Tarqin

The old Evergreen Deluxe was the best bargain in the skies. Essentially when they upgraded the old planes they put business and first upstairs but left the old business in the front of the plane as was and called it Evergreen Deluxe thus you got an old style business seats for about 25% over the economy price.

On the new planes Economy is good and Elite is marginally better for about 35% more. Just not worth it in my humble opinion BUT it is always booked solid they so they must be doing something right.

As an Eva Gold Card holder I can reserve a seat in Economy so I reserve the best seat by the emergency exit and get a better seat than Elite at a lower price. I have to pay for business about 1 in 4 to maintain by gold card status plus I have been upgraded to Business 4 times.

I am 6'1" and at 120 kilos thought I was seriously overweight and am on a strict no beer and exercise diet to get me down to 100. Just goes to show.

There is no possible way to answer this question. It depends what you want and like.

The best advice given to me was spend a year living in serviced apartments around Pattaya, say 2 months in each location, and see what its like particularly day to day.

I did this and ended up in Jomtien. A baht bus from the action but far enough away to ignore it when I want to.

Follow the cockroaches...

A UK national can get a second passport for two reasons:

1. He is planning to travel to Israel and then a country that will not let you in if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport, for example Saudi Arabia.

2. He travels frequently and needs immigration visas that require a passport to be submitted to an embassy. Thus you travel on one passport whilst the other is at an embassy somewhere.

Neither are well policed and the second only requires you sign a form and attach a supporting letter from your employer. You can even set up a UK limited company (£70) be the Managing Director and have your mate as Company Secretary and he can send the supporting letter.

As for the phone. Easy. Newer mobile phones have internet access. Sign up for Skype. Assign yourself a number. Call using Skype out. She can even call you back on that number. I use this method to do business with people who will only do business with people resident in London (for some wierd reason). Thus I frequently call them from my 'London office'.

Bit unnecessarily defensive there Martin as no one was accusing you of anything.

I don't eat breakfast before 12 noon so it must have been sometime after that plus I saw them several times organising themselves in your café. I chatted to the Irish girls as they filled in forms detailing their activities at the table we were sharing.

OK they have their own office but most offices are usually not large enough to accommodate a sale force thats supposed to be permanently on the move anyway.

So they hung around your café? So what? I'm sure you were just glad of the custom and you have confirmed they are nothing to do with you business wise.

I repeat no one was accusing you of anything but I stand by what I saw.

Tarqin.

If its the Jomtien mob then yes its time share touts.

They operate out of the Ace Café, not suggesting they are involved with the owner, just that they use it as a base. They hunt in packs and can get aggressive. None of the falangs involved have work permits.

They also run the Thais that hang out on Beach Road near the first Starbucks.

Its the usual. Promise you the world to get you down to Jomtien for an hour and then a VERY HIGH PRESSURE sales pitch.

They are backed by a high profile Costa villain who I'm sure you've all heard of but I won't name him here.

He himself has never been to Pattaya to my knowledge but some of his lieutenants have been spotted here.

I occasionally have breakfast at the Ace plus one of the Thais on Beach Road is an old friend so they don't bother me as they know I am not buying.

Best response to 'Do you speak English' is 'yes go away'.

The OP further regrets that NL's ignorance is shared by other board members.

The OP made an error of judgement and has accepted that.

The OP does not consider that this must be due to the gender or race of the perceived offender. Either NL has trouble understanding English or has not read the OP's post.

The OP does not understand NL's reference to car sales unless NL considers all relationships to be in effect business relationships in which case the OP considers NL to be deeply weird.

NL refers to a loan and is clearly under the impression that the OP lent someone money. Again the OP considers that either NL has trouble understanding English or has not read the OP's post as no loan is referred to.

The OP considers NL to be both patronising and ignorant.

The OP regrets that this potentially interesting thread has deteriorated.

All,

This is a subject I find interesting and wish to discuss. Can I thank most for keeping it civil and on topic so far.

Saorsa, I did not post a topic entitled what you said. I posed a question.

Just had a major disappointment. The details are unimportant but I've just been forced to realise that a Thai woman I genuinely believed to be a friend (and who I am not screwing) was just in it for the money.

Which leads me to ask the question, apart from wives and relatives and maybe not even them, can you honestly truly say your friends with a Thai and if you were penniless they would still have anything to do with you?

DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT use Dental Café near Château Dale. Went in for a clean and was spitting gum for a week.

Hmm... I had a feeling that if I dissed the mighty Apple a TRUE BELIEVER would emerge.

To make it worse Windows Media Player is produced by the Evil Empire and Itunes by the Rebel Alliance.

Ipod is an inferior product selling at a premium price on the name, although as I said before for a 17 year old sometimes the name is everything.

Better and cheaper out there. iRiver Clix was my personal choice but there are others.

Condos in Pattaya are wildly over priced but the sellers don't drop the price they just don't sell.

One one bedroom condo I know of in Chateau Dale has been on the market at 5M baht for 4 years now.

The orignal buyer paid cash, 2M as you ask, and he doesn't need to sell.

There is little forced sales in the market.

But anyone actually buying at these prices is a fool.

Bob, I understand Ipod is the name and 17 year olds are all about the name but Ipods are actually a very bad idea. You need to buy mp3's from Apple on the Itunes site and they only play on the Ipod. Its all propriety software.

If like the rest of the world you want to download mp3's for free illegally from sites such as Pirates Bay (not that I would ever do such a thing) the you need an MP3 player that doesn't use propriety software and for convenience you need one that is compatible with Windows Media Player. Then you can drag and drop from a computer on to the player. Easy peasy.

The recognised best player out there that does all these things is the iRiver Clix. The 8gb version (big as she will ever need) is £110 off the net. I have one myself and it is a seriously sexy piece of kit.

Wigan Casino regular.

Looks to me more like a warning shot and if I was her I would heed it.

As befits a place owned by the creator of the FreeLancer Bar.

I suspect a 100 baht 'on the spot fine' was an option but the OP did not take it...

Usually these 'on the spot fine' get more widespread about the time the kids go back to school...

Dude, take this advice in the spirit intended. Go home. If you get this excited about 58 baht the hassles of evrey day life in Falangalwayswrongland will kill you.

Got to go with 'more than we know'. I have seen the instant justice handed out to falangs who hit Thais. This guy had to beat the girl, get out of Scoobys, then out of Jomtien Complex and away. Unless he was REALLY quick and had a vehicle outside the bar with the engine running I just don't see how he could have got away.

If I'm thinking of the right place, almost opposite Las Vegas then the Scooby is a tiny bar with the pool tables inside and an outside seating area where the girls without customers congregate.

As such he must have been VERY quick to clock the girl and get out and away alive.

'the day will come when farangs will be allowed a guide licence'

Not in my life time and I am 46 and intend to live a long happy life.

Cheers Soi Pattayaland. Run by Colin the increasingly fat Welshman.

Quiz on Sunday nights.

Sorry Saorsa Tammi's off her medications again.

The idea that a condo owner has signed a legal agreement to pay 3% commission to the Thais on reception to sell their condo is the most bizarre thing she has posted since her last post.

Also her statement that the people who WORK in the condo block know less about the condos than the agent should how insane she is.

I was not aware she was an agent but maybe her boyfriend is, or maybe she's just insane.

Speak to the people on reception, Chuck them a few baht and they will give you the contact details of all selling in the block. Common practise in Pattaya.

On the other hand if you think agents EARN their commission then by all means go through the agents.

Thailand is a hard hard place.

There is the one who can not be mentioned there are the Hi So's and there is a sprawling mewling mass of poor people. Looking for their next meal looking for their kids next meal. No unemployment if you don't have a job. No free health care if your sick.

There is no Thai Buddhist spirituality here just a lot of Asians looking at us sucking down beers at a price per beer that would feed a family in Issan for a month.

So they created an illusion for us. Its a 3D 24/7 illusion you can live in but you need to keep in mind its just an illusion.

I knew the Kiwi builder whose girlfriend paid for the hit. All it was was he was using her bank account to channel funds and she saw 200,000 baht go in and just couldn't stand to see it go out again.

Don't get me wrong I like it here. I was born in a hard place, South Africa. And I spent my working life in hard places like Nigeria.

This place is still cheap, although that is changing, and I don't look too hard at the edges of the illusion, but I remember they are there.

But if your vulnerable. Maybe divorced, maybe estranged from your kids and that little cutie gives you that big big smile and you are a god for a week, month, year whatever time it takes for the money to run out or a better mark to come along. Well its dam_n hard once you've been a god to be mortal and broke again and contemplating heading back to say Scunthorpe with your tail between your legs.

Thats hard and some just don't make it.

Whoever you were I wish you the peace in death you never achieved in life.