ktappinen

Sometimes a baht bus goes all the way past Pu Pen. More often than not they either turn left at the police box at Thanon Chaiyaphruek intersection or stop there telling that it is the end of the line. Sometimes we have been able to walk on the other side of the intersection and then catch a baht bus going past Pu Pen. However, if there are not many of you, taking a motorbike taxi from the police box is also a viable option. On the way back we have been forced to walk north along the Jomtien Beach Road to catch a baht bus. Usually this has been possible at the Family Mart which is a few hundred meters north of Pu Pen, next to the entrance to a shop house complex. Occasionally I have taken a motorbike taxi from there, too. Pu Pen is very far down Jomtien Beach Road where the road veers away from the beach. I would not care to walk between it and the main baht bus route (over one mile).

Thai police has requested entertainment venues to refrain from joyful shows and performances until November 8th. The period might be extended, just as the official mourning period http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/376377/mourning-period-for-late-supreme-patriarch-extended This Friday evening the interpretation on Soi Cowboy was that no music and no dancing was permitted. The major agogos were closed but some small ones were open, but only serving drinks with no entertainment apart from conversation. The word about the note from police had not been communicated very well and dancers and band members kept turning up and being very baffled why the soi was dark and there was no work. I believe the only exception was Crazy House which flaunted the instructions and moved the action to the 2nd and 3rd floors. I had a good time, including plenty of fully pretty nude dancers and a dancer's hand up the leg of my. shorts which is rare in Bangkok. Has there been any effect in Pattaya, since the police request should apply across the country?

Pentaband has not directly anything to do with smartphones, since it refers to the number of radio frequencies supported by the hardware. In the days of plain vanilla GSM networks you knew that your phone was going to work in any country with a GSM network if you bought a "quadband" product. 3G complicated things, and it is still common that phones do not handle all 3G frequencies so that either 850 MHz or 900 MHz are not supported. Some manufacturers even sell in different countries the 'same' phone model so that it is configured to use a different set of frequencies. You need to check the details if you want be be sure that your phone works properly outside the country in which it was bought.

Good advice. If you are willing to settle for the limitations and risks of a copy product, you could as well settle for the limitations of a brand-name Nokia. Nowadays their name is mud, so the prices are pretty cheap, but the products are actually quite good. Their smarter phones (Symbian or the Asha 302/303 products) have offered pentaband 3G connectivity (HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100) since 2010. Actually you could nowadays expect any noname phone to offer (slow) quadband (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) GSM connectivity, but you can find even new (dual-SIM) products limited to GSM 900 / 1800. In Thailand AIS uses 900/2100 MHz for 3G while DTAC and TRUE use 850/2100 MHz. The 2100 MHz frequency is supported rather universally around the globe, but the lower frequencies offer a much better coverage since they propagate farther than 2100 MHz. As a result, in some country your phone might be supported in theory but not in practice since the only base station in the neighbourhood is using the 'wrong' lower frequency.

I actually had a wedding anniversary dinner there three years ago, but that was before the Hangover II movie. Back then the prices were definitely expensive, but afterwards we felt that the food in addition to the view and service justified the cost. If they have further cranked up the prices riding on their exposure in Hangover II, then they probably are now over the top. Based on the photos it seems like a good idea to visit the Sky Bar as soon as it opens. We subsequently visited Sky Bar after the release of the Hangover II movie, and the crowd was awful at 9pm.

http://www.metageek....ducts/inssider/ is a handy free tool for seeing which Wi-Fi networks are available and what are the signal strengths and used channels. I have used it to find which channels have the least competition in my block of flats, so that I could reconfigure my Wi-Fi box to use those. It works on Windows XP, Vista and 7, so you do not need to worry about the fiddly UI differences between these operating systems.

Nevermind - MM posted a more informative reply telling the same thing...

Oh, that is certainly a factor, since the airline does not have such restrictions on the flights to Japan. At least half the passengers appeared to be Norwegians, though. On the other hand, that was just my most recent illustrative experience. My Emirates flight BKK-HKG-BKK was in the end nothing really special despite high expectations: check-in with all the queuing was horrible, inflight service was slow and harassed, seats were ordinary, personal entertainment system was brilliant, and meal presentation above average. My Singapore Airlines flight BKK-SIN-BKK in August 2011 also felt like quite an ordinary one, while I can still remember how I was totally blown away during my first BKK-SIN-BKK flights in 2001: it was just incredible that they offered in economy class a personal entertainment system, a full meal despite a short flight and great service by incredbly pretty stewardesses; in principle the same elements were there but we were not impressed - afterwards flying Air Asia no longer felt like it would have been an inferior choice. In 2009-2010 Thai Airways also appeared to be much poorer than on my flights 8 years earlier. Which airlines can now claim to provide intercontinental economy class flights at a better service level and no silly extra fees compared to what they did ten years ago (or when they started operations)? I would definitely consider switching over to use them even if the total travel time would increase.

Sadly things have started going downhill in general at least in economy class. My feeling is that the quality peaked some ten years ago when good airlines were already offering personal entertainment systems even in economy class. Since the low-cost airlines took off, we are being nickel-dimed to death. One example is that the Finnish national airline now provides a limited amount of free wine and beer only with meals in economy class on the Bangkok route - otherwise any alcoholic drinks are charged separately.

If you are concerned about mosquitos, I can fully agree with getting an apartment at a high floor, whatever the exact number is. While living in Bangalore my condo was on the 7th floor and I was never bothered there with mosquitos, while Indian colleagues living on e.g. 3rd floor were complaining about them. The area definitely had mosquitos and you were supposed to eat anti-malarial drugs, but I never did and did not have a problem despite living there for two years. (I got too many side-effects from the drugs on the initial visits.) Wasps were a different story, though - they were powerful and willing enough to fly that high and push into the room.

I was positively surprised about the price compared to the apparent quality, so this was a good benchmark, when looking for accommodation. In fact my mom was quoted a comparable price for a more ascetic condo room in the Thapphraya Road area when she booked it from her 'trusted service provider' for next December. Definitely no mood lights there. Pray tell us where you can find similar accommodation at a lower price. In general I agree with the original poster's decision not to quote prices directly. The post will stay around for years while prices can change, but the link should continue to work if the place is still available for rent.

With good airlines the service is included in a business class ticket, with worse airlines it is not.You can also book the service separately from more than one service provider even if you traveling in economy class. http://www.bangkok.com/fast-track-services.htm http://www.thaifasttrack.com/index.php?p=1_10_Fast-Track

Tony really should start marketing whatever it is that keeps him so young - over the years he has always looked the same in the advertising posters!

A lot depends on your point of reference - is it Seattle or Santa Fe or Miami? August in Pattaya is not in the hottest season, but January tends to be cooler. However, the typical highest daytime temperatures are a bit lower than in Miami in August, while nights are a bit warmer. There usually is more rain than in January, but less than in September or June. The average rainfall is about half of what Miami gets in August. The rain also tends to be quite predictable: the typical pattern is that you have rain showers in late afternoon/evening, Sensible players start out early morning to be able to finish before the hottest part of the day and to minimize the risk of being hit by the rain. However, thus far the 2012 weather has not been quite typical in Thailand. August is the summer holiday month for many Europeans, but they are less desperate to come to Thailand than during the atrocious winter months. In particular the golfers are able to play at their home courses instead of traveling to Pattaya as so many golfers do in my home country in December and January. August is well into the official rainy season, so the Pattaya golf courses may be in a better condition than in April, although the irrigation is quite thorough all around the year. If you are an avid golfer and intend to play practically every day for a month, you can do as my mother has done now for years: rent a condo practically next to her favorite golf bar. This makes it painless to catch the van to the day's golf course in the early morning. There are no golf courses in Pattaya town or even Jomtien, so you will have to ride a van for a while to reach one. There are outlying resorts with an attached golf course, but these are really the worst option, since they won't be arranging tours to their competitors and you hardly want to play a single course day after day when there are so many others available - and downtown entertainment will be far away. Searching the forum will provide accommodation tips: http://www.pattayata...__fromsearch__1 seemed to be the most recent one. Of course, a first-timer runs the risk of not finding the bar nor the other customers to be amicable. My mother's latest visit was in December, and she was griping about the golf courses' response to the lower demand due to the floods: they refused to let people to share a golf buggy and the additional fee - in the past two persons were allowed to share. Of course this is significant only if you are not willing or able to walk the course, but quite many people find it to be too much to walk in the heat and humidity. As a result, in her case playing 18 holes in Pattaya costs now about the same as in our home country. The fee for the golf bar for the van rides and the breakfast, the green fee, the golf buggy rental and finally the tip to the mandatory caddy added up to be over USD 75. This is still about the same as the average green fee back home - without the caddy and the golf buggy.

The map link quoted by Gabor has the location (map reference A) badly off - they even state that the location is 'approximate'. The green pointer in http://maps.google.c...&num=1&t=v&z=15 is close to the restaurant sign and main building. The road makes a right-angle turn away from the beach right at the restaurant. They also set up open-air tables along the beach road. Coming south from the north end of Jomtien there is an entrance to a parking lot about 50 metres before the restaurant. We had a family dinner there on March 10th. It was really busy at 7pm on a Saturday. We even had to wait for a table, or rather the wife located a table that was about to check bin and staked it out until the previous customers departed. The service staff was not quite up to it. For some reason they started trying to deliver us dishes we had not ordered after we had already requested the bill. The cost was about 800 baht for 4 people, including one large Chang for me while others drank only water. The Thais appeared happy with the food, and I did not find anything wrong with it, either, although I'm no expert on seafood. This was our first visit to "Uncle Sawai's" - during previous visits to Pattay we have been trying other beachfront seafood restaurants north of this one.