forcebwithu

They should have made Buakhao one way today. The picture below doesn't show it well, but Buakhao is gridlocked from Soi Lengkee north to Klang due to the electric line work. Looks like they're going to have the holes filled on 2nd Rd before the traffic madness starts tomorrow.

Beach Rd is getting lane markings this morning. Meanwhile on the section from the WS entrance to 2nd Rd they're digging a trench. Something else I noticed about the new curb project, they're putting in new curbs from this point to the south. But the section to the north they're leaving in place the old curbs. Could be they're waiting until they rip up the old footpath, but that then begs the question why did they skip this section to start on the footpath rebuild south of this point.

This might be the reason the footpath destruction and reconstruction is moving in fits and starts. They started on putting in new curbs on the north end many, many months ago, but for some reason they didn't continue on the entire length of Beach Rd. Now they're finally getting around to replacing the curbs on the south end, and until they do that's holding up the footpath work. Amazing Thailand.

Just occurred to me to check Google Street View which has images going back to 2012. Sure enough, Oct 2012 there's White Lotus sandwiched between Katesiree and Good Day Massage. https://www.google.co.th/maps/@12.9293201,100.8851553,3a,75y,311.55h,85.67t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1syg8p5wEKEFHwyeq8ZP_JuQ!2e0!5s20121001T000000!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&entry=ttu The location is now a gold shop.

Google search led me to a reference on Teakdoor which had a now defunct website address. https://teakdoor.com/view.php?pg=pattaya-guesthouses-hotels-and-rooms-for-rent Plugging the URL into Wayback Machine I had to go back to February 2011 to find an active web page archive. So that tells me the bar probably went bust, or they let their URL expire sometime in 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20140101000000*/http://www.pattayawhitelotus.com/ Here's a screenshot of the web page before the registration for the URL expired. https://web.archive.org/web/20110207105345/http://www.pattayawhitelotus.com/

Cop on a horse says to little girl on a bike, “Did Santa get you that?” “Yes” replied the little girl. “Well tell him to put a reflector on it next year!” And fines her $5. The little girl looks up at the cop and says, “Nice horse you got there, did Santa bring you that?” The cop chuckles and replies, “He sure did!” “Well” says the little girl, Next year tell Santa that the dick goes under the horse, not on top of it”.

IIRC they had live music as well. I found mention of the place in Pattaya News Flash from back in 2008. http://www.pattayanewsflash.com/2008/november.html Some photos on Tripadvisor as well. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g293919-d7391986-Reviews-Africano-Pattaya_Chonburi_Province.html

Pattaya Jazz Festival this weekend featuring Kenny G who will play Saturday night.

Apologies if this strays too far into politics in the general area, just found it funny regardless of one's political ideology.

That was quite the storm late afternoon yesterday. I was out at a hash run near Rugby School Thailand when the heavens opened up just as groups of hashers started to arrive. We stayed huddled on the baht buses as the worst of the storm pounded down. At one point it even started hailing which is a very rare occurrence here. A hash run to be remembered.

Quite a few groups enjoying the beach early this morning. Air quality is also noticeably bad. AQI now stands at 85.

A nice start to another day in Pattaya.

It's been years since I've been to a bar where they have an owner side and where all the ladies would hang out. Always thought it an odd arrangement to have the substantial physical barrier between you and your possible future wife for the night. One such bar I had bought a LD and the lady remained on the owner side. When I asked her to come around and sit with me, her reply is she could only leave the owner side if the customer BF her. Whether true or not, it was enough for me drink up and leave never to return.

@teelack posted about his walk through of MYTH yesterday. I heard from another LD's are 180B, very high IMHO for a beer bar.

^^^ Please have a thought on the following before posting anymore links to that low life piece of pond scum. Always saw the guy for what he is, a disrespectful low life. But he crossed a line with a video he put up complaining about being overcharged for parking in Vietnam (link to a reddit post with the video). With the extremely vile comments he made to the parking attendant he showed the world that he is the walking definition of a sick low life. He's also a coward as I doubt very much he would have said what he did if there was any chance someone around him understood English. For sure they would have cleaned his clock on the spot if they understood the horrible words coming out of his mouth.

They finally got smart and removed the curbs at the low dips in the footpath along Beach Rd, that helped quite a bit. They still have to contend with the torrent of water running down the side soi's. The soi 13's are particularly bad for the volume of water that comes from those soi's and crosses Beach Rd. The pics below are not as bad as I've seen in other storms, probably because I was late on the scene to catch it at max flooding stage. To handle that volume of water they'd probably have to turn the soi 13's into canals that pass under Beach Rd. But as there isn't much height above sea level at that point, they'd have to resort to massive pumps like they now have near the WS entrance to move that volume of water into the sea.

With all the concrete they've put down over the decades, not enough green space is left to absorb the rain and help mitigate the flooding. There's also the matter that with the volume of water that falls during a tropical storm, it would be a cost prohibitive project to build a big enough drainage system to handle peak runoff. Best they can hope for is to move as much water to the sea as possible and decrease the length of time the streets are flooded. That seems to have happened as the flood waters recede much more quickly than just a few years ago.

See the same on Arunotai. Beach Rd also has some nice geysers as well. Pic from Aug, 2021.

Can't find it now, but remember seeing a video of the flood waters rushing down Khao Talo. A not unusual occurrence when we get a heavy downpour.

For those interesting in practicing their off road riding skills, Soi Casino is in fine shape for that. Soi Pothole is also in fine shape for challenging your riding skills. Clever idea for a hydroponic garden.

Back now from picking up my passport from Manareet with another year's extension to stay. No extra money was handed over for not reporting my return back in May. When the agent sent my passport over to immigration for the stamps, they had the TM30 stapled to the back page with a portion sticking out. So it's not like the IO didn't see it. It's also obvious it's old as the receipt is from 2017, so it's quite worn by now. Since they weren't busy I asked the agent again about the new TM30 rule. When I pointed to the 2017 date she showed an expression of surprise. Asked if I avoided a fine because I used an agent, but I don't think she knew the answer since she reached out to take my passport back so she could check. I thanked her kindly and said not to bother, leave it be. We all know how that would have turned out if she had gotten on the phone to immigration. So we have one data point that appears the new rule isn't enforced if you use an agent. Hope someone reports back soon that doesn't use an agent what their experience was.

Pulled off the internet...

That's the crux of this new TM30 rule. From what I've read, and what the Manareet agent told me, if you re-enter Thailand, or stay someplace else in Thailand where they file a TM30 for your stay, you need to report to immigration within 24 hours of your return to your home address. Crazy huh! Your earlier post stated you did the extension to stay a few weeks ago, so it might have been before they started this new rule. While I was writing this post Manareet called to let me know my passport was ready to be picked up. I asked the lady again about the new policy and she said it's what I described in the first paragraph. I pointed out that my TM30 in the passport is from 2017 and I returned to Thailand as recently as last May, but immigration didn't fine me. I don't think she understood what I was saying as she repeated the new TM30 rule. The variable here is I used an agent for the extension to stay. We need another data point from someone that's doing their extension to stay on their own and after this new rule was announced to know if the new rule is being enforced, and if those of us using an agent get a pass.