BugJackBaron

Ko San road in Bangkok is the only place that has comparable prices to Pattaya but I find the quality of food there not so good.

Where is it not so good?

Comparing Ko San to Pattaya is absurd!

Maybe you don't know where to go in Pattaya, most tourists don't.

Well either your reading comprehension or my writing is off...perhaps the sentence is a little ambiguous.

"there" means Ko San

We are on the same page...

Ko San road in Bangkok is the only place that has comparable prices to Pattaya but I find the quality of food there not so good.

Where is it not so good?

Comparing Ko San to Pattaya is absurd!

Maybe you don't know where to go in Pattaya, most tourists don't.

Well either your reading comprehension or my writing is off...perhaps the sentence is a little ambiguous.

"there" means Ko San

We are on the same page...

Pros:

Carnival-like energy (hard to get bored)

Situated on the beach

Decent choices of Western food

Good choice of movie theaters

Some decent malls w/ ac

Foodland (etc)

Ladies for rent

Also young men for rent

Also katoeys for rent

Also some of the best PEOPLE WATCHING on the planet if you like a freak show (and God knows I do)

Also the PRICES for Western food much more reasonable than Bangkok, Bangkok people come to Pattaya for the restaurants, yes it is true

This is true for the same

reason that apartments are a better value for money in Pattaya. Bangkok is full of rich CEOs and international companies and prices reflect this. Pattaya expats are usually retired and on fixed incomes.

Ko San road in Bangkok is the only place that has comparable prices to Pattaya but I find the quality of food there not so good.

And its a great place to ride a bike - many lone streets in the Jomtien area with picturesque and sometimes surreal views.

By the way, the number one attraction for MK is the sauce. Dip anything in that and it will taste good, and it certainly won’t be bland.

I know I'm in the minority, but I don't agree. Even with the sauce, and the peppers, it's still bland. Their sauce is weak.

I agree about Sunrise needing a location in Silom though. I would love to be able to eat Sunrise 24h without having to suffer through going to suhkumvit.

I will side with you on MK. Good food should not leave you bloated and drowsy afterwards. Even my Thai girl felt it was

mai aroi.

Wow with all these listed it's a wonder there is any place left to eat at all!

But I will add O'Briens - a fast food eatery in Sala Daeng next to the BTS.

Turkey sandwich? what a joke - it sure wasn't turkey.

A few years ago it had a reasonable food court and even an Italian restaurant at the top.

Paying 70 or 80 Baht for movies(you could even buy a beer with the popcorn) was great too.

Most movies aren't worth more than that anyways these days.

Now the only distinguishing thing is the Ripley's.

Have been told that Laem Chabang is well worth a visit for a spot of entertainment if you understand me If this is correct how far out of Pattaya is it.

Have you been there if so is it ideal for a couple of lads to be entertained in your opioion

Except for a few Karaoke Bars there might be nothing. It is a 20 - 30 min drive from Pattaya (depend on time/traffic).

Just pass Laem Chabang and go to Sri Racha, more options, but mostly Japanese style (never went there, just heard about it).

After all Laem Chabang is not a pretty or interesting place at all, just port, industry and warehouses.

Well they did get a mall recently - Harbor mall - if that is your thing.

I went to one of those cheap outdoor Thai buffets in Lam ChaBang last year with my Thai girl and her friends. One of the best ones I have ever tried. Then we went to a popular pub with a band

in which I was the only foreigner . All part of the expat experience I guess.

Worth a visit with others but for a single guy I would say not.

I worked at a 5 star hotel as a school kid purely making sandwiches of the highest quality, and there isnt one place ive been to in LOS that even comes close to them.

Anyone who likes Subway when not drunk needs their taste buds testing, Deli France is an absolute rip off something like 100bht extra if you want a slice of cheese in your ham sandwich though the bread is the best in Patts.

The one id go to which isnt the best but passes the test is Au bon pain at the Avenue.

I tend to agree with you. I'm amazed at the poor taste of some...

One problem is the bread - really hard to impossible to get quality(i don't mean the cheap chemical breads like wonderbread) bread like we have in the west. The other problem is the rest of the ingredients

In Bangkok The Landmark Hotel comes closest(run by an Indian I hear)

Au Bon Pan is maybe the easiest choice in Pattaya but I remember Greg's kitchen as good too.

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I don't know why it has to be this way. Those who have been to Laos or even Phucket usually say

the western food is better there....

Having been advised, by friends, of the dangers of Soya products I have been trawling the internet--I am now more confused than I was ignorant before! My 7 year old daughter is almost addicted to 'Lactasoy' 125 ml. cartons and has been drinking them since getting bored with cow's milk about 4 years ago--Help, what's the lowdown--is it such a dangerous substance that she should 'cold turkey' immediately--or can I wean her off?

Soy....well it's eaten by the Chinese and Koreans but in nowhere near to huge amounts and they usually ferment it too(which reduces the negative effects). As it is a very controversial product

I would avoid it. Bored with cows milk? Since when do kids get bored with milk?

Are you sure you are not a troll? No matter.

Kids can handle milk because they have an enzyme that helps with lactose digestion - adults lose this.

By the way lettuce and greens will give an adult more calcium than milk.

OK was there on my monthly visit last Saturday and Sunday. Wow. Walking street Saturday night?

More like Sitting Street!(was everyone sitting somewhere?) - even the tourist police looked bored!

There were 10 lady boys for every farang. I could go on but you get the drift.

Jomtien was well, where was everyone?

The Bookazine on soi 4 in jomtien had closed. Now there is a bar which was closed when I was there.

All the bars on soi 4 and 5 and even the cheap charlie Thai eatery in front of the 7-11 was almost desertedat lunch. Normally it is packed almost always.

The beach had about one falang for every 100 Thais I would say.

HOWEVER. Was this worse than previous low seasons? It certainly felt that way. Though I have been living here only slightly more than one year.

Gooogle 'Oxy powder" far simpler and safer way of doing it.

All good and well but is it available in Thailand? If not what is the Thai equivalent?

Even for myself a relatively new member of thaivisa forums i've noticed that some members who had been here for a long while and recorded a thousand or even thousands of posts just disappeared for some unknown reason. Leaves me wondering "What suddenly happened?".

Can anyone give me the lowdown why and perhaps well-known puzzles of former members in the past who just fled or disappeared one day ....

They got a life?

Free beer?

I'm in!

beyond the difference of the OS weither you choose to use apple or windows it should also take into effect other differences to. I actually own a vaio and macbook, I have had my mac 3 years already.

How much ram do you get

size of hard drive

applications available

architecture differences

please don't believe all the hype about mac being virus proof apple OS maybe based on unix and BSD but its still possible to catch a virus. chances are very slim though.

the mac is good at finding all kinds of external usb devices on the other hand updates are a pain in the butt, you have to download them all at once they dont do like windows or linux where it downloads updates in the background. If your going to use windows on a mac I would wait and go for windows 7. I've had a positive experience using it even on my netbook, ( keep in note i've got 2 GB ram on my netbook )

my only complaint is that the battery life of my vaio is really bad just slighty over 2 hours 10 mins, using my apple I get about 3 hours 25 mins.

New macbook pros should be hitting the shelves in thailand this week or next. 7 to 8 hours battery life!

Really good if you use free wifi spots as many don't allow you to plug in your machine.

Apple has finally hit a sweet spot for me...

I would suggest that Limewire is the worst thing to use. Often the files are loaded with viruses and mis labeled files.

A far better system is a torrent site. The famous Pirate Bay or Mininova are fine.

Well if he is using linux viruses are not really a problem. But yes Limewire has had its day and sold out a few years ago.

 You could try Gnutella client if you want to use that protecol. It MAY be better for quick downloads - say single songs. 

Bittorrent can be slow to start up but its generally best for larger files like albums  or movies.

I think you are trying to read more into Rushdie's remarks than he intended. Australian English is simply a dialect insofar as it has its own vocabulary and prounciation. It still follows the same grammatical rules as

British English(or American). Keep in mind that Aussies learn ENglish as L1.

You're still not seeing the point here. Standard Indian English, standard Singaporean English etc. are structurally almost the same as the native Englishes. Differences are no more significant than the differences between US and British grammar. The main differences are vocabulary and pronunciation. A standard variety doesn't consist of language learners murdering English grammar - it is as standard and systematic as any other English variety.

I'm sure Rushdie was well aware of what he was saying because it's an issue in India, where there has been much controversy over whether standard Indian English should be used as the language of the education system.

If that was your point then I have no quarrel. There are many English dialects. 

On the other hand, if I were a director of a school would I really want some incomprehensible "native speaker"  with a super strong accent - be it Indian, Scottish, or whatever - teaching my students?

 I have occasionally seen such teachers and wonder how the students will say "hello" at the end of the day.

Salman Rushdie's own view, on receiving the James Joyce Award:

"My little contribution has been to create an Indian English to go alongside the Irish English, Caribbean English and Australian English."

Garro, I'm sorry but at no point have I tried to say that there are minor differences in the English used by what we are terming here NS and NNS. All I'm suggesting is that there are now recognized standard varieties of English (and yes the debate is still open), like Indian English and Singapore English, and they have their own speakers. That is a very tiny proportion of the population of those countries, and within those countries often the vast majority of the people have no more than a smattering of English at best. Quite obviously, I wouldn't suggest that they should ever contemplate teaching English.

On the other hand, I would be much happier to have a native speaker of standard Indian English or Singapore English teach my kids English than, for example, the Canadian squaddie I once worked alongside at a language school in Thailand whose competence in any kind of standard English was non-existent (no reflection of Canadian squaddies in general). There's nothing wrong with colloquial forms of English, but if that's all you've got, I don't think you've got what's required to be an English teacher (I'm not including accent here by the way).

Singlish is not standard Singapore English but is the colloquial form. It is the only form of English many Singaporeans have and I wouldn't ask them to consider a career as an English teacher. More educated Singaporeans are likely to be able to switch between Singlish and Standard Singapore English (like I could switch between pub talk at the football and giving an academic presentation at a conference). From those who are speakers of the standard variety, there are also likely to be some who have the aptitude to make English language teachers.

Japanese is not often claimed as an international language. It's interesting to me that while people are eager to stress the importance of English as an international language, the teaching of it appears to have been so poor that only native speakers are thought to be proficient enough to teach it or claim it as their own.

I think you are trying to read more into Rushdie's remarks than he intended. Australian English is simply a dialect insofar as it has its own vocabulary and prounciation. It still follows the same grammatical rules as

British English(or American). Keep in mind that Aussies learn ENglish as L1.

Signaporeans I am not so sure...is it Chinese, English or both? But interference between languages does occur and some of the problems we have in our school are precisely due to freshmen being trained in English by Singaporeans and Filipinos. Sorry if the truth hurts.

I have no problem with nonnatives teaching English. I do have a problem with mistakes being made and then swept under the rug with " well that's our version of English".

Really what it comes down to is a lot of hand waving and moaning from non-natives.

Well tough titty.

The point of Salman Rushdie is interesting as he is an Indian who was accepted but the point is that his books are all written in elegant standard English.

I believe he was educated in the West. I know that the Indian colleague I work with makes a lot of mistakes both in speaking and in writing.

Joseph Conrad is a writer who was Polish I believe but mastered English and published great works of literature.

He is one of a handful of such people(Arthur Koestler also comes to mind).h

To say that they are examples of "International English" seems stretching it. They wrote in standard English.

The standards of English are either American or British with respect grammar and spelling.

The other point I'd like to comment on was about the Filipino who said they did not watch movies in English as they were hard to understand. This explains why on the Dream Filipino TV channels I watch they often have subtitles in English for shows like CSI even though they are talking in English.

I'm a native English speaker and I have difficulty understanding most of the American actors, but that's mainly because they don't open their mouths and mumble.

Listening can be difficult for native speakers..of course!

Think of Johnny Depp doing the gypsy accent in..what was that movie?I remember in Pai meeting a YORKSHIRE hippy ..I could only understand that he thought the Stones were the greatest.

But that still doesn't keep us from understanding 99% of American or British or Aussie or Canadian dialog

in the movies out there.

I got the sense that she had problems with most of these even though in casual conversation you might come

to believe she was fluent.

I worked with a Philapina teacher who I would have bet money was born and raised in California... Excellent vocab and not a trace of an accent... She later told me that Thailand was the furthest she has ever travel from the Phillipines.

I've also worked with Brits and Americans that spoke collquial English and had horrendous grammer, plus even though they had taught previously and had TEFL certificates, they had no idea about how to even understand the grammar they had to teach... never mind trying to present & explain it to others....

But for a true understanding of the nuances in a language, it's hard to beat the Native Speaker... No matter how well Non-Natives know the Rules of grammer, and how extensive is the vocabulary they have learned, the finer shades of a language come through living it.

CS

Without doubt, there are some very good Filipino English and Indian teachers out there, but even the best of these non-native speakers are missing a 'freeness' with the language - from my experience. I often feel the negative comments. about the native speakers, have a lot to do with sour grapes and reverse-snobbery; in the same sort of way as people without academic degrees sometimes think that people who go to university are really stupid.

I personally think that the other foreign teachers make a mistake when they compare themselves with the native-speakers, because they are both offering different services; the non-natives are needed because the Thai teachers are mostly not capable of teaching road-worthy English while the native-speakers are needed to show how the language is actually used by English speakers. As unpopular as this sounds, I think that the non-native teachers should really be comparing their pay and conditions with the Thai teachers.

There is a racial issue in Thailand in that they prefer their native-speakers to be a certain colour. This is wrong, but I don't think that there is much we can do about it unless we can change the minds of the Thai public. This problem is not unique to Thailand though; I have heard that similar discrimination occurs in China, Japan, and elsewhere.

I tend to agree. Although there are some Filipinos who are very good, most just give the illusion of fluency. I was surprised in Manila when I asked a Filipino guide why she didn't watch movies in English. She replied they were too difficult to understand! And the ESL books I have seen published by non-natives in Thailand are usually full of grammatical and other mistakes.

Right.

The OP does not realise the extent to which he is being played. There is considerable literature on his desire for a true experience and the accompanying superioirty complex. See:

<FONT face="Times-Roman"><FONT size="1"><FONT face="Times-Roman"><FONT size="1"><DIV align="left">MacCannell, D. (1973). "Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist Settings." American Journal of Sociology, 79 (3): 589–603.

Despite what our traveller tells us, the people selling to his market (doing things on the cheap to see 'the real country') despite a great interest in new visual sites, they have very little interest in cultural absorption (new foods, local peoples) so Khao San suits them to a tee.

They seeked out this staged authentic experience. The locals disappoint them because they seek a mythical Thailand of the 'King and I.' While they, in turn, disappoint the locals, who expect Westerneres to be sharp suited and modern.

The tourists on Khao San are then uber -fakes. They stay with hot showers, 24 hour internet access and a real English breakfast at the ready. Why is it that these people with their tatoos and beards in their desire 'to find themselves' so often need to go via the very comfortable and easy-going SE Asia and not, say, Siberia.

As someone who travels to war zones as I really feel they are the only places you can experience times gone by, where locals invite you to drink tea, where you can engage in conversations in smoke rooms, and immerse in the local life, I can genuinely recommend the tribal areas of Pakistan, despite the sarcastic pitches of other forum users.

On my last travels I went to Algeria. In the middle of the Sahara desert I met an old man who looked like a scene of Lawrence of Arabia. He beckoned me into his house. He then produced some snaps of himself as a young man. He was wearing '70s fashion and was standing in Glasgow, where he was attending flight school. The school still sent him letters addressed to One Oasis, Sahara Desert. Poetic I felt.

Anyway, see the uploaded graph to understand the tourism dynamics.

Interesting graph, but we probably need to read the referenced article to be able to digest it. But it seems to point out a fairly reasonable stance.

However, you don't need to go to a war zone to be able to get a grasp of etimes gone by. If you are lucky and able to mingle, you can experience life in the American small-town agricultural community, a Russian logging town, a Thai hill tribe, a Peruvian highlands village, or a Gabonese jungle village. Yes, all will have trappings of modern ammenities, but they all can give you a flavor of what day-to-day living is like in those areas. The problem is that most tourists would find those excrutiatingly boring. How many people really want to spend their vacation waking up early and helping Gullah fishermen harvest "oshtas" (oysters) in South Carolina's Sea Islands? Tourist rarely get closer to Gullah culture than the Charleston market on a Saturday afternoon. How many tourist want to spend a week in a Monglian yurt drinking yoghurt?

And even if a preson wanted to experience this type of interaction, it is hard to accomplish. If you go through a tour company, then by the very natrue of the evolution, it becomes contrived. In order to do this, you ahve to ahve the ability to get on the road and be gregarious enough to talk to those you meet, and nice enough to be invited to join those people. You were able to do this in Algeria, but most people would never have the personality nor capability to experience something similar.

Tourists, by-and-large, want comfortable, easy accomodations, and if they think they want "local culture," that means taking in the Hula Show at the Morman Polynesian Center or getting off the tour bus for 20 minutes to take a photo of a Long-neck Karen. For most, vacation means relaxing on the beach or ski slopes, hitting the bars and clubs, and eating and drinking to excess. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But very few people actually attempt to really see a local culture and lifestyle.

Interesting. I guess it depends on what you mean by "seeing". I have stayed with the Lisu tribe

near Chiang Mai(nearer to Pai actually) and even there there were a two westerners with Lisu spouses in that village alone.

.It was fun for a week but yes it would have been boring to stay there longer.

But I do think that Thailand has retained more of its culture than many other Asian countries. If you want a comparison try visiting South Korea. They are practically totally westernized.

Where is the Crossbar?

Cant confirm as I am not sure if I will be in BKK on the 12/06.

website thecrossbarbangkok.com has location map and Pics to give you an idea of the place

The crossbar is near Soi cowboy right?

Sounds OK but maybe the smoke would not be good.

Bull is near Nana so good.

Let's do it!

As I am adjusting to life here in Thailand (as a retiree), I am enjoying my latest explorations (been here many times beginning in 1987) from a different perspective. Interesting to see the changes in Bangkok life in the past couple of years. Never realized Thais were capable of growing so much facial hair!

I am also adjusting fine to shopping (temporarily staying in Pratunam area). I am surprised that after learning that the vast majority of the Thais are lactose intolerant that there is no lactose-free milk here. And I don't mean soy milk, etc. Ah well!

Soy Milk is highly dubious. Never seen lactose free here. You might want to try almond or rice milk as an alternative.

Available at Emporium supermarket.

I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to, but perhaps it is this...

Thailand has a law that all internet users must be registered with ID and all traffic logged and tracked to that ID. For tourists this means passport. Whether there is a charge beyond that is up to the internet provider (coffee shop or whatever). There is a hefty fine attached for non-compliance, as it is designed to allow the police to track down terrorists and other nefarious perpetrators. If I remember correctly it is of the order of 500,000 baht plus jail time!

As of a year ago most internet cafe owners in Khao San were completely unaware of the law and giving access without registration. If this has changed since then then I'm surprised... it requires a substantial investment beyond the usual adsl+wifi setup to have that kind of traffic logging and tracking.

)

As far as I see nobody is taking any notice of this law at all, never seen any registration in a cafe anywhere in the country. Even when we got internet at home were just asked for a name and wife just gave her nick name, no ID asked for. Like many things in Thailand this is just a joke, hel_l we even bought beer at 4PM in a 7-11 last week

Quite right, I live near Victory monument and for a while

there were one or two Internet cafes recording names but now nobody cares. To answer another poster, no I am not a backpacker - just someone who happens to like free wifi spots. By the way you do have

to pay for at least a coffee or drink in such places.

To another poster - Secure internet can be free! yes, as long as you have a key.

Whatdaya think?

In my weekend exploration of Ko San I was only able to find ONE

FREE WIFI spot..(Coffee World)

The rest seem to be part of a wifi mafia that wants people to subscribe to a plan.

Or am I wrong?

By the way I was, overall, impressed by Ko san..I'll start a separate thread about that.