Bruce Mangosteen

That sucks mate, sorry to hear.

As long as you stay away from the tourist areas, you should be able to avoid the water cannons. I love the small children who are having fun splashing water and don't mind getting a bit wet from them on a hot afternoon. It's just a whole different atmosphere, much more fun and relaxed, and easier to write off as a charming indigenous festival than when you get pelted with water or bombed with a sack of powder by some drunk, hulking farang.

Songkran in Pattaya (nominally) runs during the week of April 13 this year. That's fairly late, so there's plenty of time to plan for it. Funny, when I lived there, I never felt like I wanted to leave the country to avoid it. For most of the celebration we stayed around our condo in View Talay 1, which featured bars, restaurants and small shops on the ground floor (that didn't allow water inside), and Foodmart was just outside the compound. It was actually quite enjoyable to hang out and watch the kids have run. I normally went out into it once or twice during the week. If one of Lady M.'s kids drove down we'd go join the mad traffic inching through town, drinking beers and chatting with people alongside the road. I felt welcomed by the Thai folk, who would almost always ask my permission to sprinkle me with water or gently smear my face with the white paste. I had a similar experience with Songkran in Ayutthaya and other places outside the tourist zones. Otherwise, our favorite thing to do was to hang out in front of TQ. There we'd drink and engage in water fights with passers-by, with a dry towel and a toilet always right at hand. What are your plans? If you're in country, will you try to escape or stay up-country? If not, will you avoid Thailand, or go there but dodge the party?

Excellent thread, 10/10. I've been to most of those places including the car show. Coincidentally a buddy of mine was there and posted some pics of it on Assbook. Only if you're posting someone else's pics and representing them as your own. 😀

IIRC, the rule of thumb is 1 year of turnover or 3 years of profit, Alex would know this.

Almost unthinkable innit? Personally I think he'll hang in there instead, maybe take on a manager or even a partner, and make some changes. I haven't seen him in nearly a year, so my opinion might change after some time spent in his company.

^Nice.

Because it doesn't rhyme with "howler", "jaguar", or "dinosaur"?

Well, you folks added the "u" to your words in tribute to your Norman/French conquerors, so I'd think twice about going there if I were you. https://www.onlinewritingjobs.com/writing-tips/writing-in-british-english-vs-american-english/ Hell of a time finding references for that unlike before. Pretty embarrassing I guess. Anyway, get back to me when "color" rhymes with "hour", "flour", "sour", etc.

On the far-right maybe 2.5th.

Every child should be taught how to be comfortable in water and to stay afloat at a bare minimum IMHO.

Huh, I never knew that. Thanks for digging that up. One of the first things I did with my Thai now-wife was to teach her and her children how to swim. I'm now doing that for her grandchildren.

We love Korean food, so I hope it succeeds.

Unofficially, Songkran has always been a month long. It's regionally celebrated (with water chucking) for different one-week periods. No change to that is envisioned, the government is going to sponsor other cultural events during the month. https://thepattayanews.com/2024/02/08/thailand-to-celebrate-21-days-of-songkran-in-april-really/ "Basically, the 21 days of Songkran is nothing new. Different parts of Thailand have celebrated the festival on different days for various reasons for decades. Pattaya’s big day, for example, is April 19th, partly to encourage domestic tourism after the official national days. The official national days, by the way, will remain April 13th to the 15th, with public holidays running to the 16th. Pattaya, as usual, will likely run from the 12th to about the 19th. In terms of the 21 days, the thought process behind this is NOT 21 days of water throwing. Instead, it’s best to think about it like Christmas, in which decorations, music, cultural presentations, etc. will take place for the entire month. The idea for Songkran is similar, with events proposed across Thailand from April 1st to the 21st, almost all of them focused on religious, cultural, and traditional heritage aspects. Yes, there will still be water play, but according to Thai officials it will be limited to the official days and not the whole three week period. So, for now, readers can rest easy that this doesn’t mean 21 days of water throwing across Thailand. Regardless, many of our regular readers and expats likely will plan to either stay indoors or even leave Thailand during the festival, while droves of tourists, domestic and foreign, arrive." Note that the above link may not work if you click it, seems there's a problem on their website at the moment. I promise that's where the quoted text comes from though.

Badum bump TSSSSS! He's here all week, folks! Don't forget to tip your waiters and waitresses! And, try the veal!

IMO one of the most underrated guitarists in history. Listen for George Harrison on slide.

I wonder how long it will take them to work out why nobody is paying by the month?

Probably belongs to the body in the trunk...

Few pics of the Oxygen Beachfront Resort, Pratumnak.

View of the beach from the front of the LK Empress.

The old airport in Hong Kong was a hoot too. http://www.squidoo.com/kai-tak

Thanks mate. I take a sequence of adjoining photos, making sure there is some detail shared between each pair of adjacent photos, then use a software package called Autostitch to join them. Free download here: http://cvlab.epfl.ch/~brown/autostitch/autostitch.html

A summary of the weather as of about 15 minutes ago: The thunder was mostly coming from a thunderstorm cell I figure was not far from Laem Chabang. Over Pattaya (photo right) it appears to be raining pretty steadily. Here in Jomthien (center, photo left) we've had intermittent showers. Presently we're having a moderate strength shower with the sun attempting to poke its way out at the same time.

Bump, in case you missed it!

Thanks Ron.