Had the good fortune to actually find a parking spot for my car yesterday in 2 nd Road Pattaya outside a massage shop. I hadn't even finished pulling into the park when a little old lady (obviously the owner and sporting twice as much make up as Dame Edna Everage but only half the size) had my wife wind down her window and told her we couldn't park there.

Why ? my wife says. It's a legal car park space ...no red stripes....no yellow stripes to say otherwise.

Well the issue was that she wanted her customers to have the park and also people driving past on the road could see her bevy of beautiful ladies patiently waiting to sooth their bodies.

I did leave my car there for a few moments but decided that I could not risk a couple of flat tyres or that she might have friends with brown uniforms that would have it towed away.

That's not the first time I've had that happen to me.

Didn't you know shop owners own the road as well. You were right though it's not worth a scratch or flat tyre to make the point.

Many Thai shop-owners do this, just as many Thai motorbike rental agencies park hundreds of rental bikes on every available inch of parking space. Typical greed and selfishness.

I generally park in Central or the Avenue or the Royal Garden.

Not only in Pattaya.

A while back i parked outside a clothing shop in Khonkaen, man comes out and says no park, why i ask?

My shop you park you pay 20 baht. What do you do? Move so no damage gets done to your car.

The Indian restaurant near soi 6 put bollards in front. I parked & told him the road belonged to the King not him. Often other available spots are taken by racks for drying clothes. I can see their necessity during the day, but they are still there late at night and empty.

Standard operational procedure for shops.

When we go to shops my wife knows the owner, we call in advance and for sure, the space in front of the shop is "reserved " for our car with chairs or whatever they find to block

Standard operational procedure for shops.

When we go to shops my wife knows the owner, we call in advance and for sure, the space in front of the shop is "reserved " for our car with chairs or whatever they find to block

You are just compounding the problem!

Just park at Central Festival like everybody else does and get a baht bus - saves all the dramas.

And on a similar note, a huge proportion of motorcycle punctures in Pattaya are caused by a stapler - the staple kindly punched into your tyre by the bar or shop owner when you park in front of their business and don't use their services. Many don't realise it because the staple doesn't actually pierce the tube until you hit a bump at the right moment, maybe 200 metres from where you parked.

Next time you get a puncture, examine it for a staple.

Better still, if you park somewhere and get the evils from a shop or bar staff, have a look at your tyre before you move, pick it out, and smile nicely at them. It's become second nature for me when I finally figured out why I got 5 punctures over 7 days a few years back.

The bar concerned had a nasty smell for a long time, courtesy of a fish discreetly thrown into the open cavity behind the top fascia of their beer fridge when they weren't looking.

Edit: For clarity, the fish was a huge sucker and the bar had a fishy whiff for a month. I thought it would be a dead giveaway for the first week when the staff were constantly shooing cats out of the bar, but the staff just couldn't equate the fishy smell with the cats making a beeline for their fridge. I had hours of entertainment watching from the bar next door.

Edited February 5, 201610 yr by Gsxrnz

Standard operational procedure for shops.

When we go to shops my wife knows the owner, we call in advance and for sure, the space in front of the shop is "reserved " for our car with chairs or whatever they find to block

Your wife must be popular, or maybe you ever go to 1 shop only .