splinter

On a serious note - "Money Number 1" is apparently a must read. Could'nt find it on Amazon but saw it in a few shops in Pattaya. Stupidly didnt get it at the time

You might like "the hungry caterpillar." Apparently when asked what his fave book was, Bush Jr stated this was it. It's getting a bit old now though. It was first published when Georgie was 17/18. God bless America!

My own experience in June. With a bunch of expats (and wives /gf) we booked a boat for about 3500 baht all in. We fished in 4 different areas and the fishing was absolutely crap. Biggest fish on the boat was about 8 inches long. We didnt even fill a bucket with small fry. In the end we anchored up at one of those small islands you can see from Pattaya beach. Everyone had a little fun hooking up little sea bass. Every tiny fish was cooked up by the crew which goes to show nothing is wasted in the LOS. Quite nice food though! Next day I went scuba. Chatting with the scuba guys, I remarked about the poor fishing and the lack of marine line whilst down scuba. Basically I was told that the Thais have overfished the area to the extreme. I dont know if my own experience of fishing in Pattaya is par for the course - I could be incredibly wrong but you should expect a day like this as a possibility. Oh and you might also expect to have to fish with what I would call a crab line. An hour of hand-lining can be knackering. Maybe you get what you pay for - I dont know. I suggest you dont worry about fishing till near the end of your holiday. By then you will almost certainly have made a good few friends who will be grateful for the diversion and share the cost of the boat :) Every other person I met in Pattaya seemed to be either semi or perm resident. I found asking around, people were very friendly and most people could put me in touch with contacts whereby I often got much much better deals. If no one else contradicts me too much I'd suggest buying a hand line and fishing off the pier. Maybe a local there will be able to advise you on a proper days fishing.

I was over there in June for a week. I play in the UK and made friends with a guy who "owns" a bar in SOI POST OFFICE. We played two matches against other bars in the same week and had a great time - some of those Thai girls are pretty shit hot. The bar our team played in was The Pleasure Dome. Its run by a Scottish guy "Alec." Holiday peeps and expats are welcome to play darts there. All nationalities and a nice community feeling.