LivinginKata

PM = private message.

JRD = heap of sh*t. Bought mine new (Surf 125) about 2 years ago and spends more time in the repair shop than on the road.

I ride my bike from Patong or Kata to Phuket town often. But I would no way think about driving from Phuket to Krabi on my bike. How anyone can compare a bike ride from Phuket Town to Patong with a ride to Krabi is completely beyond me........

It's off Soi Hat in Patong behind the Patong Premier Resort or just in front of the Andaman Beach Suites. If you know where the CAT office is in Patong, same street. Bumped into Woody once while paying CAT phone bills .

That place in Chalong was called 'Bagels & Beyond'. Used to eat there many a lunchtime. Their Pumpkin soup was to die for. Run by a relatively young San Fransican couple, there was an old Thai lady served. They offered the place up for sale in the Gazette about 18 months ago ?, but obviously no taker.

I'll give Woody's place a go one of these days.

Rent a car ! Don't risk your life on a motor bike intercity travel. Can't believe that another member would suggest a bike

My pork pie quest is not going well. The place suggested in Karon (Beefeaters Pub) closed about 2 years ago, the place on Nanai (Beach House) has no pork pies and only sells the usual range of meat pies, sausage rolls, & pasties.

I'll give Lady Pie a try, but over the years I've found that none of the Phuket bakeries can get the pastry or the filling just right, and they have all ended up ceasing pork pie production (not enough customers).

That's one of the better things about Thailand. There is no need to sort your garbage and bag into different colour pastic bags. Just put just about anything on the street and one of the constantly circulating motorbike trolleys will sort if for you and take all sorts of things that we would consider worthless. A broken TV would be like Christmas time to them.

Dan,

I've been an avid weather watcher most of my adult life and worked & lived afloat much of my adult life. I've been watching Phuket weather every day for past 10 years (I even have a daily Patong weather report page on my personal web site), so I know a lot about Phuket weather .

I study the Phuket Airport rain radar web link http://www2.tmd.go.th/radar/phuketLoop.html every morning (a reflex habit of mine from my yacht bum days), and I find that's the best rain chance indicator over the next 12 hours.

Hopefully we will meet up next week and swop sea tales, and hopefully my wife will accompany me. Will there be space ? Can you confirm the cost, Gerd spoke about 2,000 baht/head. And will there be the promised (Gerd) chill con carne & bagettes ?

I'll be there so long as it's not a really horrible day. Will any Thai other halves be there. I'll bring my wife if she has some other Thais to talk with. Please respond....

Taxin,

Perhaps some folks just don't earn/save enough to have a slap up holiday on Phuket Island.

Perhaps their dream is just to get here once in their life, sleep on the beach, and live as cheap as possible. What's wrong with that... Who are you to judge other folks lifestyles...

I used to do that on Blackpool beach when I was a teenager (with little money)...

June weather is well into the monsoon (= rainy) season, which starts in May. It won't rain all day, every day... but you can expect some short (10 minutes) rainshowers from time to time. You might be really unlucky and have the odd day with drizzle rain all day. You should see some sunshine, but don't expect blue skies and wall to wall sunshine (like we usually have December to March).

So, in summary, expect mixed weather... some sun, some clouds, and some rain. For sure the sea will be quite rough and it's not so safe to swim aways from the beach as there is a strong rip/undercurent current at this time of year.

Yes, Phuket is expensive compared with many other non tourist places in Thailand, but it's still a lot cheaper than most so the called 'developed' or western countries. You can live cheaply as you want if you stay in a small guesthouse, eat Thai food at the small stalls, and buy your beer/drinks from the local corner store. If you want quality western style hotels, eat at expensive resturants, party at discos and tourist bars, then that = a lot more money.

Don't worry, have a good holiday.....

Oh.. we can dream.... Wonder where I can buy a military style tank in Thailand ??

Donna, my 'nice thought' = fantasy is to drive a Churchhill Tank along Patong beach road and squash every Tuk Tuk illegally parked along the roadside, preferably with the driver inside.

Oh I dream on....

Not a good idea at all. He would be on his mobile to all his mates to look out for you and run you off the road, then gang up and give you a serious beating. Very rough justice here on Phuket Island.

Book me a place, subject to weather. If horrible like today, then I'll be a no show...

I can sympathise with Indians & Pakastanis. I'm a Scot and I'm quite happy to be called a Brit, but I am very unhappy to be called an Englishman. Similarily Aussie don't like being called Kiwis & vice versa, same with US citizens and Canadians. Indians for sure don't want to be called Pakastani, and Pakastanis don't want to be called Indians.

Really don't know where this thread is going, help mods where are you...

Thanks Ping, I'll have a look about tomorrow. Think there is/was a Brit pub about there.

Ummm.. so no-one has any suggestions about buying pork pies on the Island. Come on, must be someone in the know...

Karon Cable offer a good range of programming and the picture is very good. I find the movies (in English) on offer are excellent (2 channels daytime, 3 in evening) and the 3 sports channels are terrific.

Patong Cable (PA) offer a terrible service, poor picture quality, frequent disconnections, and less channels in English compared to Karon Cable. PA have been around for over 10 years and their equipment is out of date. Have a new cable company in Patong called Dolphin, but I don't know much about their service.

UBC offers the best range of channels, and great picure quality. But it's also a great weather forecaster as you know heavy rain is coming when the NO SIGNAL icon comes on. It's also more than 5 times more expensive than the cable companies. I seem to remeber that when the footballs word cup was screened last year ?? that all the bars with UBC had to rush and install cable as UBC did not cover this event.

But where can I get good pork pies these day ..... ?? Best I used to be able to find was at the place in Fisherman's Estate on Choa Fa East, called something like Specialist Foods (??). Closed some time ago. They had small and large pork pies (one with the egg inside) made by 'Yorkies'. I guess came from Oz and were frozen = pastry not so good on defrost.

I'm not really interested in fishing, but a day out on the water having drinks and chat sounds a good idea. The chilli & baguettes would be icing on the cake. I would cancel if rainy day (like it is right now). Keep us up to date of what you plan to do.

Don's Deli at Rawai make a good meat pie at quite a reasonable price.

The Deli on Rat-u-tit (past the main Patong post office) sell Sheila's Pies and more recently pies made by an Australian lady. I've long time bought Sheila's pies, but now I prefer the Australian Lady's pies.

Anyone else have any recommendations and I'll be off there right away to check the pies out.

Not just UBC service (expensive ). Karon Cable & Patong Cable also have Australian TV, some ABC programming shown on Australian Network service.

Well... on regular cable service (as in piped in by wire) we have BBC, Fox, Australia Network (quite good). DV Tv (German, hour German, next hour repeat in English, quite good), TV3 (French). Many years back I used to be an avid veiwer or CNN, but now .. no thanks, just so so bland.

Although I'm a Newbie on this forum, I have been a regular reader for many years, and it amazes me that the Thai Visa Moderators permit these blatant trouble makers so much latitude on the main boards. I've no idea what kick these people get out of knocking Patong.... ???