Tarqin

Pay no more than one months rent as a deposit. If its a farang landlord then you probably won't get it back. If a Thai no way in hel_l. A lot of people do not pay the last month and recoup the deposit that way.

'get there early before the obese-brigade get there'

Does my arse look big in this forum?

1. DO NOT rent anything before you get here, book yourself in to a hotel for a week or two.

2. Only EVER rent from a falang who lives locally. They understand the concept of customer service and will be around if things go wrong.

3. Tour Pattaya/Jomtien until you see something you like and then enter the complex and ask the staff about units to rent. They will give you contact details as they will be on a kickback from the owner and you avoid having to deal with rental agencies who are expensive and useless.

4. Only agree to rent for one month initially as you want to get a real feel for the place.

5. Understand that there is a humongous over supply of rented accommodation in the area so what ever he wants for the unit half it and negotiate from there.

6. Ensure that you will only pay utility bills as charged and not at some mark up and demand that you are shown the actual bills before paying.

Do all this and you won't go far wrong.

Songkran in Pattaya flat out sucks. Thanks for the heads up will book my flights to Singapore for the week.

I too had a very serious eye infection after being hit in the eye with a supersoaker filled with drain water.

NEVER AGAIN.

As I know Sunny I can tell you he can't afford teeth let alone real estate.

Can I be an 'anarcist' too?

Rudi,

You and your friend are not 'up for trouble' but when the bar owner refuses to serve you a beer then rather than just walking away your immediately both up in his face telling him your connected and threatening retaliation, do you see the irony in your post?

Aussiechcik. Try not to be silly.

Well as to the article, Captain Sensibles advice for sensible investing is never take buying advice from someone trying to sell you something.

As for whether the Pattaya property market is heading up or down, if you can't work that out for yourself then I have some magic beans I can sell you at only 20 million baht a pop...

Falang oriented bars are overpriced compared to Thai oriented bars and the girls want falang community as they will pay more. As such there seems little legitimate reason for Thais to enter them. If accompanying a falang then OK but otherwise why would they be there?

There are several valid reasons for excluding Thais from falang oriented bars the key ones being possible Police stool pigeon or boyflend of girl employed at bar looking to cause trouble.

In Pattaya there are Thai only bars, Japanese only bars, Chinese only bars and Arab only bars as well as falang only bars and so what? Its not like there's a bar shortage and why would you want to enter a bar that doesn't want your custom anyway?

As to having connections and using them, well the bar is likely paying protection of some sort itself so I would think very carefully about going down that route.

I am a qualified accountant and object somewhat to the concept that accountants earn money for nothing. But I was also an entrepreneur who made a lot of money during his career and so I kind of understand the point.

There is always a good reason not to do anything and it is usually an accountant or lawyer who says don't do it.

However there is a very very good reason not to do what the OP is proposing and that is he will not own the land the building he proposes sits on.

I am aware of all the ways round this. I am aware that people have been doing it for years and the Thais have not (yet) moved against them. I am aware that the land can be registered in his Thai wifes/girlfriends/whatever name and she will lub him fewever but at the end of the day he can not legally own the land this building will be sat on.

For me end of discussion. Others make take what risks they feel comfortable with...

IF you can take the hassle and are prepared to give up a few hours of your holiday book in to something central and obvious like say Flipper House on Soi 7 for a day and then tour Pattaya viewing rooms and negotiating prices. High season just ain't happening this year and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Amazing deals are to be had for walk ins who pay cash.

Very sad tale. I can not say I knew Peter well but I had a drink in his bar a few times and knew him to say hello to.

Interesting story about his attacker. I lived in Brighton for a few years in the early 90's and saw how quickly drugs could get a hold of someone. The drug of choice then was heroin the drug of choice now seems to be crystal meth which yabba essentially is and the effects seem to be much worse and take hold much quicker.

Yet another reason if I needed one not to run a bar. One of these freaks walk in I checkbin and walk out. The bar owner does not have that option.

Rest in peace.

(for non-English board members Brighton used to be a pleasant English seaside town but is now the drug capital of Europe)

Well Prefab you almost impressed me with your use of the term untermensch. I am a big fan of Stoddard's work.

However I do not think I ever referred to an inmate of Nirum as an untermensch. You on the other hand...

And you Prefab are a valued and respected member of this forum because...

I am officially adding 'Commenting on Nirum Condo' to my list of things I no longer do...

Well 007 I don't think what the place was is the issue. Restaurant, shop, agency selling tickets to the moon? Think the key issue is falang pay up or go bad place...

Thai police officer corrupt?

Say it ain't so Joe...

Rent, rent and rent again.

There is and has as long as I have been here a massive oversupply of rental properties in Pattaya which means you can rent a very nice house for pennies that would cost you a fortune to buy if you could which as you say you can not.

However renting is not only an economic matter.

Good ares can go bad very quickly. You may live in paradise and then a Thai developer may decide to build condos infront and both sides of you so you will be living in a building site for years. Landlords problem move. Decent houses may not be maintained and if Thai owned almost certainly won't be. They will tart it up for a new tenant but will not mend a leak for an existing one. Short term mentality. If he won't fix it its his problem move. You may live in paradise and then a drunken fool who wants to party 24 hours a day may move in next door. No one will do anything to stop him. Landlords problem move.

You get the point?

Yes. Its awful. And expensive to boot. Must have been good once because it seems to have a good reputation but not now.

I have lived and worked in pretty much most places in the world except South America, never got there. I now live in Jomtien and have never been happier.

Most of the places I have lived in since my youth have been what you might call dodgy legally. When a cop stops me on a made up charge and it costs me 100 baht to solve the problem I think back to the massive fines for speeding in UK plus the 300%+ insurance cost bump that followed, and I pay up with a smile. I have come to like the ‘it can be sorted out’ mentality of such places and could now never live in the we will find a reason to screw you West.

So choosing (lets face it) the Third World where do you live? My heart will always be in Africa but to live there (and not be killed) you need to be very rich. You need the big house, the guards, the dogs and even then you live in an atmosphere of fear. Spent many years in Nigeria where you can almost taste the violence in the air. Loved the buzz of it when younger but too old for that nonsense now.

So Thailand for me offers the compromise of a certain amount but not too much lawlessness and the abilitlity to wander around drunk late at night and be perfectly safe as long as you’re not too stupid. Card with address in Thai in left rear pocket, 1,000 baht in an inner pocket and you’ll get out of 99% of situation that go bad.

So where in Thailand? Some see Pattaya as a western ghetto and prefer the ‘real’ Thailand. Well the ‘real’ Thailand usually means cold showers tin huts and crap food. Too real for me. Pattaya offers a blend of Thailand and the West and you can stay in one of the other or move between the two. Walking Street is there if you want it but easily avoided if you don’t. Soi Boukaw is there if you really must have a fry up but the 100 baht carts are there if you don’t. And do not dismiss those carts everything is fresh that day and cooked in front of you.

There is a huge social mix here from rich white yachties to potless pensioners and all stops in between. You can mix exclusively with farangs, Thais or a mix. No one seems to judge here.

And finally and in some ways most importantly you are within a 10 minute drive of a world class medical facility. Thus was brought home to me in a way I will never forget. Up country Kenya a woman I knew was thrown from a horse and broke her back. She had to be transported in a Land Rover over rutted tracks at about 5 miles an hour to a hospital and it took 6 hours. We had morphine but not that much and when we get to the hospital it was a shed. She would have been crippled if she hadn’t died of septicaemia. Always have a plan for a medical emergency.

So Pattaya for me offers a unique blend of the Third World and the First. I have faith the Thais will screw it all up eventually but for now its ideal for me.

Christmas was lost to commercialism in the West decades ago. It never was anything but commercial in Thailand because their Buddhist by God (pun intended).

If you fancy a bit of harmless fun offer a bar girl 100 baht if she can tell you what Christmas is supposed to be about.

As an interesting aside a friend of mine is a senior executive with Tescos in UK. The next thing they are working on is selling Thanksgiving to the British. To quite him 'once we got them to buy in to Halloween we knew anything was possible'.

I will be on Koh Larn with a carefully selected tour guide. Someone who knows all the right places...

I have never heard anyone even a Thai claim that the prisons are getting better.

A very fit young man could perhaps survive 3 years anything more would be a death sentence and even then he would come out with severe health problems.

Any sentence over one year for anyone but the fittest is in effect a death sentence.

Rape and other forms of violence are rare its the diseases that carry people off. TB seems to be the current biggest problem but hepatitis A/B/C/D are ever present killers.

I have no intention of doing anything to get me a stay in any of these places but if I landed up in one I would use all my resources just to get out.

Bad bad places.

Well Thailand has tried to move away from longstayers and towards give us your money and then leave. It was always thus but seems to have become more pronounced since the military coup.

The low/no budgeters have already gone to Cambodia. And before anyway says good riddance to Cheap Charlie's there used to be a whole lot more of them and they all had to eat drink and sleep even if it was 30 baht for a beer 100 baht for a meal of the cart and 300 baht for a fan room.

Other long stayer's are considering their options. Thailand could make the place more welcoming by instituting a few easy changes such as multiple year visas for all supplied on producing evidence that your not destitute but instead they headed in the other direction as usual. Plus they could reform the laws so that farangs get a least a slim chance in a Thai courtroom instead of none at the moment but again they are heading in the other direction.

And what has replaced the longstayers? Chinese everything paid for in advance at the lowest possible price, Arabs who are all either skint or behave as if they are and Russians who are all totally pot-less and can bare afford the cheap flight that bought them here.

Thais are hurting economically thats for sure and whats holding the baht up on the foreign exchanges I do not know but as usual the problems are largely of their own making.

Well Michael not a lot more to say. Its in Central Pattaya (not Jomtien) on Beach Road between Soi 7 and Soi 8. Its just a counter sandwiched between a bar and a go go.

I think its called Cornish Pasties or something like that. Start at Soi 7 on the business side of the road walk along towards Soi 8 and stop when you see the counter with the pies on it. You can order and then go sit in any of the bars and they will bring the pie to you.

Order a Cornish pastie. Your taste buds will love you for life.

You may be thinking of Simon's Soi 5 Jomtien. If so forget it. Standards have dropped. Not sure if Simon even owns it anymore.

The best hot pie place is a hole in the wall between Soi 7 and Soi 8 on Beach Road. Pasties to die for. Not sure if they do pork pies.