lajimmy

Well done! Thanks for taking the time to put up these pics and reviews of places off the standard beaten path that most of us seem stuck to. Seeing all the pics made me feel like I was there... so I thought something he ate at that first restaurant on week two of this report had made his vision blurry...

Nirvana is also OK. Rooms are well-decorated at least...

Thanks. Couldn't find it.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007400839,00.html

As far as I am concerned, these restaurant reviews are the most useful posts on this whole site. Thanks!

I was thinking about buying as many K-1 GP DVDs as I could find the next time I am in Thailand. Old, new, it doesn't matter. I can't recall seeing any available for sale though. Has anyone seen these DVDs, bootleg or not, available? These would be the Japanese MMA DVDs with fighters such as Peter Aerts, Sakuraba, Andy Hug, Bob Sapp, etc. If anyone has seen a stand in a mall, street vendor, etc... who has these DVDs, please inform me as to location. Thanks in advance.

I stayed at the LK Metropole for about 10 days in Feb/March 2007. I stayed in what I think they called a Superior(?) room on the third floor. It seems to me that the place has gotten a good deal of new business recently and their newly enacted policies seem to reflect the interests of the management. Namely to take in money, while spending not much money in the improvement of facilities. Make no mistake, this is by no means a luxury hotel. It is fairly new, which helps the charade, but the patina of newness is beginning to wear thin. As it is the most prominent building on the street, save for the Areca, I can understand people thinking it an oasis in the middle of a rather non-descript portion of Soi Diana, but it isn't exactly the Ritz-Carlton. Being the biggest/tallest/nicest/whatver building on Soi Diana is not saying much in the grand scheme of things. Walking into the lobby, the hotel's ethos is somewhere between middle-class Liberace meets faux Louis XVI, namely two steps past overblown, so either they are trying too hard, or not hard enough... A glass of appropriately artifical orange juice is provided at check in. A thoughtful touch. The interior of the elevator cab is covered in a garish vinyl print of a pastoral scene. Quite vexing after a night's bacchanals. I choose the stairs thereafter unless my girl objects. Only mild judgment and titters from the civilian-pretty front desk girls at my parade of flesh over the course of my stay. No joiners fees though. There were several problems with my particular room. My shower head mount was defective from day one, never repaired by staff, despite my requests. Rather than letting it swing back and forth like a pendulum, keeping time with water pulsing lackadaisically through the long flexible coil, I elected to fix it myself after the third day. I borrowed a screwdriver from the maintenance people in the garage and fixed it to the best of my abilities. Lacking grout and spackle, I could not do the repair correctly, but that is not, and should not be, my problem. In their defense, I believe the maids tried to fix it after I first reported the problem to the front desk, but being all of 4 feet and change, I don't believe they could really reach the mount to begin with. On the second day, I found it taken off the wall entirely, and sitting on a corner of the tub. Given that on day three it was still down, that was when I did the work myself. The veneer of the laminate floors in the rooms is beginning to wear down. Not being real wood, this is to be expected, but again, suggests that a refinishing of the rooms is in order to justify a price hike. The fitness center is marginal at best; as are the adjoining sauna facilities. Towels were often not available for large portions of the day. They could benefit from re-upping on new towels throughout the hotel as they are not as plush as they could or should be. The pool is tiny and located right by the front entrance. Forget doing any swimming as a workout. You might have to do two hundred thousand laps to get a mile out of your swim. Internet? Sometimes; but never when you need it. Bottom line... Would I stay there again? Yes. But only if the price was right. And the price is no longer right. The hotel has seen better days. While the rooms are fairly clean, looked after by fairly intelligent housekeeping, and contain ample furniture of somewhat suspect design and decent quality, there are newer hotels that offer better amenities and friendlier policies for travelers such as us for less money. And despite what anyone says, Pattaya is simply not that big, so despite the convenience of location, I will stay elsewhere on my next trip. I had inquired with them for my next stay, gotten a bit of a run around then some talk of prepaid deposits, and penalties for this and that, and at that point decided I was better off trying someplace new. I hope that this helps other members determine if LK Metropole is a good fit for them.

The oddity of the situation is that the girls didn't already consider the prospect of making small money many times is likely much more profitable than making big money seldom, especially with regard to repeat business and increasing general traffic to their place of employ.

Wheel in the stone pot is my favorite.

Being American, I appreciate a good, full contact lap dance. I, like Tengotodo, found them lacking in Pattaya. I resolved this situation by: - Going to Soi 6 - Picking out a girl - Going inside to the bar - Sitting on a couch - Buying her a LD - Then having her grind on me for about a half hour. She turned out to be more than fair game and I was out of pocket: a drink for me, a drink for her, and a little bit of conversation and encouragement. Of course it led to sweaty sex in a hot upstairs room, but when on Soi 6...

Sometimes it is disappointing when the girl refuses to leave the next day.

Tops market has a GNC section. Left side when you are walking in. After the registers on your way out.