Gary

Apparently the Drunken Duck is doing well. Due to the good reports, I decided to give it a try. I wanted two rooms for three nights because they have a minimum three night rule. I sent them an email and they did have two rooms available. I understood the rooms were 850 baht and I expected a Pattaya Talk discount. No discount was offered and no explanation for a 1,000 baht rate rather than 850 baht. I had to say thanks but no thanks.

The search I did gave a location south of Pattaya on the beach side of Sukhumvit. I have never been there but it would certainly be worth a phone call to find out. Supposedly there is another shelter near the lake on the dark side. The web sites seem to forget that we need to know their locations.

In my opinion it is better to adopt a dog. Considering the dishonest breeders you will probably be better off with a street bred dog. Puppies at Care For Dogs At any given time we can have several new mums and pups at the shelter. If you think you could provide a loving forever home for either call us now English (08 47 52 52 55) or Thai language (08 69 13 87 01) EDIT - Added link; http://www.carefordogs.org/

you're perfectly welcome. My first Thai wife was a very talented seamstress and dress designer. Someone would bring her a picture of a dress they wanted and she would design and make it. She was always quite busy so I finally told her she could hire a maid. What a mistake that was. That gave her time to become thoroughly addicted to gambling. A Thai woman who is a gambling addict is useless.

Historically here in Thailand, children of influential people get away with even murder. I'm talking about murder in a public place (nightclub) with MANY witnesses. That particular kid is now an influential politician himself. Fear and payoffs keep witnesses from testifying. It may be too early to draw a conclusion but on the surface it appears to be more of the same and that this young girl is just another spoiled kid who has no regard for human life. Remember the cop in Pai who shot and killed a young Canadian? He was never prosecuted and was quickly out on bail. Since then he has m

Just recently a pickup truck pulled out in front of a Thai motorcycle taxi. The motorcycle taxi avoided the pickup but went down and was run over by a cement truck. At least he didn't suffer long.

Thai Visa is reporting that the American, James Crocker has died of his injuries. RIP

If your wife works and makes the big baht, maybe a maid is justified. If she doesn't work there is no reason that you shouldn't kick her in the ass and tell her to take care of the kids and clean the house. If I were single and had a big place, the only maid I would have is a FULL service maid. If I had a wife who demanded a maid, I'd find a new wife.

More powerful bikes are more dangerous. Before anybody disputes that statement, I'll explain. I had a Honda Wave and never had any serious close calls. I moved up to Kawasaki Boss. It wasn't a fast bike compared to more powerful crotch rockets but it would easily beat the scooters and Honda Phantoms. The Boss is 175 cc and newer Phantoms are 200 cc. It used to tickle me to be able to beat my friend's Phantoms. It was also fun to fly around the scooter bikes just because I could do it. After a couple of VERY close calls, I decided that small bikes are safer because I tended to get stupid and c

Good tip. I set AdBlock to "Not run" on the site and it now opens fine with Chrome.

I'm using the latest beta versions of both Chrome and Firefox. Niether will open the site.

I have found that the Pattaya Daily news will not work with Chrome or Firefox. It does work properly with Internet Explorer. This just happened very early this morning so it should be there. I have copied and pasted the story. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two unidentified foreign male had a motorbike accident on the Thappraya Road between South Pattaya and Jomtien. One of them died instantly and his friend was in serious injury and had been brought to the Pattaya Memorial hospital. Pattaya,

Link; http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/

Just today I spent a lot of time trying to open my little electronic safe. The batteries died and there was not enough power to work the internal solenoid. The safe is the type that has a keyhole under a hidden plastic cover. The potato or wooden mallet trick may work if the safe isn't fastened down but mine is bolted through the wall. My wife had the keys hidden and couldn't remember where she hid them. I think the secret to keeping these electronic safes somewhat secure is to have them securely fastened down. I was debating getting my angle grinder out and cutting the bolts off through t

I am of the opinion the a thousand baht Nokia is by far the best choice. I have a fairly expensive Nokia smart phone and also a Windows phone with all the gadgets including GPS. I use a cheap Phillips phone that can text and talks great. I use the cheap Phillips because it has GREAT battery life. A phone is for talking and other than that nothing else is important. I like electronic gadgets and have four Garmin GPS units. Any of the four is much better than a do everything phone. The fancy phones are nice toys but as far as I am concerned, just a waste of money. I bought the Windows phone

The entire Skype system went down so don't screw something up trying to fix it.

Now that I have had a chance to ride a couple hundred kilometers, I can say that I am pleased with the Yamaha Elegance. The automatic takes some getting used to. When I first start off, my feet are looking for the foot pegs as well as when slowing down, my right foot is looking for the brake. I keep forgetting that the left hand lever is the rear brake and that there are NO foot pegs. Logic tells me that the automatics are safer because the chances of having your leg between the bike and some idiot that broadsides you is MUCH less. There are a lot of one legged Thais that have lost legs becaus

The cost of loving comes WAY down. Not only that but I stay home much more. I go out drinking a couple times a week and usually go home by 7:00 PM. My wife is not the jealous type so I am free to take road trips by myself to wherever. I only do that maybe every three months. It's not hard to spend several thousand baht on a night out when you are single. My average bar bill for my couple times a week is less than 300 baht unless I want a quickie. That quickie will cost me maybe 500 baht if I feel generous.

The advantages with a support visa is less money required and age doesn't matter. Apparently the government believes that two (or more) can live cheaper than one. (Maybe that's true). It is for me. I am legally married but keep 800,000 baht in a Thai bank and get retirement extensions. The support visa requires a lot of hassle and since I am well over fifty, I prefer the much more simple option.

You must be fifty years old for a retirement visa, so you are out of luck there. I have a Brit friend who goes to Laos, posts his passport to his sister in the UK and she posts it to Hull. They ask no questions, issue the extension and post it back to her. She then posts it back to Laos. The Express mail is expensive but at least secure. It takes him about ten or twelve days to complete the process. It is then good for fifteen months with every 90 days in and out border runs.

You're right. The Nouvo kickstand is dangerous. It pivots quite a ways forward of straight down. The Suzuki pivots to nearly straight down. I nearly dropped the Nouvo in my driveway because of the kickstand. It is fairly easy to push the Suzuki forward off the kickstand and the bike will fall over. The Nouvo is difficult to push forward because the bike raises nearly straight up until the pivot reaches center point. Which is better? I think I would prefer the bike to fall over without me on it than with me on it. So I was wrong, the Nouvo kickstand could cause a nasty spill.

We are not talking about motorcycles. We are talking about motorbikes or maybe more accurately scooters. These are great little get around town vehicles or go to the market vehicles. Maybe the 135 Elegance or the Honda PCX are suitable for trips of 30 kilometers or so, but longer hi way trips are best left to motorcycles of maybe 600 cc minimum. The bigger bikes are not so handy if you are doing only local trips. My longest trips are normally less than 10 kilometers one way. A big bike would definitely be a waste. Unfortunately the little scooters here come with tubed tires. I suspect the reas

Tubeless tires are a must for me. Tubes in Thailand are really shit. The Suzuki Best has the alloy wheels but tube type tires. Punctures are one thing but flat tires for no obvious reason suck. Here in the boonies, the Elegance is out the door with alloy wheels and tubeless tires for 56,000 baht. I have taken off with the kickstand down and the first left turn kicked it up with no problems except to make me feel stupid. The main advantage for the new Honda is a bigger fuel tank. The under seat storage is quite big but the Elegance will also hold a full size helmet with no problem. The Eleg

Getting back to motorbikes, today I am the owner of a new Nouvo Elegance. I had a ride on a Honda PCX. I liked it really well but some of the things like the automatic stop and start seem like a waste to me. The kickstand interlock also irritated me. Simple things are normally better. The Elegance has tubeless tires and no fuel injection to stump the local mechanics. The Elegance also seems to be a little faster with the 135cc engine. Yamaha has more experience with the automatic transmission and I trust their engineering more than the Honda. The bottom line was the price. Paying 72,000 baht f

I lived outside of Bangkok in a gated secure village. I was hit twice in two years. Secure? I think the thieves were working with security guards.