bilags

actaully, i agree with You

I have to give Tartemtion credit for being honest. i have been to LOS 6 times, and i have had most of the feelings Tartemtion have.

I feel things are getting a little better for every visit. The reason I came back time after time, is for family reasons.

What is very good about LOS is the climate, low crime and low prices.

I have often asked myself, would i visit this country if it was as expensive as Europe?

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To be continued some day

All kinds of +/- Feedback are welcome

I loved it. very , very good

this was a good one, a very suprising end! very funny

Thanks for the story. I liked it. Was expecting to see the Mercedes in the picture though.

Good point, I actually thoguht about taking one at the time, but it was parked so close to a fence, that i did not get a good shoot of the back of the car.

The actual picture is taken when i left the place, when all the action was over. I feel its difficult to take pictures in Thailand. i have read in a book that Thai-people dont like

to be taken pictures of, and that you have to ask in advance. i dont remember if there was a guard placed with the car, or if the driver was sitting in the car. I dont

yet know "how far I can go" to take pictures. I realy wanted to take a pictures inside too, but I did not dare.

A VISIT TO THE IMMIGRATION

A visa for stay in Thailand is looked upon of the Thailand Authority as a privilege for the tourist

, not a right or a service.

Bearing this in mind, I went to the Pattaya Immigration in Soi 5, Jomtien.

Last time I was there, after waiting in line for some hours , the office closed after a power outage.

I guess there is no need for buying a generator, the customers will come back the next day anyway?

There are always some signs in advance when things are about to go wrong, but u have to see them.

I did not. The clue of the day was a Mercedes S65 V12biturbo parked outside the Immigration office.

I looked at the car and thought, this must be a very expensive car, what is it doing here? But then I just went inside.

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Inside I was meet with big posters telling me to fill out forms, get some photos and copies of passports before standing in line for processing. I managed to find the right form, but there was no pencils in sight. I looked everywhere, and finally I found a pink one beside a nice native lady. I asked if I could take it, but got an angry reply in thai. I started a slow retreat to a safer place. Then a western man approach me and told me that the lady had just bought the pencil for 10 baht next door. Oki I finally got the picture, go next door and buy a pencil. I did just that because I had to take a picture and copies of passport anyway.

Later , after standing in queue in the copyshop, and buing my 10 baht pencil, I started my trip back

to immigration Office. When I reached the first step leading too the door , all hel... broke loose.

The door opened and I was suddenly surrounded by 20 men from the army or police.

. I did not dare to move. They had three different types of uniforms, marked with parachute medals, narcothics and so on. Whatever happened, this was high racked and big, a kind of joint strike force. Standing there, frozen, waiting to be handcuffed any second, nothing happened.

But a TV-team and photographs came out of nowhere, and I started to realize that this might not be about my overstay at all. In spite of my fear, I managed to get my self inside the building again, moving close to the walls, and trying not to rise any attention.

I filled out the form, holding on to by newly acquired 10 baht pen, that I in respect of local customs

did to pass on. The next challenge was to find out how to get a numbered ticket for the queue. I did not a ticket-machine anywhere. There was a western-looking man there, who looked like he worked there, I asked him.

He got me a ticket from under the counter. Why? He told me ; no point in having people messing up the system for all kind of reasons, better under the counter. I asked him what was going on inside,

He did not know. Later I found out that it was the opening of Chon-Buri Transnational Crime Center

And it was placed in the second floor of the Immigration building.

Nice to have a opening, but my problems was far from over. After waiting for over an hour, it was finally my turn, or so I believed. The western-looking employee took a step forward, and informed everybody that due to the opening they would close the hole office down for an hour or so , and he recommended we left and bought a coffee next door. I did not. I just sat down looking at 20 employees doing absolutely nothing for a very long time. After 45 minutes I was approached by a very high ranking officer. I could se that from his uniform. He asked me to move from the waiting area an take a seat with the immigration officer to get my forms processed. I told him as politely as I could that my destiny was to wait for hours because of the opening, but he said " I will fix".

I did as I was told, but my forms got nowhere. What happened was that a TV crew came to tape some "action" in the closed down office. Now I was on television, but still had no visa.

Nothing got fixed, I had to wait until opening, and finally my passport got stamped.

I left the building thinking highly of countries giving longtime visas to serious people wanting to spend money in the country and a lot of other thoughts not worth mentioning due to forum restrictions.

To be continued some day

In this tread i will post some funny short stories from my trips to Thailand. English in not my first language, so there will be some flaws.

What is funny? Not easy to agree on that. If this is boring, just tell me

I was wrong about China, its a Japanse car. tks to Walkingman for the correction. The cars name is Mitsuoka Galue.

The car is marked Calue at the back, but i did not manage to read it.

CHINESE CARS.

There are many carfactories in China now, over 100. Most of them produce low cost cars for the average man.

Some of the factories tries to go upscale with mixed results

I have seen many cars in pattaya, but few have turned my head like this one.

it looks like the car have a Rolls Royce front the massive front , but the back have the look of a caddilac with the

high vertical lights.

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in this picture we see the caddilac back

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and here we have the massive Rolls Royce front

I tried to find out what the name of this car is , but did not sucseed. I was told that the car is build on a Nissan chassis.

All in all, and impressive car, and it allways turns my head.

to be continued

This is gonna be a posting about pattaya at daytime. I am from Europe and am in Pattaya from time to time. I will try to share some of my obervations with You . i am not sure where to start and where to end, so I just jump into it.

the VT6 is already build close to Central Festival downtown Pattaya. Its quite fun standing at beachroad , looking at the amazing differces in architecture between the 2 builings

there is a new building being build beween the View Talay 5 and the view Talay 7 in Jomtien, pattaya.

Anyone knows anything about the building?

What kind of building?

How many floors high?

The lot is large and long, going the whole distance of VT5C & VT5D,

will the hole lot be covered with buildings?

Hi, am in pattaya and looking at properties.

Have visited many brokers , but 2 brokers stands out:

Ocean Residental Property , situated in View talay 5

Giganet, situated in View Talay 7

Both brokers offer buy/sale/rent

Both brokers state good track-records regarding renting out management.

Any one have any experience with either of this 2 brokers?

tks for all replies.

Where have the pattaya Condo markedet moved the last 2 month regarding selling-prices for condo's? up or down?

the beach is one of the worst i pattaya, for some reason a lot of plastic bags come driftin in with the tide. But ...its quite relaxed, and thats a nice thing.

There's a lot of taxies down at Asia Hotel, so i think ur in town in 3 minuts

Good question the OP asks, but I wonder why he wants to know?

I live in a VERY smal town back home,a few people and some cows, for that reason i wonder how big my big Pattaya are

I wish. First of all, its a family business, I am but a small part of the equation. Most of the "units" were apartments in either buildings between 60 and 100 units or complexes. We only had about 150 actual homes but "living units" does sound so much more impressive. Having 15 apartment complexes just doesnt have the same weight. I am sorry to report that honestly, when most of the houses were picked up, they were probably in the 110 to 120 times rent category, most acquired between 1970 and 1990. We are now strictly into commercial property and that has been sick sick sick. Buildings around 50,000 square feet, light industrial. We are running about 70% occupancy which keeps the lights on. Having property means having assets, not cash, which is why it can be such a bad investment, it is illiquid and hard to carry when times get bad.

As an aside, it took us around four hard years to liquidate the residential stuff and build the commercial buildings. Those were heady days though, every property we put on the market would have bidders and it would sell in days. Almost all of them ninja loans which just made us that more committed to getting out of the market.

Having said all that, I have made an offer on property in Thailand that is 90 times rent. About 60 low income units, it has been a steady return for years. Now here is the interesting part. I found an active real estate investor here to teach me the rules of the game in Thailand. He pays, are you ready, no more than 100 times rent. Its pretty interesting, if a property is taking in 50,000 baht a month, he will go into the bank that holds the NPL with 5 million baht in bags and cases. Usually, the bank wants something insane like 180 million baht or some such lunacy. He puts two or three million baht in cash on table and they have coffee and talk about the weather. The bank comes back with 90 million and they have more coffee and another million in cash goes on the table. As they get more friendly, he keeps dropping stacks on the massive pile on the table until the big boss asks for the paperwork. They consummate there immediately. He has been doing this for years and years, and he insists the key absolutely is cash that you can lay on the table. Without that, everything else is a time waster. He stops piling on at 100 times rent and gets about one out of ten properties he goes after. So thats the deal. We are going to the bank with bags of cash and going to have a shot at this property. I will let you know how it works out. Amazing Thailand.

The investor, Thai or Falang? i am woundering on how 2 own it, trough a company?

How many Thai's live in pattaya?

How many falangs have moved too and live in pattaya year round?

How many falangs live in pattaya "longstay" , 3-6 month a year?

How many tourists are i Pattaya, 1-3 weeks?

I have tried 2 find out, but never did?

do Norwegian drink more than other nationalities?

Why does this man get so much attention? he is not the first, and not the last to get arrested in pattaya.