yogi100

When I was young in the 50s and early 60s I had school holidays in Belgium and Holland. WW2 was still in people's memory and the welcome we received as British kids was fantastic. We were treated like celebrities wherever we went. One cafe owner in Holland that we visited would not charge us for our drinks and gave us all a small box of cigars to take home to our fathers. He told us to thank them for their liberation. We were choked with pride and did not really know what to say. How things changed over the next few decades after our 'football supporters' had gone on the rampage in their t

Sorry to deviate from the topic but it has always amazed me that people find the need for a duvet in such a hot climate. I am aware that parts of the country can turn cold at night but not Pattaya. I have always found that just a sheet and a light blanket are adequate even in December and January and even then I have a pedestal fan blowing over the bed although I will have the aircon turned off most nights at that time of the year.. My lodging house in Pattaya provides guests with a duvet but I told the cleaning girl to take mine away as it just took up space in the wardrobe. I'm not a particu

There used to be an M/C gang that in London that used to visit various pubs in South London about 20 - 30 years ago, I think they called themselves the Outlaws or some other equally stupid name. They usually turned up team handed and looked for trouble at the slightest excuse. They'd pick on inoffensive people and would knock the shit out of some poor bugger for no reason. They'd avoid pubs where the local tearaways would fight back but otherwise would terrorise customers and bar staff alike. They were thick stupid arseholes who were into motorcycle theft and small scale drug dealing. They

I've also flown on an 777 with EVA (a twin engined job) and they have the same boxes as the 340 (a four engined machine) under whole rows of aisle seats. I submitted a comment on customer reviews about the under seat restrictions to legroom on these aircraft but my comments strangely so far have not appeared on the website. I experienced no such a problem in 20 odd years and around 30 flights on Jumbo jets although I never had a seat facing the bulkheads to the galley or mid fuselage WCs.

I've flown economy on these new Airbuses that have replaced the 747. Under the aisle seats they have these big boxes that are something to do with the IFE system so you can't stretch your legs out at all so the quoted 34 inch pitch that is claimed is pure bullshit where aisle seats are concerned, infact there is actually NO legroom truth be known. You can only sit upright! Bear in mind you have to endure these cramped conditions for 12 - 13 hours! It is now truly a nightmare journey if you get an aisle seat as many folk find it nigh on impossible to sleep sitting upright. The IFE scree

SPT. You are probably aware of the poor exchange rate for the GBP compared to what it was in 2005. If you are not you soon will be when you get to Pattaya. A 1000 baht now costs you over £20! Have a good time, 3,500 should be plenty for a young fellow like you.

Naked City was a very popular American crime series in the UK (there are 8 milliion stories etc etc). Wagon Train and Rawhide were also very popular. My favourite was Wells Fargo.

Good advice. Pattaya is a place for single men and even some of them get fed up with the commercialisation after the false smiles wear off so you might want to stay out of the centre of things after a while so rent don't buy and keep looking round for a place you really take to. Things change quickly in Pattaya and good neighbours can be replaced by bad ones overnight. I'd advise you to rent a condo and give yourselves time to get the lay of the land. In central Pattaya you won't want a car as transport is cheap and reliable but driving is a nightmare. Neighbours will put you right on thin

The old pier was just before the open bars with the boxing ring at the start of walking Street where the public 5 baht toilets are. It was still there about six yeras ago and local people and a few Falangs used to fish off of it just like they do in Western resorts that have piers. I asked a chap who was fishing there with his girlfriend how he was getting on and he showed me an assortment of tiddlers, small crabs and squid in a plastic bucket which he said they made into a fish soup.

I recently flew with Thai on their A340. Both trips were practically fully booked. There is not as much room as on the Jumbo especially in the aisle seats as you have a bloody great box which is something to do with the entertainment system preventing you from stretching your legs out. The little TV screens were blurred and there was not enough contrast control. The fast forward/rewind/pause controls are pretty much hit and miss so the individual TVs are not much of a success. The grub was pretty good but they are stingy with the drinks. Had it not been for the Xanax sleeping pill I took t

Get a photocopy of your passport ID page sealed in plastic to save the risk of losing your passport, most photo shops will supply on for about 50 baht (£1). Then get on some of these bar crawls arranged for newbies by various forums. As previously mentioned there is no such thing as political correctness in the LOS. The Thais base their bar entry policies on their extensive, considerable experience and it's all about how willing the punters are to part with their cash. Normally gogo bars will not admit Indians at all especially if they are from the sub continent, Arabs do not fare any bett

Jacko I used to flirt with the idea of buying a house or a condo in Pattaya 10 years ago and I also thought how nice it would be to have a young girlfriend and drive around in a fancy 4 wheel drive Toyota pick up truck but the closest I ever got to it was renting a motor scooter. This was until about five years ago and it was a headache parking in certain sois even then. I soon gave up driving any sort of vehicle in Pattaya. I used to drive in London for 40 years and it was such a relief to finally give up my car and the associated stress and expense. Sitting in traffic jams like the ones you

Those electronic cigarettes do not come cheap. As soon as the smoking ban came along many smokers started boycotting pubs especially in the winter months. While other factors have contributed to the demise of many pubs the landlords mainly blame the smoking ban. They are the ones who should know. You go into a pub to relax, chat with your friends and get away from day to day pressures whereas we go to airports and use planes only out of necessity. No one goes to an airport or flys in planes to socialise so it is not the same logic at all.

No matter what side you are on it is a fact that beer, bars and smoking go together, always have done and the smoking ban in the UK has coincided with the closure of more public houses that at any other time in their history. I have been both a smoker and non smoker but I distinctly remember when as a NS my friends and I would go to pubs and the fact that there were smokers lighting up with their drinks never occured me, I did not give it a second thought. I think a lot of the anti smoking brigade just like to poke their noses into other peoples' business and turn into the same lentil munching

I and several of my friends have had suits etc made by the one in the Welcome Plaza Hotel on Second Rd near Pattayaland over the years with no complaints. But if you are on a holiday get the suit made at the beginning not just before you're going home in case you need extra alterations and fittings because you will want it to be just right.

We normally only stayed for a quick visit and confined ourselves to Nana Plaza or Soi Cowboy and as I said it was about 10 years ago. If you live there you obviously keep clear of the tourist traps and know the best places to visit just as we avoid Walking Street in Pattaya. But the attitude of the girls is nothing like it was even 5 years ago in Pattaya, with so many girls working in the P4P game in a relatively small area it easy for them to advise their pals how to rip punters off and pass on other bad habits. Most of the younger girls in Pattaya have Thai boyfriends in the background a

A lot of blokes I know have been coming to Pattaya since the 70s and 80s, one of them even first came in 1968 when he worked for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and all of them who have not settled down with a Thai girlfriend or wife say the same thing about the attitude of the girls and the ever increasing prices. Especially over the last few years. But all of them have also been to BKK over the years and say that there the prices are even higher and the girls' attutudes just as bad as those in Pattaya. I remember going into a bar in Bangkok in 1999 and paying 120 baht for a Singha while

Very true. If a bull could speak and you told him that he was going to be given a bit of a sedative so it would be safe for a human to sit on his back to have a photo taken he'd go for it every time rather than being told that he would get killed by a bolt being fired into his his head, his corpse cut into sections, his skin used to upholster the seats in fancy cars and his flesh eaten by humans and their pet animals!

In '84 I flew on a Boeing 747 with Philippines Airlines from LHR to BKK via Frankfurt and then Karachi on the same plane although it stopped each time to refuel. I remember some Aussies at the rear of the aircraft smoking dope the whole journey. The drive from BKK to Pattaya took about 3 or 4 hours, there was no motorway back then.

Very good pictures, thanks for posting them. Photography is a more affordable hobby nowadays as you don't have to pay for film and developement once you've got the camera. Then its a matter of mastering the necessary technology.

Like you I'm a draught beer drinker and spend a lot of time in Pattaya but off hand I can think of no beer bars where you can get DB. I also patronise gogo bars for the drink but avoid barfining their girls on account of past experiences plus they now want too much money. My pal was quoted 2,500 ST and 5,000 LT in Champagne two nights ago so sod that for a lark and he's a presentable, fit looking 50 year old. Freelancers can be a bit dodgy so that just leaves the BB girls and it requires a bit of shoe leather finding one who takes your fancy but I'm afraid we'll have to go on to bottled be

Not too many years ago the bosses of bars would sometimes give their punters a free shot of some cheap, watered down spirit as a good will gesture during the course of an evening.. In Alcatraz the girls come round offering you a drink in a small shot glass from a loaded tray. One girl will announce that it is her birthday and you get the impression that she is offering you a drink as a way of celebrating the occasion. A punter could be excused for misinterpreting it as an act of goodwill and accept the offer only to discover afterwards that these tiny glasses of drink are about 150 bahts a

Jesus Christ! That's horrendous. Mind you we once waited 3 hours at Miami in Florida and encountered what must be the rudest, most officious, ignorant, aggressive, and jobsworthy bastard immigration 'officers' on the planet. The sullen Cuban desk wallahs were saints in comparison when we went there for a holiday. I came through Swampy on the 21st March at 15.55 with Thai Air TG917 and it was about 7minutes and 10 minutes for the cases.

If you buy one tell the wife it's rented, keep her in the dark as most Thai women only marry a falang as an investment despite your thinking she's 'different'. Do not buy a new one as the price of a new condo can go down like a lead balloon when you wish to sell it. Good luck in your enterprise.

A friend of mine and his mate used to clean Oliver Reed's windows when he lived in Wimbledon. They used to do his on a Saturday and leave his house till last because he would invite them in for a drink if he was home. They used to get so pissed by the early evening it was all they could do to drive home let alone walk or get on a bus. He also got them to do his garden on a Sunday and gave them a nice Sunday lunch afterwards and then he got them on the sherbert after their meal and they'd all be roaring drunk again but it got to be more than they could handle after a while and they were rel