DrPat

Many thanks for all the suggestions. I’ll try to sample as many as possible in the very near future. As I’m a good ‘knife and fork man’ (or a good ‘spoon and fork’ man in Thailand) are there any other good Thai restaurants to add to the list, preferably in the area between Drinking Street and Walking Street?

Which are currently the best Thai restaurants in Pattaya? All suggestions will be gratefully received. (…and before anyone says that ALL of the restaurants in Pattaya are Thai restaurants, I mean the best restaurants serving Thai food.)

Well I suppose the Colonel does have a nice smile, but Ronny McDonald looks a bit scary to me. Come to think of it, I did sit outside of one of the coffee shops there last year and saw two women painting the front of the building. That’s something you don’t see in the UK every day – two women painting a shopping centre.

Pile drivers – that sounds like fun, but not early morning fun. I’ll probably stick with Sabai Wing for mid-March, but if it proves noisy I’ll move on. Each visit I try to check out a few hotels for future ref. If I CAN stand the possible pile drivers (and the ladies can stand mine, hem, hem), I’ll add Sabai Inn to my inspection list for next time. Must admit Sabai Wing was pretty good last year. Thanks again for the help and advice.

I can never work out why so many people eat at Burger King, McDonalds and KFC on the ground floor, when they could have something so much nicer or the top floor.

Excellent service! Once again Pattaya Talk comes to the rescue. Many thanks nus01 and the other BMs who replied.

Thanks for the info. I think the place will be fine for another stay. I’ll ask for a room on the Soi 2 side. Are the baht busses still running every few minutes on Soi 2? Thanks again - much appreciated.

Just done a search for “Food Wave”, the food court on the top floor of Royal Garden Plaza – no results. I have found it OK if you want some food sharp-ish. Particularly useful mid-afternoon or if you are out mob-handed so each person can have a different cuisine. Must admit I usually have the Pad Thai, which is pretty good. It must seat about five hundred, so I’m guessing some other BMs must have been there. What did you think of the place?

Many thanks for the info EP. I’d hate to think that I would be disturbed by banging – unless it was me doing the banging of course. Sadly, as you have used your own past experiences and didn’t make a specific journey I’m afraid you do not qualify for the cash reward, however TL may still qualify for a nice shiny 10 baht coin! Seriously – many thanks for the info and any info yet to come.

Come on guys! Over twenty-four hours and still no reply? Someone must have wandered away from Walking Street and checked out Sabai Wing (or Sabai Lodge) at some stage. I’ll even refund the baht bus fare to the first one to reply!! (fare only / tip not refundable / terms and conditions apply / your house at be at risk / etc etc)

Any updates on the building work near Sabai Wing? SW was very good when I stayed there last year, and I’m thing of booking it again for mid-March. Is the building noise still a problem, and what is the news on baht busses running on Soi 2? Any info would be gratefully received.

Airfares from the UK are totally out of hand! In March 2010 I paid £480. In March 2011 it had increased to £527. I have been monitoring prices for this March and for any half-decent flight times it looks like I will be paying between £650 and £750! All of these ‘green’ taxes are a joke. Anyone who has looked into it knows that ‘global warming’ is just a con to extract yet more tax money. Here in the UK it has been bloody freezing over the past few weeks. If global warming was real it would be fantastic to have the temperature here a couple of degrees warmer all year! If it was real, hot countries should be paying us!

I’ll drink to that! One of my favourite quotes of all time is: “Work is the curse of the drinking classes” - Oscar Wilde

This commentary (about cricketers Michael Holding and Peter Willey) is one of my favourites, along with… The piece on the UK kids show ‘Blue Peter’ featured the original Durham cathedral sanctuary doorknocker along with a recently produced replica. At the beginning of the next item presenter Simon Groom commented, “What a lovely pair of knockers”. And, my all time favourite, from the Fanny Cradock cookery programme of the 1950’s and 60’s. After she had demonstrated how to make doughnuts, Fanny Cradock’s husband Johnny commented, “Well, I hope all of your doughnuts look like Fanny’s”

Top-notch gag BD! Gets an A+ from me. Reminds me of the time I taught my dog to play cards. He was quite good, but every time he got a good hand he would wag his tail. (I used to beat him 3 times out of 4.)

I think we are starting to converge on this one. If you’ve been there, done that and (in this case probably literally) got the T-shirt, no problem. We all have a different view on these things, but I just feel that there must be a fair few Pattaya regulars who view BKK as BKK - i.e. an airport. I agree that the big three are well spread (if you’ll pardon the pun), but I haven’t been to Patpong for many years – it’s worth seeing, but like your perfectly reasonable view of the cultural places, once was enough for my. In my view, Patpong is for falang, not for regulars. Having said this, my main wing-man really likes the place. On Sukhumvit, to travel from Nana to Cowboy is a 50 baht taxi ride, one stop on the sky train, or a 10 minute walk. Also there is the Thermae coffee shop (always entertaining), the German beer garden on Soi 7 (good for afternoons) and action to be had in the Nana Hotel carpark. My theory on anywhere in the world is if you have a good time the first time you go there, you’ll go back and try and recreate it. If you dislike somewhere the first time, it’s very unlikely you’ll ever go back. The first time I went to Cowboy, it became my ‘happy place’. I 100% agree that BKK is more expensive than Pattaya, but to me they compliment each other. Bottom line, when visiting the LoS my view is, have a day or two in BKK at each end of the visit if possible, but, especially if time is tight, spend at least two thirds of the time in Pattaya – my other ‘happy place’!

I’m sure that a good number, probably the majority, look at it the same way – What’s another hour or so? But what about my other point that there is so much more to see and do in BKK than there is in Pattaya. Soak up a bit of culture. Go see the palaces and monasteries. Have a ride on the sky train and the river taxis. Then have a good night shagging around Sukhumvit. Also, on the way home if I can book an overnight flight leaving around 2am, I spent the last two nights in BKK, but only need an hotel room for the first. The last night can be spent in BKK with time for ‘one last one’ before collecting my luggage from the hotel and jumping in a cab back to the airport. That final bit of recreational bonking (plus a few drinks on the ‘plane) ensures me a good nights sleep!

On my trips to BKK / Pattaya I have always used plastic to raise funds as I wouldn’t feel comfortable carrying a large amount of cash. Initially a Nationwide debit card which, at that time, didn’t charge commission for foreign deals. When Nationwide started charging commission I switched to using credit cards, usually pre-loading a couple of hundred quid - i.e. paying £200 more than I owed. The interest on a ‘no foreign charges’ credit card, say a Halifax Clarity, is typically 12% per year, so 1% per month. So if you pay it off in full as soon as you return to the UK a £1000 advance will typically cost around £5 over a fortnight. Also, you can get round the 150 baht ATM charge by going into a bank with your credit card and passport. It’s up to you if this additional hassle is worth saving around £3 per £200 cash advance. You can even estimate how much you will spend and set up regular pre-loading payments (maybe £200 every four days?) from your bank account to your credit card, although, as I say, £1000 will only cost £5 interest over a fortnight. Incidentally, I always take more than one ‘no foreign charges’ card just in case of problems, but in ten years of visits haven’t had to resort to a back-up card. Also, I NEVER take cards out on evening expeditions, although, again in ten years I would never have had a problem if I had – i.e. I have always returned to base camp with my wallet. Picking up on the other point in your post, I also start and end my trips to the LoS with a couple of days in BKK. This is partly because I don’t think I could face a long taxi ride after 15+ hours travelling from the UK, and also because there is so much to see and do in BKK by day and there is Nana and Cowboy by night. My usual format on leaving the airport is to taxi into town check in at the hotel and then off to a soapie… Final general advice: Be careful, as you would in any foreign country - although personally I feel safer in BKK than I do in many UK cities, especially late at night. Have a good time, but don’t get too drunk as that can defeat the objective of the trip. Start planning your next trip ASAP. I’ll be amazed if you, like any bloke from the UK, goes to the LoS only once.

You can of course avoid the surcharge on ATM withdrawals in Thailand by using your card inside the bank or exchange place. I have done this in Pattaya in the exchange just past the Royal Garden shopping centre. The only down side is you also need your passport with you for identification.

Two points here: Firstly, with the credit card surcharges, on the likes of Ryanair, there is always a way round the surcharge if you take the trouble to apply for the right credit card – even if that card changes every year. In this way the people who can’t be arsed to get around the charges subsidise the one’s who do. It’s rather like the way virtually all UK pubs serve short measures of draught beer. If you ask for a full measure they are obliged to give it. So people who accept short measures subsidise the ones (like me) who always ask for a full measure. If they were forced by law to give full measures they would simply put the prices up to compensate – as will the airlines. Secondly, the biggest rip-off on airfares is taxation. I recently used my air miles to upgrade one of the four legs of a flight to BKK. Upgrading the final leg from Dubai to the UK only cost air miles. If I had upgraded the UK to Dubai leg I would have had to spend the air miles plus £80 extra tax.

Has nobody noticed that the 10 Baht coin is virtually identical to a 2 Euro coin? Same diameter, thickness, weight and bi-metal construction. Apart from the milled edge being slightly dissimilar (and obviously the pictures), the main difference is the value - a 2 Euro coin is worth more than eight times as much as a 10 Baht coin, so it’s just possible that quite a few have made their way to the Euro-zone. Incidentally, the 10 Baht was around way before the Euro, so who decided to copy its design for the 2 Euro coin? No wonder the Euro is heading for the history books!