firth1974

Secrets, or should I say ThePattayaClub forum is still up and running right now, or at least it was 5 seconds ago. Pattaya Live on the other hand, is down, for the next 24 hours or longer!!!

Nick Nolte

The Royal Bellagio Hotel, Is located on P.Burgos Street in the Makati district of Manila. Im guessing its around a 20-25 minute ride from the airport, but I would'nt know that, as it took over 1 hour and 45 min for me to get there, as I got stuck in the Chinese New Year traffic slowly moving through he city. Entrance to the hotel is actually located on the 1st floor, so you have to enter the Cubana café, and take the lift up. There is always someone operating the lift, I suppose so no hookers/unwanted guests get up to the rooms. At the end of the day, it is your usual bog standard hotel, receptionists that don't really have any time or patience to deal with you, and just go through he motions to get rid of you as soon as possible. The room itself (Rm 4001 in these photos) was ok, a fair sized room, old style TV but with 100's of channels, all the usual movie channels and everything else. Wifi was a bit of a mission to get to work, and involved 3 trips to reception to get the girl to re-boot the system, but eventually, when it did work, it worked ok. Apparently has a good Tex-mex(style??) restaurant on the 1st floor, but I never got to try it, but did try the floor downstairs in the Cubana café, and it wsnt to bad actually. I was warned ( by another member on here) that it would take some time to check out, and that rumour was true. Tried to check out, 2 girls behind the counter, one on her phone texting or surfing, and another on facebook on her laptop. After getting their attention, it took over 12 mins just for them to look in the room and say everything ok, I can go. Not sure would really use this hotel again. Not because of the room or hotel, but its damn expensive on this street for girls(3900 peso barfine, and 4000 for the girl. 390 peso for a ladydrink. Well expensive compared to the only other place in the Phlippines that ive been to, Angeles City). They operate a private taxi to the airport cost for that is 800 peso. The Bell boy manage to get me a taxi off the street, and with meter used to Terminal 2, cost was only 148 peso. Very cheap and reasonable I thought. The cost for one night was £35, booked through Booking.com. No breakfast included. The entrance way...... The bathroom....... The room........ There is also a good café underneath the hotel on the ground floor, called the Cubana café. Their band is also pretty good too!!.............. A friendly warning was waiting for me in my room upon arrival..........

This is the hotel that was an empty shell for years and years before the Selection?

Early evening, you can hear the music booming out9but not outstandingly loud, or distracting from hearing the TV) from the bars next door, but almost to the minute, they always seem to turn it down to a low level at the stroke of midnight.

A short review of the Chow Soy rooms. Stayed here for 7 nights a few weeks ago. Rooms are located above the Chow Soy Restaurant(directly across from the Triangle Bar) on Soi Chaiyapoon. Some members on here hate the street, but it has most things you are looking for. Dave (BM Dazsomer123) is the owner of the Chow Soy, and is an all-round really nice guy, but then again, ive known him for around 8 years now. These photos are of Room #7, which is actually on the top floor. Most of the rooms are quite spacious, and all have those huge (42" or bigger) HDTV's. Sophon cable is the norm here, and all rooms have WIFI(albeit, the signal is not quite strong enough in this room. Great signal if you sit on the sofa, but I prefer to sit on the bed and surf the net). Some of his other rooms actually have PC's in them, so if you have no laptop, you at least have the PC to use. Rooms are between 650-700 baht per day, depending on the season. The Chow Soy even does good food as well.

The Italian Job.

Its looks like they have got on a little bit with the new Marina since I was here last year, but it does look like they have stopped for some reason. Very nice restaurant by the lighthouse, it is recommended for the food.

Dick Van Dyke

Ten

Wayne's World

Burt Reynolds.

Jackie Chan

Sorry, I have no idea what the name name for this place is, ive always known it has Big Buddha Hill. Took a nice long walk up here a few weeks ago with BM Bazle. Down walking Street, around Bali Hai and the Marina, and then up the hill, around the Weather station and finally made it to Big Buddha. Its no where near as far as I thought it was, so no excuse for notdoing this walk again sometime soon. Enjoy.................................

Thanks for the kind words Butch. I remember your TR from Corridgor Island. That was the one place I really wanted to visit after seeing your TR, but on this trip I only had 2 nights in Manila, so no time. No idea about the tractor being in Santiago or Intramuros, but im sure a google search will find it for you.

A beautiful old fort, with a very chequered past, but a very good day out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Santiago

Hahahahahaha. I like those names. But remember, we were only there, for I think about 3 years. We didn't exactly conquer any people of any nation.

Intramuros, the old Manila, the original Manila. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intramuros This I s the original city, which the Spanish started to settle in, in the late 16th century. The city walls make for a great walk and a great day out. I purposely stayed in Ermita so I could visit Intramuros on my one free day that I had in Manila, and im so glad that I did. No homeless, no rubbish, no shit and no smell of piss anwhere when you walk around this old walled town. It makes such a pleasant change against the contrast of modern Manila. Ive purposely kept the Fort Santiago photos out of this thread, as I will create a separate thread for this beautiful old fort. It does deserve its own thread.

4 weeks ago, flew Etihad to AUH, and were meant to land at 7am. Arrived at 7am but flew in circles for 2 hours due to fog. 9am the captain says "we are #8 in the Q, land in 30 mins". 30 mins later Cap comes on and says we cant land in AUH due to a hydraulics problem so we are diverting to Al Ain. As we landed in Al Ain, there are fire engines chasing us down the runway for some reason. Apparently, we had a hydraulic proble, a serious problem with #3 engine and a undercarriage problem too!! Nothing too serious then. Seemed it was too dangerous to the flight operations of AUH for us to land, incase we had a problem on landing. Sat on the plane in Al Ain for 2 hours before boarding buses to AUH. Halfway to AUH, all 11 buses pull over at a service station so the drivers can smoke and go for a piss, but, they refused to let a single person off any buses as none of us had any visas for being in the UAE. One passenger rebellion later, and everone gets of the buses for a break. Finally make it to AUH, to find that they have kept our original flight back for us. Can you imagine a plane full off people who have sat there for over 5 hours waiting for us to turn up. They were fucking fuming. I found it quite funny actually. Should of landed in BKK at 19.45pm, finally had wheels down in BKK at 01.45am. Not the best journey I have ever had on Etihad, and I will think twice before flying them again!!

I quite enjoy flying with Etihad, that is only if there isn't a long transfer time between terminals or flights. Last month, flew into Al Ain and flew out of Abu Dhabi. I wasn't too impressed by that little trick!!!!

Behind enemy lines

Agree with Stuarty about the Chow Soy. I ate breakfast there every morning last week.

There is a place at the top of a soi(I think soi 12, the 2nd road end) that does t-shirts and caps and all sorts of printing stuff.

The Matrix. (the 2nd one)