Never thought it would come to this

[Acemaker]

21 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Where did he say he ONLY showers once a day?

Some people apparently just come on TVF to pick holes in other people's posts.

 

Not me Guv!    

 

[Benmart]

Best wishes in your adventures. This place I call home has indeed changed since I first landed in 1995. The traffic, greed, crime,corruption and shear magnitude of tourism has dire consequences for the quality of life here.

[Catoni]

On 2018-02-08 at 12:45 PM, Ruffian Dick said:

Yeah, you'll love the smoke.

     The smokey season in Chiang Mai from the surrounding mountain agricultural areas is only for a relatively small part of the year.  Not all year round.  From around the last half of January to Songkran.   

    Most of the year is nice and clear beginning about the time of Songkran or shortly after, until mid to late January again the following year.  

        And the Thai government is starting to try to work with the farmers to maybe figure out an altenative to burning the fields off before planting. 

         I have never even been to Pattaya or Phuket and have no desire to go, except maybe I will visit Phuket once someday. 

       Chiang Mai is a wonderful city if you don't mind not having the beaches you find in the south.  But I'm afraid that over the years, the "Thainess" that is there still might slowly fade..  

   There are many lovely peaceful other smaller unspoiled cities and towns in northern Thailand.  Chiang Rai, Lamphun, Ban Luang,  Pai, and many , many, many more.  There are also the cities and towns of the north east Isan region...  

        Thailand is much more than just places like the party cities of Pattaya, Phuket and Bangkok.   If all I want was to party, go to bars and drink... I can party, go to bars and drink in Toronto, Canada.   I don't go to Thailand to spend my time partying.  Although I will party a bit, and do like the rare dark ale, ...  there are many other things.  

[SpeakeasyThai]

You don't sound like a full filled and happy character, all things considered.

[masuk]

On 09/02/2018 at 12:34 AM, tonray said:

 

 

I wouldn't get your hopes up too high but at least the damage is contained to a few Sois in HH. Pattaya has not been very "Thai-ish" for a decade now. The place is the one place I never want to return to in Thailand, overrun by corruption, drugs and Farang gangs in cahoots with local authorities. Should not judge Thailand by Pattaya, or any of the seaside resort towns for that matter...they attract exactly the type of element that feeds off itself to make it a cesspool.

As one sits in the well-ventilated baht buses, the smell of the cesspit is highly obvious as one enters the city.

A pity that no one ever taught the engineers that waste water and sewerage stinks and are meant to be in sealed systems.  I can't imagine what the incoming Chinese tourists will think, as I never saw a city in China as dirty, polluted and rubbish blowing around as towns and cities here in Thailand.

[maccastime]

A fairly good assumption of Pattaya in a way. I have been going to los since 1999.retired to Hua Hin in 2010.was really enjoying life, golf, pool comp.meeting many new expats from various countries. However around 2015 I noticed the number of tourists dropping remarkably.during high season also. All the while annoying laws from immigration police etc demanding the carrying of a passport. And many other annoying demands. The latest I hear is a dart licence? Not confirmed as yet. But I asked a thai cop who played in our pool comp why are they making it so hard for us to enjoy life here? They should be making it easy for us as after all we spend our hard earned ? he agreed. I returned to Aus in 2016 for health reasons and the aged pension. Will just return for holidays. Have noticed a few friends have given Thailand the flick and gone to Phillipines and say life is better than los, not sure haven’t been there. But Pattaya I was going there now and again to catch up with friends. But so many bars.. does your head in after a few days. Not a good place to be in during Songkran? Out of control idiots all over the place for ten days or so.back to Hua Hin topic you mentioned you may try next year I recently had a email from a mate who frequents Soi 80 he says very quiet with a fair number carrying a lot of baggage!

[ELVIS123456]

1 hour ago, Daveyh said:

Pattaya still has places as friendly as they were when I retired here in 2003 .......... you just need to find them. It's no good going to the same places you've been to over the years ........ you need to broaden your horizons. Transport is essential to do this & I very carefully ride around on my bike looking for new places to visit during the day time. It amazing what you can find when you set your target each day to find a new place, you meet new people ....... & also new friends, not the same old faces you see every pool or darts league nights. With "pc plod" on the prowl these days it does make life difficult enjoying life in the evening with a a few beers, however I get over that problem with staying overnight wherever I end up & home in the late morning ....... or afternoon dependant on how lucky I've been! There's still something for everyone here, but avoid Walking Street, your local bars as they are full of "SAS" men & tourist areas ........... it's a fun place & I still enjoy life here after 15yrs. Sun, sea & sand ....... plus cheap living.

Great advice - and i can add that although not a pattaya resident (visitor a few times) the grass aint greener outside Thailand.  Everything decays and dies - the best way to avoid it is to move and try new things. Inertia is a cosmic killer.

 

[gillap]

Hmm… chubby hookers there's some... However there's still many beautiful… what the hell op! 

[murraynz]

i cant understand why some people moan or complain about thailand/ pattaya...maybe its just their nature--to always be disgruntled??  life is what we make it-- if we dont like where we are living or the the local people, or whatever ??

surely the solution is simple--just move on...

im sure pattaya has changed over the past 20yrs {most places have} im also sure most of us change over that period of time--our wants/needs/priorities can be very different.

for some people' the grass is always greener elsewhere"---but they never realy find satisfaction "elsewhere".

to me, the biggest problem in pattaya, is increasing numbers of rude, aggressive russians..

if it gets "unbearable", i will go elsewhere--i cant change them or stop them coming here

[Destiny1990]

Why not live long term at Canary Island? How can u sure u will go back Thailand?

I agree one thing these bar girls all of them did gain weight in comparison 10 years ago.

[thurien]

On 09/02/2018 at 1:10 AM, swissie said:

It's not about leisure activities or the price of beer. It's about the detoriating interaction of Thai's and Farangs.

 

 

now look, swissie: Thais were never too fond of chumming up with members of foreign nations; that goes for the village, the small town and -  much more of course - for a touristy craphole like Pattaya where visitors, tourists change by the day and challenge the few Thais left in Pattsy (most are from Khmer, Lao, Burma, India and other "special" countries anway these days) with an ever-changing imbalance of feelings. It is easy for visitors to challenge the mood of a Thai: I never saw such a fine collection of foreign bums, ass-holes, drunks, criminals and the like as in Pattsy...

[lagavulin1]

On 09/02/2018 at 12:52 AM, swissie said:

Tonray and Champers: Does that mean that the "Pattayafication" of Hua-Hin is already in full swing?

Last time I was in HH was in 2004, so I am not "up to date". Please elaborate.

Cheers.

Went in 2006 with wife to be. Quiet clean beach but noisy on the strip.

Returned 2013. Beach covered with horse and donkey shit. Water packed with kite surfers. Not my place at all. Leave tonray to answer on the other sorts of pattayafication.

[natway09]

Times change, people change & in Pattaya & Phuket in particular they no longer live on the breadline

& no longer need to Koew Toew to Farangs to survive.

I am living in Bangers & notice some of what you say but change is inevitable. I think the 

"working girls" look more healthy than they used to & most still have their shape unlike the Ozzie slappers who are pretty much nearing the gross stage.

One of the big things I have noticed is that the people coming to Thailand have changed .

They are harder to deal with, drink too much & can be a real nuisance in bars.

I blame cheap airlines (for making it too easy these people to travel ) for a lot of this.

Enjoy the rest of your holiday

[JSixpack]

1 hour ago, Benmart said:

Best wishes in your adventures. This place I call home has indeed changed since I first landed in 1995. The traffic, greed, crime,corruption and shear magnitude of tourism has dire consequences for the quality of life here.

 

Been hearing the same complaints (and more) , except for the magnitude part (actually, forum dogma holds that tourism has always been dying), with the same dire prediction for decades. Here it is in 1997; everybody's gon' go to the paradise of Cambodia:

 

There are two types of articles appearing in the Pattaya Mail with regularity: those where business and political leaders decry the decline in tourism and propose ways to improve the situation; and a steadily increasing number of reports of tourists being insulted, assaulted, drugged, robbed and extorted. All the good intentions and empty proposals by community leaders are not going to change the behavior of the people at street level, and it is they who are driving away the life blood of the city.

 

. . . It doesn’t matter if the streets are cleared of garbage, no one is going to walk down them if doing so leaves them open to being insulted and assaulted. Having a beach promenade doesn’t matter if strolling along it means taking the risk of being knocked down and robbed. No one is going to participate in the vibrant night-life if there is a good chance that they will wake up three days later in the hospital with all their possessions gone, or in some cases, not wake up at all. No one is going to seek an exotic experience if it means they might be set up by girls with both a legal age and under age ID, and then extorted for immense sums by the police.

Pattaya is being inundated with rude obnoxious thugs who do not care about the city or its visitors. They do not listen to the community leaders, and the police do not have the budget or manpower to control them. They are driving away the tourists and the income and jobs that they bring. Inevitably, this rabble will win as they reduce everyone to their level of poverty.

Meanwhile, tourism to Cambodia is increasing by 50% every six months...

     --Lawrence Neal, "Down On Pattaya, Pattaya Mail, Vol. V No.5, Friday 31 January 1997 - 6 February 1997

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by JSixpack

 

• The construction of 3rd Road, not needed, done wrong, never would be any lights, a dangerous race track:

 

. . . a Grand Prix track . . . . At the moment there is no evidence to suggest that traffic lights will be installed. The fourth solution, and the one most likely to be adopted, is to do sweet nothing! First come first across, and where is the nearest hospital? . . . What on earth is the point of the new Third Road? (Apart from providing the local idiots with a race track.) It ends in a full stop at the Crystal Beach which hardly anyone wants to visit. . . .

Oliver W. Minto, "What to do about Third Road junctions," Pattaya Mail, Vol. V No.11 Friday 14 March 1997 - 20 March 1997

So it goes. TiTVF.

 

[paddyfield7]

On 9.2.2018 at 12:45 AM, Ruffian Dick said:

Yeah, you'll love the smoke.

It's 11th February now, and we have not seen one single polluted day in Chiang Mai this "winter".....

[ToddinChonburi]

So many non tourist places to enjoy.  To bad you base Thailand on a tourist shit whole.

[pest]

Whats wrong with Bangkok? 

Best place for mongering i have found

Cheap and plenty to choose from

[baansgr]

Get some cheap shades off the Africans when you are in the Canaries, I agree  Thailand is crap now albeit not the same reasons as you but the Canaries aint no  better

[JSixpack]

16 hours ago, swissie said:

But it is in Pattaya, where I notice a detoriation of friendly interactions between Thai's/Farangs, not in rural Thailand.

 

I think what's changed is merely that after more than 3 decades of tourism Pattaya Thais have learned to recognize at a glance a tight old fart who probably posts whinges and Thai bashes on TVF. I have a lot of friendly interactions w/ Thais in Pattaya.

 

The only bone I can throw out for you disaffected is the crucial revelation—good news, ultimately—that Pattaya treats you differently. It's merely trying to help you reach ASAP the terminal "last nail in the coffin" and "killed the goose" gibbering stage and bugger off. After all, that would be best for you and spare the rest of us more of your bashing. It's the only way, as reasoning is utterly futile.

 

Fact is, now, that Pattaya somehow detects your puckered sphincter even before you start mindlessly chanting the forum wank-words: "tea money," "scam," "promenade," "dead," "tunnel," "condo glut," "stupid," "unwanted," "quality tourists," "targeted," "shoddy," family resort," "CCTV," "pollution," "Ocean 1," "balcony," "lowest ever," "inside job," "jet ski," "tour buses, " "minivan," "baht bus driver," "Chinese," "TAT," "Starbucks," blah, blah, blah. (Whew! Need me a cold shower . . . .) KNOWS that you just ain't gonna be able to enjoy our street carnival daily. Never gon' let a due appreciation for surreal sidewalks, cold Chang from a 7/11, a cheap haircut, and classic Pattaya double bubble sandwich massages outweigh what you think are the negatives.

 

You just ain't no hansum man and that's all there is to it. Why? Who knows. Maybe you're too superior. Too negative. Too weak; too delicate. Too inflexible. Too intolerant. Can't accept risk. No street smarts. Can't learn any Thai. Don't have the money. Can't find a way to cope. Whatever. You can be in Pattaya but never of Pattaya.

 

So Pattaya simply figures that, in the absence of all hope of your redemption and achieving true cesspoolian status, you gotta go.

What Pattaya's Gon' Do For Ya

 

So Pattaya's gon' warp the local reality surrounding you personally to help you reach ASAP the terminal "last nail in the coffin" and "killed the goose" gibbering stage.

 

In all benevolence, with your very best interests at heart, cashiers shortchange you without even a smile; mechanics leave lug nuts off your wheels; dentists extract the wrong teeth; parking attendants suddenly appear in vacant lots; barbers give you white sidewalls; ladies all have unexpected appendages; baht bus drivers charge you 20 baht; Air Asia won't refund your money; ISPs block and throttle your internet; ATMs swallow your cards; loud music or karaoke plays nearby so you can't sleep; the pumping station by the entrance to Walking Street stinks at you. And your eyesight! The shops at CentralFestival seem always empty. Bars are filled with those golden eggs-laying geese, but you can't see 'em!

 

Yeah, everything just piles on to make your life as miserable as possible. Oh, torture without end. Oh, whingeing, cynical, fatuous posts without end.

 

Obviously, now, the beach has biases against certain people and so it treats them differently. If an old doomsayer walks near, it will immediately send a turd floating by to be the subject of a later indignant TV forum rant against The Great Satan: City Hall. City Hall is always wasting and stealing their flyspeck of tax paid.

JSixpack, on 2014-05-17 17:57:06

The idea is for you to take the sphincter, shut up and ah! bugger off to find happiness in a different country entirely whence you won't be coming back to Pattaya and, one HOPES (as it's not always the case), can forget about Thailand. And then start bashing and whinging about that country instead. Here for example in the paradise of Portugal is an obvious Pattaya refugee:

 

Whatever happened to the noise abatement act?

I KNOW it's summer,I KNOW everyone is outside having fun! Actually the tourists aren't the problem..It's the wretched services..Maybe it's me?but has anyone else noticed how b****y noisy all the garden equipment is these days.?We no longer use our gardeners because quite frankly-they don't garden!.What they do is TRIM and BLOW. They use industrial size hellishly noisy machines to reduce shrubs,hedges and even some trees into bald submission.Ditto for the very few lawns we have around us. They don't coordinate this activity either, they do it on every single day of the week bar sunday,and at every concievable time from 7.30 am onwards.I know I sound like a GOW,but at least I know it will magically stop at the end of the season.The poor tourists have PAID for this awful intrusion. This area is known as the Areio do Sonho..Place of dreams...hardly!!!

Anyone else as fed up as I am over this ever increasing mechanical intrusion?

 

GeniB, NOISE!!!

 

Here Ya Go

 

Lemme give you a nudge in the right direction; anything for a good cause. Reading material:

 

 

Emigration patterns from Patters

 

[tryasimight]

On 10/02/2018 at 10:39 AM, geriatrickid said:

Best of all, the  socio-ethnic demographic of foreigners is conducive to a pleasant environment.

In other words full of (snobby up themselves)  retiree Brit's who have made into their ghetto.  Been there and seen it/them. Chiang Mai-by-the-sea. I hear Butlins is opening soon due to local demand. 

[watcharacters]

5 hours ago, elgenon said:

I was invited to a New Year party by the women at the salon where I have my hair cut. They and their husbands/boyfriends/ parents/siblings made sure I was included in all aspects and had a good time. Your experience depends on the company you keep and how you interact.

 

The Thais that work out at my gym are very nice and also helpful.

 

 

 

 

Care to mention the name of said Gym?

 

 

Free advertising at worst and making sure they may  remain in business.

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

[watcharacters]

9 minutes ago, tryasimight said:

In other words full of (snobby up themselves)  retiree Brit's who have made into their ghetto.  Been there and seen it/them. Chiang Mai-by-the-sea. I hear Butlins is opening soon due to local demand. 

 

 

 

 

What do you really mean to say?

 

 

"In other words full of (snobby up themselves)  retiree Brit's "

 

 

Surely you don't really feel like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mansell]

Do you want to live in a place with genuine Thai people, or a place full of bars and the ladies that serve there? Sounds like you prefer the latter, so you get what comes with those things. Personally if I never go to Pattaya in this lifetime I will have missed nothing. I am happy living in the countryside outside Korat. And when I go into town I am surprised if I see more than three farang a day. You pays your money and makes your choice. 

[Wake Up]

Only lived in BKK a couple years. But I have been coming regularly to Thailand for over 10 years and traveled by car to most of it. I love gogo bars and thai people. But IMO the internet dating sites have ruined the go go bars because the lovely girls can work the internet not the go gos, drink less alcohol, not get fined for missing work, and don't have to put up with expat bar owners that treat the girls like cattle. Also similar to uber drivers, the girls can work their own hours and get a pretty regular quality clientele.  

 

Regarding the thai people I hear a lot from them about expats that treat them badly like disappearing after a few months or years living with a thai woman with no word or financial help. I also hear about expats that think they are the smartest species on the planet and look down on thais and all asians.  I hear about expats making fun of thais that speak English yet their thai like mine will never be very good. 

 

 Kindness is a two way street. Some of the things written about thais on this TV tick me off and I am not thai. But congrats to you because  at least you are moving on rather than staying in Thailand  and blaming the thai people for your unhappiness.

 

To the posters that daily post negative stereotypes about Thailand and Thai people please examine why you do it or follow the yellow brick road to somewhere else. To the poster this week that bragged about leaving Thailand but continues to post daily negative things about Thailand to help the "idiots" please seek counseling man as your actions are out of line. Peace

 

 

[holy cow cm]

It’s not like the old days and in a way that is a bummer. But still much fun to be had.. Keep moving around, but beach area bars like Old Patty’s attitude are near hard or impossible to find. 

[tryasimight]

2 hours ago, JSixpack said:

 

I think what's changed is merely that after more than 3 decades of tourism Pattaya Thais have learned to recognize at a glance a tight old fart who probably posts whinges and Thai bashes on TVF. I have a lot of friendly interactions w/ Thais in Pattaya.

 

The only bone I can throw out for you disaffected is the crucial revelation—good news, ultimately—that Pattaya treats you differently. It's merely trying to help you reach ASAP the terminal "last nail in the coffin" and "killed the goose" gibbering stage and bugger off. After all, that would be best for you and spare the rest of us more of your bashing. It's the only way, as reasoning is utterly futile.

 

Fact is, now, that Pattaya somehow detects your puckered sphincter even before you start mindlessly chanting the forum wank-words: "tea money," "scam," "promenade," "dead," "tunnel," "condo glut," "stupid," "unwanted," "quality tourists," "targeted," "shoddy," family resort," "CCTV," "pollution," "Ocean 1," "balcony," "lowest ever," "inside job," "jet ski," "tour buses, " "minivan," "baht bus driver," "Chinese," "TAT," "Starbucks," blah, blah, blah. (Whew! Need me a cold shower . . . .) KNOWS that you just ain't gonna be able to enjoy our street carnival daily. Never gon' let a due appreciation for surreal sidewalks, cold Chang from a 7/11, a cheap haircut, and classic Pattaya double bubble sandwich massages outweigh what you think are the negatives.

 

You just ain't no hansum man and that's all there is to it. Why? Who knows. Maybe you're too superior. Too negative. Too weak; too delicate. Too inflexible. Too intolerant. Can't accept risk. No street smarts. Can't learn any Thai. Don't have the money. Can't find a way to cope. Whatever. You can be in Pattaya but never of Pattaya.

 

So Pattaya simply figures that, in the absence of all hope of your redemption and achieving true cesspoolian status, you gotta go.

What Pattaya's Gon' Do For Ya

 

So Pattaya's gon' warp the local reality surrounding you personally to help you reach ASAP the terminal "last nail in the coffin" and "killed the goose" gibbering stage.

 

In all benevolence, with your very best interests at heart, cashiers shortchange you without even a smile; mechanics leave lug nuts off your wheels; dentists extract the wrong teeth; parking attendants suddenly appear in vacant lots; barbers give you white sidewalls; ladies all have unexpected appendages; baht bus drivers charge you 20 baht; Air Asia won't refund your money; ISPs block and throttle your internet; ATMs swallow your cards; loud music or karaoke plays nearby so you can't sleep; the pumping station by the entrance to Walking Street stinks at you. And your eyesight! The shops at CentralFestival seem always empty. Bars are filled with those golden eggs-laying geese, but you can't see 'em!

 

Yeah, everything just piles on to make your life as miserable as possible. Oh, torture without end. Oh, whingeing, cynical, fatuous posts without end.

 

Obviously, now, the beach has biases against certain people and so it treats them differently. If an old doomsayer walks near, it will immediately send a turd floating by to be the subject of a later indignant TV forum rant against The Great Satan: City Hall. City Hall is always wasting and stealing their flyspeck of tax paid.

JSixpack, on 2014-05-17 17:57:06

The idea is for you to take the sphincter, shut up and ah! bugger off to find happiness in a different country entirely whence you won't be coming back to Pattaya and, one HOPES (as it's not always the case), can forget about Thailand. And then start bashing and whinging about that country instead. Here for example in the paradise of Portugal is an obvious Pattaya refugee:

 

Whatever happened to the noise abatement act?

I KNOW it's summer,I KNOW everyone is outside having fun! Actually the tourists aren't the problem..It's the wretched services..Maybe it's me?but has anyone else noticed how b****y noisy all the garden equipment is these days.?We no longer use our gardeners because quite frankly-they don't garden!.What they do is TRIM and BLOW. They use industrial size hellishly noisy machines to reduce shrubs,hedges and even some trees into bald submission.Ditto for the very few lawns we have around us. They don't coordinate this activity either, they do it on every single day of the week bar sunday,and at every concievable time from 7.30 am onwards.I know I sound like a GOW,but at least I know it will magically stop at the end of the season.The poor tourists have PAID for this awful intrusion. This area is known as the Areio do Sonho..Place of dreams...hardly!!!

Anyone else as fed up as I am over this ever increasing mechanical intrusion?

 

GeniB, NOISE!!!

 

Here Ya Go

 

Lemme give you a nudge in the right direction; anything for a good cause. Reading material:

 

 

Emigration patterns from Patters

 

Post of the decade.. 

Sums it all up very nicely.  Thank you js

[uffe123]

Any more Thailand really sucks. You cant breathe the air, you cant get a good beer, all the vegges are laced with pesticides, Paraquat one of the most deadly pesticides, banned in Europe. The military have confiscated all the farm land from the farmers and are telling them what to plant. Prices are going through the roof for food. 

Time to leave this place so I can at least live a few more years of my retirement without having emphysema or lung cancer.

Been here for over 20 years and it used to be a decent place, but greed has take over and "they" dont give a chit about the common  poor Thai person.

Pity those people who dont have the luxury to leave.

[fordguy61mi]

Reminds me of being a young US Marine in the early 80s. I was stationed in Okinawa and the Okinawans in town would smile as we handed them our money but we all knew they hated us. We were their income so they had to be nice. I think it’s probably the same everywhere in tourist areas. I think you can cultivate relationships and make genuine friends outside of those areas, but you really shouldn’t expect too much from them in those areas. It kind of amuses me that someone goes to someone else’s country and then complains about their prostitutes.

[peterb17]

2 minutes ago, uffe123 said:

Any more Thailand really sucks. You cant breathe the air, you cant get a good beer, all the vegges are laced with pesticides, Paraquat one of the most deadly pesticides, banned in Europe. The military have confiscated all the farm land from the farmers and are telling them what to plant. Prices are going through the roof for food. 

Time to leave this place so I can at least live a few more years of my retirement without having emphysema or lung cancer.

Been here for over 20 years and it used to be a decent place, but greed has take over and "they" dont give a chit about the common  poor Thai person.

Pity those people who dont have the luxury to leave.

Paraquat use will be banned from next year in the Kingdom. 

 

Reading through the posts - it’s slightly bizarre that so many feel that where you live seems to depend on self gratification and the appearance of the exploited local sex workers . 

 

These threads always end up with some defending the place and others hating it. 

 

It depends on wealth and income - that is the simple bottom line .

[Rimmer]

A personal attack has been removed