BugJackBaron

New Location for Farang/Thai Bar-Restaurant.

MamaDar' restaurant formerly of Rumpole Market has recently moved and reopened on

Jomtien 2nd Rd. next between The Office Bar and La Merenda Italian restaurant.

This reviewer was pleased to see that prices of beer have actually gone down - a rarity and in the world of Pattaya Bars -

and beer is as cheap as 50 Baht. Furthermore, there is now a wide selection of Thai and Farang Food,

I enjoyed the Beef steak with mashed potatoes and mushroom sauce for a mere 250 Baht, They also do an

all-day breakfast and have free pool and wifi available. There is a nice friendly family atmosphere with the owner, her daughter and young grandson.

10 dollars, so about 300 baht for a sandwhich. It better be good for that price.

Before people say you get what you pay for, I will just say that at the Landmark Hotel

in Bangkok I can get a quality sandwhich for about 5 bucks(150 Baht) or less as they have ha;lf price after

7pm.

In Pattaya, quality is either too expensive or just not there.... but I will probably give 'em a try.

I have to agree that it makes a lot of sense as that it will offer baht bus service on 2nd road.

If the powers to be want to develop the area Chaiyapruek and 2nd road baht bus service will

be needed. I think once people get over the initial disruption, it might actually be embraced.

By extension it may even get those Baht buses up and down Soi wat boon kanchana and other negleted but major roads. Right now they are left without public transport.

I went into Pattaya Saturday morning to do some shopping, and as I was driving down South Pattaya Road, it struck me just how ugly Pattaya is. I'm not bashing the place, but it really is an amazingly ugly city. The infrastructure is badly decrepit with a jumble of wires, signs and nothing of interest or attractiveness. Not to be insulting to its residents, both long and short term, but I just can't understand why anyone would choose to live there. I'm happy that it has the shopping I want and that I can scoot in to grab what I want then get back out.

Maybe its very run-down appearance and gross overcrowding are contributing a little more each day to keeping people away. Its substantial amount of crime doesn't help, either. Unfortunately, the Pattaya local government has let it go for so long without any planning or improvements that making it an even tolerable place to live for many of us is beyond hope.

Have to agree with this. I used to go running on Buddha hill, at the top there is a nice flat seating area which has gone to rack n ruin.

Toilets that are both disgusting and no longer in use. There used to be wooden beams for the flowers to run along, they are all broken and most have been taken away.

The one thing I notice about Pattaya and it's probably the same for the rest of Thailand is... they make things and they can be beautiful but that's as good as it gets. Repairs never seem to get carried out.

Not worth startting a seperate thread but on Sukimvit and Soi BoonChana , the bus shelter in front of Wat Boon collapsed this morning. Anybody under it would have been hurt or killed. No maintenance whatsoever.

Too bad my camera phone wasn't with me.

I sat outside my house on the darkside watching the incredible lightening in the distance. Didn't know if it was over Pattaya or not - but it seems you really copped it last night according to 'black fox' post. Just shows you how local this stuff is. Here I am 7 kms outside Patts and we had some modest rain - that's all. Hope you have recovered!

I did he same from my balcony in Jomtien. Nice show but it scared the daylights out of my lady.

How is the rain making you feel?

Watch out for new holes on Jomien Second Rd and elsewhere.

Some condos(hey Condo owners are you listening?)

provide Safety Depoisit Boxes with a two-key system. I used

the one in the Jomtien Long-Stay hotel before without any problems.

100 Baht a month and accessible from 8 to 9 or so.

Positions start Oct 20. Basic salary starts at 30,000 Baht plus 5000 Baht Housing Allowance. Medical, etc plus long paid vacations. Experience teaching English to children in Asia strongly recommended but TOEFL not essential. This is a good job and you would be close to a beach as well as the cities of Pattaya and Bangkok.

Message me for other information.

Send resume by PM

Is Kungfu the answer?

http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-kung-<deleted>-expert-beats-up-men-who-came-to-evict-him-from-home-2012-11

I still prefer real books over e-books, got me a great collection of over 3000 fantasy books in english that will go with me to thailand.

would hate it to left my first editions behind.

Sounds like a pain in the ass. Just think if you could put all those books on one device. After all, isn't the purpose of reading to actually read the books rather than glamorize about them and stare at them on a shelf?

Moving books can be a pain but one of the nice things with real book collections is a tactile sense and the ability to randomly flip through them. Browsing on ebooks is always laggy in comparison. Real books have nice glossy pictures and even smell good!

Ebooks have advantages of easy portability and searchability(for scholarship purposes). But they lack warmth.

Ideally I would back up my book collection with ebooks and have a cozy library/reading room in a house for

"flying with the mind".

Judging by the quality of the Thai educational system, it would appear that bookstores are moot since few of today's students care to read (or are unable to read and comprehend anything with any depth). All today's students want are cell phones and TV. We will see the young Thai's minds turn to mush and with it the hopes of a better tomorrow for Thailand. Well done Thailand!

My students don't even know the latin alphabet, I gave them a worksheet to translate from English to Thai using dictionaries. They managed to finish 15 out of 30 words in one hour and told me that many of the words where not in the dictionary. So I showed them that if they just looked at the right place they would find them all in the dictionary, I checked (dictionary made in Thailand, not Oxford...) while making the handout to be sure as it was about agriculture and not common conversion... And these students are studying in higher vocational education (18+)!

I don't know the Latin Alphabet either and not interested ... Always confuses me when I see the numbers written with that....

You're taking the P, right? I V X L C D M are Roman 'numerals' - not an alphabet. My Lord, what is the world coming to?

You fell for the Trollus Maximus?

Books are not going anywhere. No more so than youtube has replaced movies.

The pendulem will swing again.

Each has its strong and weak points.

Many of my students are fed up with ebooks and actually prefer to, well, print them out!

And yes, they are under 50.

Bangkok has Siam Language and Computer school. Anything similar here that would be good for my Thai

girlfriend? She wants to go back to school and would like some kind of part-time course in business and computer training. Thanks in advance.

Anyone tried La Cuisine au Buerre on Thepassit road?

Not sure if they have crosisants, but with a name like that they should have.

So far, I have only seen good ones(not great) - in Bangkok.

As a professional landscape designer, my opinion is the pathway renovation is a disaster.

They must have spent all of ten minutes drawing it up.

And on what planet do improvements include chopping down all their old growth trees in their only park?

The previous pathway that was installed about 7 years ago had charming, meandering pathways, surrounded by undulating garden beds under majestic old growth hardwood trees. The mermaid fountain was impressive and the 'bronze' statues added an artistic touch.

Of course the maintainence budget was pilfered and it deteriorated quickly as I predicted.

It didn't help when the City decided to exploit the area and erect vendor tents right on top of the flowers and shrubs. Killed all the shrubbery and flowers.

In the name of 'traffic improvements' they flattened the area (so actually they could erect tents and lease the beachfront for personal gains)

Only a shameless, greedy numbskull would do that to a beachfront park.

Not to mention the chess benchs near Central where people could watch or play a game and relax.

With regards to the Walking Street Journal. It hasn't been around for 3 or 4 years. I was told that the guy running it

got tired of doing it and stopped. Too bad.

Another lesson of restaurants in Pattaya ... if you like it, go there NOW!

Yes indeed. I've lost track of the number of good places or good menu items here that just vanished after a few weeks or months, or suffered a price revamp turning them from good value to very overpriced.

I hate to beat a dead horse but this is why rent controls of a certain kind may be good. You don't get rich Chinese-Thai landlords who don't even live in the community jacking up the rent every time they think someone is making a profit.

Why is it good and cheap restaurants - Thai or Western - seem not to have this problem in Chiang Mai?

Could it be that the landlords there actually live there and enjoy the community?

The story is about Thais in Libya and the first "batch" as in a a shipment of dog food. The Thai press don't regard Thais being sent home from Libya as "groups of persons," but rather batches as in cement mix.

The photo clearly shows the shipping of a coffin from Israel, yet the entire story is about Libya.

Welcome to Thai journalism....

Jomtien looks empty. The new hours at La Pomme seem to have attracted about zero customers. Even the often bustling Night Market has had about 30 % of the stalls closed. Only a couple of tour buses can be seen parked on the new beach road.

"I also think a place that does a limited menu really well at good prices is doing the most honest thing business wise and stands a fair chance of success from doing that. "

Agreed... now, if we could only find a few more 'round here.

Just Burgers being a good example(though I never found their burgers to be THAT good). I think they even opened a second branch in Na Jomtien.

English translation : Love slave.

What did you think of it? What did your Thai partner think of it?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Free Bangkok Post and comfy seats. For the Cheap Charlies out there, you don't even

have to order anything - though I usually do.

I wish they would upgrade the sandwhich menu. Pricey and so-so.

Jomtien Long Stay hotel isn't bad if you're on a budget. Right by the Machanu/Hanuman statue so great for getting a Baht bus into town, and also right in the middle of the bars and restaurants in Jomtien. It's got a roof top pool and a few years back a Kiwi mate was paying just 6000 Baht/month there, though that may have gone up a bit now.

you might get that in the low season. In the high, it's 12000. As someone who stayed there a while, I am hesitant to recommend it for the long term. There is a cheaper second building which I would simply avoid.

In addition to a crippled internet(utorrent downloads blocked) it suffers from poor and inconsistent

maintenance because the Chinese-Thai owner can't be bothered.

Staff are pleasant and the pool is nice. It was probably a great deal 10 years ago.

The owner says it is a temporary closure until things improve here in Pattaya.

The sign outside the Jomtien branch says "for rent or sale".

Even when it was open it looked half-closed. Only the established restaurants like Simon's are surviving and

judging by the number of customers, even those may be coasting on their savings right now.

I called into the 3BB office for a second time this morning and 3BB finally did something during the afternoon and the connection returned. They didnt contact me to ask if it was working but of course they can tell if my modem has connected from their end so there is no real need to call.

I am now getting just over 10mbs up and well under 1mbs down on the more expensive package. This is not even as good as what they advertise for the cheaper package (10 + 1) so I will be going along to see about refunds during the week if it doesn't improve by then.

Somehow I suspect I will be trying someone else next year, unless Sophon get their act together by then.

Who else is there to try. True for some bizarre reason say they can not supply a service to condos, TOT is crap, doesn't leave many choices. Stick with 3bb.

True informed me that they will service condos but only floors 2 and 3. I guess that means they need to roll out some cable.

Can you expand on why you think TOT is crap?