timekeeper

sorry, i meant manchesters comment about falangs in fortuners

i recomend them too, my family goes there for all optical needs

my friend recommends the little indian boothnext door to the hideaway bar in the jomtien complex. the boss at the hideaway gushes over the tandoori prawns i am told. my friend eats from there all the time and travels from Bang Saray to get it!

i believe Westerner is talking about a FORTUNER not a fotuner and regardless of the age/nationality of the drivers and wether they have window down or up, music on or not, i personally like to see someone express a little individuality by adding some non standard extras to any vehicle. if its only a nice set of wheels or wether the wind blows them in the direction of blue neon then so be it, in my opinion its better that, then to be just another drone in a brand indistinguishable jelly mould designed car. in my book its three cheers for those who want to be different from the rest and dance to the beat of their own drum. long live gold lame bicycleman, red indian guy, painting with beard guy, the pattaya maori and all individuals everywhere.

in contrast to others opinions here, i have been to Raj opposite Excite on a nuber of occasions, its always been good and approved of by a number of different guests. they are very obliging and will cook requests for items not on menu. its a bit pricy, agreed but not so much that you leave feeling ripped off. by contrast dining at Alibaba bought me a number of servings of hospital food at bangkok pattaya and a bill for 2 days accomodation!

over the years i have tried all the major fuel suppliers in my Benz and the only one that is consistantly good is Petronas. the service manager at Benz said that many stations frequently mix the 91 + 95 to maker more money. as to gasahol, he said don't use it, it dries out the engine. whatever that means. it looks like i will be converting to NGV

i noted on my filling visit the other day, that they do offer implants at the practise

all this talk about dentists, sods law dictated a lost a filling yesterday and had to vist the lovely Katy again. walked in on specc, waited 20 minutes and then i was in. result: i hours work, a temporary filling for 3 months, another possible root canal if its not right and the cost? 350 baht.

you have no tax to pay more than Thai, you just need to get a residence certificate from immigration to sell it on, just as you do when you buy a car or motorbike. if the sale is between two falangs you need x2 certificates which buyer/ seller exchange with the papers and logbook. when doing so cross passport and documents like a cheques crossing and mark for transfer of vehicle only. that way you will not find them used for anything else. any doubts go to government approved liscencing agent on sukhumvit road. heading towards Bangkok, he after pattaya klang and before pattaya Nua. he's after the new DIY store on the left and before the chevy dealer. its a blue front i think, ask for gook, he is the boss. they do the rudimentary MOT type test thats required when a car is six years old. they are very helpful and will take care of vehicle logbook name changes for you,(regardless of area the car is registered in), road tax issues, MOT etc.

i hope that helps

i have not had implants with Katy but i have had a number of fillings and 2 root canals on two entirely seperate occasions over a year apart. each root canal took many hours and about six visits, each completed over around 2 months. i canvassed many dentists in Pattaya prior to the first root canal after Bangkok pattaya hospital wanted 20K. the cheapest i found was about 17k the others were all around 18k. i felt there was a cartel price structure going on in Pattaya so i went and asked around Siracha and found Katy and was quoted as a walk in at 9500 for the same job. i had it and did not regret it for a moment, she was wonderful. i had my second completed a month ago and its was 10,000. she is still a fantastic dentist, who now does all my familys work(including my 75 year old Mother) and is NOT the same one (katia)as mentioned by another contributor. she only works at Dental Corner in Siracha. i hope that helps

the best dentist i have ever known anywhere in the world is Katy at Dental corner in Siracha, very close to the shopping centre. its half the price of pattaya and she is fantastic. i swear to you i fall asleep whilst she is working.

Edmund Burke : 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing'

as you exit the lift on the 3rd floor, i can recomend the guy on the left side, two shops down, he has a port wine stain on his face, good english, good service, only does laptops.

hind sight is a wonderful thing i know but a set of reverse beepers are a good investment, i have a camera too that locks in on reverse gear engagement...........i am a belt and braces kind of guy

its not exclusive to Thailand, i went to visit the museums in York UK, locals park free and access free, i had to pay for everything. in Florida prove you are a local and you will get discounts on admissions and other concessions at all the major theme parks.

call PCD insurance 038 422 825 and ask for Inga Dohlon. there are 2 other girls in the office that speak english well but she arrives after 10 am. She carries all my insurance: house, medical, vehicles. her service is fantastic she is very competitive and very serious about insurance . tell her john sent you.

after trying many of the sausages available from the major stores in Pattaya, i am still trying to find an

authentic tasting british banger. does anyone have any recomendations. (keep it clean please)

i always stay at the the Cititel and mel2surf is right about the health centre in the hotel, very nice..............

i understand that he has now been bailed and that there were no underage pictures of anyone on his computer or found in his room. the boy he went with prior to his arrest was not underage either, he informed the police of his porn colllection as Mawson would not fulfil a money/blackmail demand from the boy.

i just heard on the 1pm BBC Radio 2 news in UK that a British man they named as Alan Charles Mawson aged 45 from Barrow in Furness has been arrested in Pattaya after police found hundreds of indecent pictures on his computer.

try car rent shop on Pattaya Nua call Daa on 081 9948420 tell her John sent you. (nothing in it for me) great rates, best insurance, new cars, i use her on occasion when i don't want to put miles on my own car and all my friends have been very satisfied with the service.

you do not need to actually go back there to change the cars ownership, it can be done for you in Pattaya by a government registered inspection agent on Sukhumvit Road between Pattaya Klang and Pattaya Nua. its on the left side heading towards Bangkok . it costs around 4000 baht and takes about two weeks to get the book back. his name is Gook (sounds like that)and he is very helpful. i hope that helps

i second that recomendation, he only does laptops, he speaks english well and gives good service at reasonable prices. he repacks laptop batteries too. good guy

Thanks the replies in particular Earthoria, I am still having connection problems, mainly off all day today though back as i write.

I telephoned TTT yesterday(Thursday) and got a call this morning and was told a "signal" problem and I understood it was solved but guess not judging from the lack of connection all day.

And even when writing this I been disconnected twice.

Perhaps a TTT name change is needed........ to TiT!

I thought I'd post a quick update as my problems are now fixed.

I went to the local TT&T office in Chiang Mai and they did admit that when they upgraded all the 1MB home 'Indy' internet packages to 2MB packages, almost everyone was having problems with international traffic. By that I mean emails and websites that are coming from abroad. I was even told the 'Indy' packages are intended for 'Thai surf' only.

The solution has been to change my speed back to a 1MB connection and pay an extra 90THB a month (1,090THB) for a Premier 1024/512 account! The Premier accounts ARE intended for "international surf".

They quickly switched me over to the new account, briefly trying to bill me twice - once for the old account to the end of the current billing period, and once for the new account. I pointed out my old account had not been working for 4 or 5 days, and they soon backed down...

i did the same thing in Pattaya after having the same problems. they switched me the same day and i am now 1 of 10 instead of 1 of 20 and consistantly getting 875/450 at any time of day.

......i had noted my problems started a couple of weeks ago when i was told i was upgraded for free to twice the download speed. so today i went to Carrefour and switched to the PREMIER 1 Mb package and effectively halved [is this supposed to read "doubled"?] my supposed official INDY download speed as Premier packages have not been upgraded yet. so now i am now back to a full fast effective interantional internet package with no problems at all with pop 3 mail or any connection problems at all. i was advised to do this by a maxnet technical engineer who said the problems were only associated with Indy accounts that had been upgraded for free. Premier and Biz accounts were unaffected by the problems that the INDY packages were having. the cost to get my service back to normal and as it was, if not slightly better than before? an extra 90 baht a month! now 1090 instead of 1000. i was in there this morning at 11am and they gave me new usernames, passwords etc and switched me over at 5pm. so i am a very happy chappy, my blood pressure has already gone down. i haven't explained it terribly well but i hope you get it.

good luck!

So now you are paying an extra 90 Baht per month & you are happy!?

Methinks this smells like the usual (& old) ploy of "deprivation" followed by an expedient solution. That is, starve the "user" of something & then make them believe that for a small added fee, everything is better.

How much money is 90 Baht multplied by "x" hundred thousand of "customers"?

as well as the speed advantage for the extra 90 baht, i am one of ten now on premier instead of one of 20 on indy

is it worth 90 baht a month to lose 10 users on my LAN? you bet it is!