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There are air services to Chiang Mai and bus services to Surin.

That is true of course !! Totally unhelpful, but nevertheless quite correct.

Reading his two-pennorth on 2camels (never heard of it before) he also says;

"People come from the far ends of the Kingdom even foreigners pour in bus and train loads from the likes of Bangkok and Chiang Mai."

So there you have it - the preferred method of getting to Surin is take the plane to Chiang Mai and then get the bus down. That's why the festival has been put back a week - to wait for all the tourists caught in transit.

I bought one of these gizmos a while back from a market stall. They had a set up with a power supply coming through a standard household electricity meter going to a bulb. The meter ran noticeably slower with the gizmo plugged in. I couldn't see any obvious trick so I bought one. Never got round to doing any kind of comparison tests at home though. I kept the leaflets that came with it as I was hoping to try and translate them into English!! Here they are; if they aren't useful they are at least a laugh. I can't help thinking that if it was such a sure-fire way of saving loads of money on electric bills then they would be a lot more well known and the promotional blurb would be written in something more approaching an understandable language.

Little Johnny and Susie are only 10 years old,

yada-yada-yada -- blah blah

Johnny just shrugs his shoulders and says "Well, we've been lucky so far..."

It's getting bad when you're copying and pasting your own jokes from three days previous .......

Nearly as brilliant as this one - just a bit further down the page ......

A guy woke up for his usual early Saturday morning bike ride. He quietly leaves the bed, grabs his bike stuff and tiptoes out of the bedroom in order not to wake his wife. Gets dressed, goes down to the garage to get his bike. Opens the garage door to find it is "raining cats and dogs". After a bit of thought he decides to cancel the ride, tiptoes back upstairs puts back on his pajamas and gets and back into bed.

His wife murmurs in a sleepy voice. "I am so glad you are here honey. You have no idea how lonely it gets on in the bed without you."

Hearing the distant roar of thunder, she snuggles closer to him and says...

"Would you believe that nutty husband of mine is actually out riding his bike in this weather?"

The five youths, aged between 15 and 17, surrendered meekly and were brought back to the Soi 9 station where they were charged with indulging in happy weed.

Of course they surrendered meekly - they were on weed!! Now if they had been doing something legal, like drinking copious amounts of alcohol for example, just exactly how meek would they have been?

If you are familiar with the area you're interested in, you should have a rough idea of what the water level looks like round about high and low tide. To figure out if it's coming in or going out at points in between the only way I've ever found is to look at the sand above the point the highest waves are reaching. If the sand is wet, the tide is going out - if dry then the tide is coming in. This is, of course, pretty tricky on a flat beach like Pattaya and the surrounding area!

Slack water (the point around high and low tide) varies from place to place, but you can reckon on about half an hour to an hour of no discernible change.

I reckon you read "The Hun's Yellow Pages" .........

A quick guess ........

Don't they pay fighter pilots very much these days then??

Easytide from the UKHO is the best free one I've found. Been using it for a few years. Unfortunately the closest point to Pattaya for a prediction is Ko Si Chang, although for your purpose that should be good enough. The link for a 7 day forecast is :-

http://easytide.ukho.gov.uk/EasyTide/EasyT...dictionLength=7

The other night I was invited out for a night with the 'girls.' I told my husband that I would be home by midnight, 'I promise!'

Well, the hours passed and the margarita's went down way too easily. Around 3 a.m., a bit loaded, I headed for home.

Just as I got in the door, the cuckoo clock in the hallway started up and cuckooed 3 times. Quickly, realizing my husband would probably wake up, I cuckooed another 9 times. I was really proud of myself for coming up with such a quick-witted solution in order to escape a possible conflict with him.

(Even when totally smashed... 3 cuckoos plus 9 cuckoos totals 12 cuckoos = MIDNIGHT!)

The next morning my husband asked me what time I got in, I told him 'MIDNIGHT'... he didn't seem pissed off in the least. Whew, I got away with that one!

Then he said 'We need a new cuckoo clock.'

When I asked him why, he said, 'Well, last night our clock cuckooed three times, then said 'oh shit.' Cuckooed 4 more times, cleared its throat, cuckooed another three times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, and then tripped over the coffee table and farted."

A blonde by the name of Julie was getting pretty desperate for money.

So she decided to go to the richer part of town and try to get a job as a handywoman.

She rang the doorbell at the first house she came to, and a man answered the door.

She asked if there were any odd jobs she could do, and he replied, "Well, actually, we need the porch painted-how much do you want?" Julie said she felt $50 was fair. He replied, "OK, the ladders, paint, and other tools you need are in the garage."

When the man closed the door, his wife, who had overheard the conversation asked him, "$50?!? Does she realize that the porch goes all the way around the house?" The man replied, "She must have, she was standing right on it."

About 45 minutes later, the doorbell rings again, and the man is surprised to find Julie there.

She tells him that she's done, and states that she even had enough paint to do two coats.

As the man is reaching into his wallet to pay her, Julie says, "Oh, and by the way, that isn't a Porsche-it's a Ferrari."

I am sure I have seen this one here before. Altum, you getting a bit slack????

Heard the one about the pot calling the kettle black??

Very funny - but you can't beat Yorkshire Airlines ..........

As sung by Jake Thackery way back in the (I think) 1970s .....

1. He was a fine upstanding bantam-cock

So brisk, and stiff, and spry...

With a springy step, and a jaunty plume,

And a purposeful look in his eye

In his little black laughing eye!

2. So I took him to the coop and introduced him to

My seventeen wide-eyed hens

And he tupped and he tupped as a hero tupps,

And he bowed to them all, and then,

He up and took 'em all again!

3. Then upon the peace of my ducks and geese

He boldly did intrude

And with glazed eyes and opened mouths

They bore him with fortitude...

And a little bit of gratitude!

4. He jumped my giggling guinea-fowl!

He thrust his attentions upon

Twenty hysterical turkeys,

And a visiting migrant swan!

And the bantam thundered on!

5. He groped my fan-tail pigeon doves,

My lily-white Columbine,

And as I was lookin' at me budgerigar,

He jumped my parrot from behind!

And it was sittin' on me shoulder at the time!

6. But all of a sudden, with a gasp and a gulp,

He clapped his wings to his head!

He lay flat on his back with his feet in the air;

My bantam-cock was dead!

And the vultures circled overhead!

7. What a noble beast! What a champion cock!

What a way to live and die!

As I dug him a grave to protect his bones,

From those hungry buzzards in the sky,

The bantam opened up his eyes!

8. He gave me a wink, and a terrible grin,

The way that rapists do...

He said, "Do you see them silly daft buggers up there?

They'll be down in a minnit 'er two!

They'll be down in a minnit 'er two!"

This is a strange coincidence, but yesterday's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" was of just such a phenomenon. Have a look at this link, it describes the halo, and gives a load more links for further information.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080516.html

Incidentally, this is a very well run and informative site with a new picture every day, and some of them are absolutely stunning. Check out the archives.

I can't see that faulty gears would cause someone to crash into a car and a tree though

May be the "Rack & Pinion" that attach to the track rods???

BB

Personally I would call that "faulty steering", but then I'm not a Pattaya journalist, who, as we know, often have a problem with facts. One would hope though that a fire truck with faulty steering would be repaired rather than being on emergency standby - it wouldn't stand much chance of ever reaching a fire if it had to hit every parked car and tree on the way!

Why am I not surprised that a Pattaya fire engine, supposedly on standby for an emergency, was faulty. I can't see that faulty gears would cause someone to crash into a car and a tree though - that's just crap driving!!

I think some wag has doctored this sign. The Thai says "beware of falling rocks ahead". The English probably used to read "beware of the brick in front of you" until someone scrubbed out the bottom part of the B. Still funny though !!

Here's a few more ....

Alec Guinness becomes Genuine Class

Semolina becomes Is No Meal

The Public Art Galleries becomes Large Picture Halls, I Bet

Contradiction becomes Accord not in it

This one's truly amazing: "To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows

of outrageous fortune."

And the Anagram: "In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life

turns rotten."

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Neil Armstrong

The Anagram: "A thin man ran; makes a large stride, left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!"

PRESIDENT CLINTON OF THE USA can be rearranged into: TO COPULATE HE FINDS INTERNS

This was on Ko Samet :-

And I found this one on the 'net. The Thai is correct so I assume it's a real sign somewhere, rather than a photoshop job.

Not forgetting the classic .....

"With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous think brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, she had a beauty that defied description."

I seem to remember a story a few months ago, where the falang bulldozed the house. Everybody in that thread was congratulating him, not sure why fire is so bad in comparison.

Quality reporting from PCN as usual 'as he is the owner of the house'

Haha.. wheres that thread?

It's in the Isaan Forum, here

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=163365

There being several companies that offer deep sea fishing excursions I was wondering what the uptake would be on a day's fishing by and on the river .

Which river? Can't say I've noticed too many of them around Pattaya .......

As normal in Pattaya, Songkran will be from about the 11th until the big day on the 19th. Be there for the 19th - it's fun. For the previous week - go elsewhere or stay at home. It ends in tears so often ........

Colour blindness test...... Traffic lights .......... Hmmmmm. I wonder if anyone has actually mentioned to Thai drivers that the lights change colour?