yarm

thanks - very good info! the pier makes sense, didn't know I'd have to look at the disco though.

Any idea on prices?

don't know current price. no, disco is upstairs - the one where , privately, many usa stars like rod stewart and the likes "sneak" in incognito to find out why the gi's talk about his albums being spun again and again up there some time ago.

still notice many farangs and locals still use their services though. for sure, the skippers know the gulf of thailand well and know their bearings.

marine bar has many boats and they are hassle free with no hidden costs. most farang and local divers use them for the island tours. they are not expensive too. remember they are right inside the marine disco. see their boats first hand. ask security guards at marine disco . they will direct you to the skippers. also lots of free parking spaces if you rent their boats and park your vehicles just right next to their boats at their private piers.

Yep, if Thakky really cared about his country rather than his frozen assets he would (1) come back and face the music like a man, not a coward (2) shut his pie hole. The chances of either of those two things happening, none. It is amazing and disgusting how Thailand has allowed this one egomaniac to be so utterly destructive of unity and progress.

Interesting and thoughtful analysis as always, and we are all better informed because of it.

As you suggest that he "face the music like a man and not a coward" one can only assume you have made a similar grand and courageous gesture at some stage in your life, why don't you share your manly exploits with the readership so we can fully appreciate your caliber.

yes, "share your (sic) manly exploits".......

If your Son is not a Singapore PR at the time for him to do National Service, he would not do it. But if he were to be in Singapore at the time he had cancelled his PR status leading up to it, it would be a different matter.

If he were to retain the status of PR and he were to be in Singapore or not, he would be called up.

If he still held PR and returned to Singapore later in his life he would have a problem, if he had,nt reported earlier.

As he is only still a baby I would,nt worry too much about this.

I lived in Singapore for almost 8 years and decided not to take PR status,, mainly due to my employers hinting that my expat status/salary would suffer and was written into a contract once stating that they would not pay my CPF payments, which basically says that I would receive a lower salary.

As for taking PR status,, has its benefits. Schools are more available for example.

I am to return again this year for work, not too sure if I,ll take the PR or not and I,m taking a 7 year old and a 2 year with me.

All depends if you want to make Singapore your home.

almost all pr's regret their moves in getting their pr status in singapore .

most pr's children and wife face all kinds of racial discriminations daily at home or in schools. they do not "belong" somehow because of a weird yet inexplicable singapore "psyche" that they are one-up on their neighbors.

one way or another, your sons will have a nightmare of their own , whether he gets conscripted into the armies at 18 years old or not .

he is treated almost like a stateless criminal if he tries to avoid the conscription .

whether you get paid a salary with or without the cpf pension fund, even if you decide to leave singapore eventually, you cannot collect your pension till you're 62 years old .beware this 62 years cap get revised and may soon be 67 years of age by law.

to collect your pension fund earlier, be prepared to lose your singapore pr status - a move which still does not discharge your son's military liabilty.

I have a page or two about Singapore on a website .. writing about it favorably as a possible place for retirement. I realize it is not Thailand or Laos, or ..

But for city people who want the kind of lifestyle, that Singapore offers, it would seem to be a reasonable place.

Not too long ago, an Irish chap took severe exception to my even suggesting Singapore was priced reasonably enough for mortals or anyone " .. other than a Sterling millionaire."

Of course, he was also trying to peddle "fully legal" houses in Phuket based on "legal because his law firm said so" 30+30+30 leases and land owned by "companies registered offshore".

But is Singapore strictly for richies?

The Irish chap is probably correct that you'd need to be a Sterling millionaire if you will be retiring at a fairly young age. What's expensive is rent and automobiles; if you're a barfly, that's going to be really expensive too. However I find that I have no need for an automobile when living so being forced to not have a car saves me money compared to many other places; the rent is the real killer. I'm finding that overall my monthly expenses are about the same as what it was costing me to live in rural Pennsylvania if (which was the last place I lived prior to Singapore) if that reference is meaningful to you, it's just that the money gets spent on different things. So I guess what it boils down to is that if you have enough money to retire to a locale in the US where costs are near the national average, you'd also have enough money to retire in Singapore.

...the medical bills, if you're above 50, may just drain you dry, if you're at all a pennslyvanian millionaire.

besides, if noodles and rice are not your fare, prepare to live on steak once a week.forget the wine....

they are just too expensive at almost 150% tax on all alcohols and cigarettes and all imported goods.

remember, more than 90% of all products in singapore,edible or not, are imported.

singapore has no land for farming whateversoever like thailand or pennsylvannia.

it's just a concrete jungle where her singaporean people have been quoted to say why they must must be condemned to live in very expensive public housing of the chicken-coop type. private housing??????if you're are not bill gates, warren buffet or oprah or donald trump or anyone of them, forget singapore before you just rush into a nightmare.

fear small spaces or cubicles or chicken-coop housing? if so, go elswhere...singaporeans are crammed in their chicken-coops. wonder why singapore was suggested to you when singaporean birthrates cannot even cope with their own singaporean emigration rates for the last 20 years average.

Shame this had to happen.

As usual nothing in the English language press.

This should be properly reported as it affects tourists and expats.

Now i need to add yet another warning when the family comes to town.

....reporting such things in the english press in thailand? must be kidding. more effective if you email them back home to your farang press and let the press at home do the job.

his father is also Thai...

Tony's biography

Now that you know a bit about Tony's many business enterprises and this fabulous beachside resort of Pattaya, you are probably wondering just who is this Tony?

Well . . . . Tony ( Mr. Surapol Sanguanchartisorakrai ) was born in Bangkok, Thailand. Tony's Father, General Lak Sanguanchartisorakrai was a Thai military officer and while growing up, Tony traveled widely with his family. In his teens, he played music with one of the most popular bands in Thailand, The Dynamics. Then, upon finishing high school, his parents sent him to the U.S.A for a college education. While in the U.S.A.

Tony spent nearly 20 years traveling and performing as the leader of a show band called "Tony and Friends". Tony and the band toured

all over America. He eventually settled down in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he opened a very successful nightclub named after his band, "Tony and Friends". It was a popular spot for both locals and tourists for more than six years. In 1998 an opportunity presented itself for Tony to return to his home, Thailand.

so, where does all this italian n american father et.al, fit in? dad must rich to be able to affirdd him to set up shop in america when the exchange rate for thai baht to us dollar was pathetically low then? was he on student visa then? how did he get round the immigration dept in the usa to get employed? even today, most thais are rejected of a visa from the us immigration dept. how did tony did it plus how did he get an employment or business visa, it it was one of the two, too? his thai dad seem to have a lot of connections in the usa too like tony has with the pattaya police as mentioned by someone else in this panel????

was he a local pattaya -born or even chonburi -born?

you said he returned to thailand in 1998? that was almost way past the pattaya boom of ex-pm chartchai time. thaksisn not included.

believe me, i have nothing against this guy. am just wondering about his many "shops" - including that "short time" for 300baht room and the tents for rent - that pop out in pattaya from no-where lately,et.al. in fact, i admire his avante garde ideas in pattaya.

Hmm...I'm using True too. I don't know, there's random sites on the net I can't access sometimes, like microsoft.com which hasn't worked for a week. This forum is really bad right now too, I have to refresh over and over again. Asiasentinel works great though.

Normal, Microsoft is a den of republicans. Even worst: democrat republicans!

:-)

Thaivisa works perfectly. It looks to be hosted in Sinpagore.

singapore screens enery thing - your personal data n profile too.

Not sure who he is, but he's gonna get filthy rich on those camping tents!

get rich where beaches with salubrious air are for free n his tents are smack in the middle of a dusty road in a fast dilapidating neighborhood where stray dogs roam ??????????????

This reads more like ironic satire, but here's what I found at Tony's Empire

Pattaya stories

Tony's Empire

Don't tell me you have never been to Tony's or even heard of Tony. You can't get to Pattaya without seeing or hearing about Tony's. His signs are everywhere. There are huge signs on the sides of buildings and there are little sticker signs on walls and street posts and kiosks everywhere you look. You just can't miss the advertising about Tony's. There are ads in most magazines and papers in Bangkok and Pattaya including this paper.

His empire covers the Tony's Disco in Bangkok, where thousands of people from the city and the world go to meet and mingle. There is the Tony's Disco in Pattaya. There is Tony's Hollywood at Sea, where Tony goes Hollywood. There is Tony's bus that shuttles between Pattaya and Bangkok.

Try this. Go to Walking Street about 10 p.m. to midnight. Do you notice that most of the people are walking towards Tony's Disco who is located at the far end of walking street from beach road? That is because they know something you don't. The people start to go to Tony's Disco more and more as the evening progresses. I think some people either have a dinner or go to a Go Go or maybe do some shopping or just sight seeing before they finally go to Tony's Disco.

So what is it that is so attractive about Tony's Disco? Well, that's an easy question to answer, once you've been there. It's the people. It's the music. It's the girls. It's the guys. It's the food. It's the excitement. It's the big club atmosphere. It's the international crowd of people. Yes, Sir, it's all these things and more.

Let's face it. Twenty-seven million people can't be wrong. So get your glad rags on and your dancing shoes on and boogie on down the road to that wild and wonderful place called Tony's.

So, is that all there is? Heck! No! If you really want to empress somebody, go to Tony's Hollywood at Sea. Can you imagine going out to the old pier at the beginning of Walking Street and taking a speedboat to a huge ship at sea? The boat ride alone is worth it and it's "free". You can't miss it because there are searchlights flashing off the roof of the ship towards the beach. This ship is so huge and so grand. It's only about a five-minute ride to the ship. The ship is either anchored to the bottom of the sea or setting on the bottom of the sea, so there is no rocking and rolling on board the ship except for the rock and roll music if that's the style of music they're playing at the time. There is a grand staircase that leads to the next floor. You need to explore this ship. Bon Voyage and let the good times role.

Check out Tony's web site. www.tonysdisco.net There are pictures and a lot of other stuff.

Guess what? Tony has a bus that you can rent or use to shuttle your party to Tony's in Bangkok. It is one of those huge buses that holds a lot of people. It has TV and a lounge and a bar. You can stand up and walk around, dance or party-hardy. Yea! Team! Let's go. Can you imagine traveling like a rock star on the bus to and from Bangkok? Oh! Yes!

Check out the ads in this paper and start to enjoy life before it's too late. It's never too late.

Live, Love and Laugh

one source has it that all these giant billboards and premises are leased spaces .

Tony does not own any of them, except for one or two old fast cars parked in front of an unknown hotel somewhere between pattaya klang and beach road and second road.

yes, money laundering appears to be his ball game as suggested here by someone in this panel .

a guy with a tendency towards sleaze - that's tony n brother to the locals....

I don't live in Pattaya but each time I have been there I have seen poster signs of Tony's Gym ...Tony with huge biceps, and somewhere else I've seen Tony's Foodcourt...during the day time, just passing by in tha car...and then there is Tony's refuge center for stray dogs...and now I'm reading about Tony's Tents...seems this Tony guy has really made a big impact in Pattaya business wise. Who is Tony? Just curious, could not care two hoots otherwise

a new kid on the pattaya block who owns very little in pattaya n is avoided like his brother by most local born n bred thais.

he operates "quickies" 300 baht rooms in pattaya for short time n his food court is mostly empty like his camping gound smack right across an empty land he leased once next to his one too many half empty in gyms in small town pattaya.

According to the Thanchart website, The Thai Bankers Association has decided that cardholders of foreign banks will be charged 150 Baht for each withdrawal by debit or credit card, effective April 17th.

Not good news.

besides UOB bank from singapore, how many off-shore, non-thai banks are charging this 150 bahts?

UOB is now charging the 150 baht for ATM withdrawal bummer. Is Government Savings still not charging this 150 charge would appreciate knowing?? Thanks I know this topic has been gone over and over.

union of buggers - uob - another member of the rip-off banks, except this one is from filthy rich singapore....yes, filthy rich bank...from singapore....they know their targets, i.e. farangs mainly......

how did an off-shore bank gets to join the ranks of the thai banks to charge the 150 bahts?

something is not right here......

According to the Thanchart website, The Thai Bankers Association has decided that cardholders of foreign banks will be charged 150 Baht for each withdrawal by debit or credit card, effective April 17th.

Not good news.

rip-off globalisation style.......

I have always maintained that the first thing to do with a plot of land is build your own boundary wall.

not so sure it will work in thailand.......

Hooters (bar/restaurant in the US puts an ice-filled plastic bag in their large pitchers of beer. Keeps the beer cold and the water out.

ingenious......

Dont know how anybody can group Heinekin in with the rest of them, Heinekin is pishwater and should not be called beer!!

so is tiger beer......good golly, where are the real beer tasters........beer lao is the way to go......

REAL football is played with a round ball on an oblong field

NOT

an oblong ball on a round field

And we all know why the Aussies use a round field don't we?

....... coz it gives the maximum playing ares for the length of shackle chain tied to a stake in the middle of the pitch

bit of racists isn't , this comment?

I'm wondering if American football is shown much on TV there? Is it broadcat on regular TV? Cable TV? Avaiable on satelite? I would like to be able to watch it from my apt.

And another question. How expensive is cable tv or a satelite?

Thanks,

Chuck

will muaythai or sepak takraw be available in america on cable,blah,blah...what a joke

Let's not speculate about what happend. Loved ones of the deseased may read this in their search for more information.

by far, this is the most sensible comment. most are melodramatic and some are quite senseless fringing on the cynical or one too many beers after.....condolences to the families...