Billions

Thanks Glyn.

Thanks Frank.

Thanks Mr P.

Heres a bundle of photos,taken in Pattaya at Halloween,2012. In the UK I live bang in the middle of a city,and the houses in the area aren't child friendly,as there are no decent gardens and stacks of busy roads. Families live in the suburbs.That means theres no trick or treating,and Halloween passes by,virtually unnoticed.To me,its essentially non-existent. I though it would be the same in Pattaya. I noticed a banner spanning the staircase at Heavens Above,and another outside Sugar Sugar on Soi BK,but little else. A couple of days later,I saw some ornaments hanging outside Angelwitch,and some bunting in Soi Diamond.Pretty low key. On Halloween in the afternoon,there seemed to be some activity around town. Showgirls in LK had a banner,Walking Street was getting loads of orange and black balloons,Ginza was having a bizarre wooden frame nailed to its front door and the Rolling bars had some garish bloody figures hanging up.A token gesture,so I thought. How wrong I was. When I popped into town later that night,the place was alight. Amazing scenes. So,here's a bunch of photos. The first fifty or so are from the days before. The next hundred and fifty are from the night itself. I'll load them up in small installments,as they need resizing and having borders put on.Might take a couple of days before they are all uploaded.

I had to bail out of Thailand urgently last week,aborting a trip that should have continued throughout most of December.A quick call to Thai managed to find a seat on the next flight to London,the midnight-ish one,the penalty charge for changing flight was 100 GBP. I was offered the choice of making the payment online or over the telephone,which would be 200 GBP,as opposed to half of that if paid at the airport. Worth knowing,the extra administration fee is unjustified.Make the reservation by phone,but pay at the airport. The airport was the most crowded I've ever seen it,massive lines at check-in (one hour +), half hour lines at security.Mostly Indians and Koreans.Flight was full....seems to be the case every time these days...mostly retired couples by the look of things.New demographic? I also got the worst seat possible.....56E...middle seat on the very last row in cattle,restricted recline position as it was butted up against the galley and had an IFE box under the seat in front restricting legroom. Horrible,horrible,horrible. Back in London,absolutely no visible customs officers in the green channel....again,that seems to be the case more often than not. I can't think of any other airport where you dont see any customs apart from Heathrow.

Thanks for that!

Every time I buy something at a 7-11,I get a small paper token the size of a postage stamp with my change,sometimes am given half a dozen of these at once. Over a month trip,and about three visits a day,that's a lot of tokens. I leave them in my hotel room,with all the accumulated coinage,for the maid as they might be valuable to somebody? Are they actually worth leaving though,or is it insulting to the cleaner to be given a bundle of these mystery tokens? Of course I leave money too,but what about these strange micro vouchers,anybody know why they exist?

Does the plot involve bread rolls?

Wow,this is strong journalism. A German guy dies after losing control of a high powered chopper in Jomtien. A big crowd of curious onlookers gather as police and other officials work around the bikers entrails in the road. Hardcore. http://77.nationchannel.com/video/307746/

I was hungry today,and popped in to the Haven on Soi 13. I considered ordering a grilled lamb CHOB,but thought better of it and tried the roast LAMP instead! Something new for me. For dessert,the PHUBARB pie was intriguing,but I was swayed by the LINCHEE in SYRUB. Is that a hanging fruit?

The IFE box hanging below the seat in front now prevents passengers from stretching out and in my case getting comfortable for a big sleep on the journey. Much prefer the old format,but can't do anything about it. As you say,the times to and from LHR are good

A problem sorted? http://www.pattayaone.net/pattaya-news/64007/jet-ski-operator-drowns-pattaya-beach/

The shrooms : These look tastier than the usual stuff at Tesco...