once....

One way to force them to get your registration quick is to make them agree that you'll only take the car with completed registration, by all means have the bank made out a cashier's cheque to the dealer for the full amount, wave the cheque around in front of them but don't take delivery until they have complete registration.... I did this once, the result is that my car was ready but it just sits there in the dealer's lot for a week.... I could have driven the car a way a week earlier without plates.... but having bought a car and had to wait months for the dealer to get my plate... I don't want to go through that again.