The Mook

Belgium

LAX-BKK route down to 725 + from china airlines (yeah, I know). EVA cutting prices too. But be careful as promotional fares still in the mid 800's and do not qualify for frequent flier miles.

Jib on the left. Pretty, fun girl. A rider on the carpetmuncher express. YUMMY!

The bus I usually take is not bell as it doesn't work with landings of my flights. I always try, though. If the wait is more than an hour, I go to the bus terminal in the airport using the shuttle, and head down from there. The departure schedule is in between the gap in the Bell schedule. It's all good.

my favorite driver? Mr. Bus 150 baht, a few snacks, and lots of locals to chat with...

what about the 1000's of people busting their asses, who are honest hardworking people providing for themselves and their families who had no part in the decision making process?

Trying to contact Vic via email but no response. Unusual, as they run a tight ship. Can anyone confirm things are OK?

You must love going to work.

November price on EVA LAX-BKK is now $999 plus 7% tax. I booked 3 days ago at $939. With other airlines cutting flights, discounts may be harder to come by due to lack of demand. Get it booked while the getting's good.

same logic as going into a sandwich shop for a 65 baht special sandwich: chicken and ham... ordered the special but didn't want the ham: price 85 baht...why? was the question asked by the patron... no ham means chicken sandwich (not on special) so cost is 85 baht vodka + lipo = alcoholic drink = special price @ happy hour lipo neat = not an alcoholic (read: happy hour) beverage, so no happy hour price... may not make sense, but that's the thought process

welcome to the forum, and welcome to pattaya; just do it.

That works. WOW!

It is 100,000 miles for a free flight on EVA.

More daft than looking like a redneck?

I bought a wide brim bamboo woven hat from a vendor between soi 3 and 4 on beach road. Local would pay about 25 baht. Lady started at 100 baht and we finally settled at 50 baht. I took it home with me; works like a charm.

Isn't EVA the national airline of Taiwan?

Soi 2 quiet? Doesn't almost every beer bar have a band behind the bar? What is the new theme? Pattaya Unplugged?

Hotel rooms are like bargirls... one man's trash is another man's treasure. THREAD CLOSED.

I take 2 Tylenol PM with the first meal and that usually provides 5 - 6 hours of sleep. nighty - night ... Zzzzzzzzz.....

The photo of Pun with the eyelash barely hanging on is classic Pattaya.

good hotel; 1050 is a correct for high season... take advantage of the pool across the road at the sabai lodge; have yourself an afternoon complimentary tea while playing snooker in the tea room or pool in the main lobby... good staff, nice sized rooms, and comfortable beds...good choice

depends how big you are; I am a smaller man and do not go for elite on the 777 as the upgrade doesn't make much difference from economy if you are 5'8" or smaller...

This opinion from the NYT says it better than ever could: December 14, 2007, 11:43 pm The Friendliest Country, and the Unfriendliest Skies, By Pico Iyer Most visitors to the Unites States will tell you that service in American restaurants and hotels is generally as friendly and as unpretentious as you will find anywhere. I know that because I grew up in England, where every waiter in a rundown cafe greeted me as I were a summons to the police and every worker in an upscale place as if I were a fly that had landed on the duck à l’orange. In Japan, where I now live, service in even a convenience store is efficient, quick and impeccably polite, but you won’t get the genuine laughs or banter that you often find in even a bank in New York. Democracy finds its vindication, I often think, in the cheerful, ungrudging attention you get across what is perhaps the world’s most open nation. Step into the air, though, and it all disappears. Why is it, I often wonder, that U.S. carriers have far and away the worst — most surly, inattentive and often snooty — service in the world? It’s a given that Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific and the Japanese and Thai carriers will be several leagues above Northwest and Delta; but Royal Air Maroc, LAN Chile, Ethiopian Airlines and India’s Jet Airways are all in my experience infinitely cleaner, friendlier and more helpful than their counterparts in the world’s richest and strongest nation. Even the British carriers — British Airways and Virgin Atlantic — offer you cabin attendants who smile, make charming small talk and bring you what you want (what you hadn’t thought to ask for) instead of the large, angry and tired militants on U.S. flights to Japan, who act as if every question is an insult, and every passenger an injury. Is it because these long-haul flights generally go to the senior personnel, who are mostly focused on the shopping that awaits them in Tokyo or Hong Kong? (Cabin attendants on even the smallest domestic flights are often gracious and attentive) Is it because of the pains taken by the employing airlines not to discriminate against the old, the weighty and the rude — though every other nation’s carrier still opts for the fresh, the courteous and the well-groomed? Is democracy, in short, showing its shadow side by reminding us that that frazzled, grandfatherly brute with a headache has rights the same as yours, even though he’s there (purportedly) to make you feel comfortable and you only to “sit back and enjoy the flight”? Whenever I call United Airlines’s frequent-flier program, I am startled by the politeness and efficiency of the people manning the phones. Many of United’s ground personnel are cordial, business-like and ready to shoot you a favor, if they can. The frequent-flier program itself is more generous than it has to be and I’ve already asserted in this space that air travel is no worse than it’s ever been. Yet the fact remains that while you fly to Asia (and a gleaming new airport) equipped with six movies in your business class seat — and a shaky set of headphones — your poor cousin on Singapore Airlines is getting a hundred movies in economy class, and snacks whenever he feels like them. Taking my regular, one-stop United flight from my mother’s house in Santa Barbara to my home near Osaka, Japan this fall, I missed my connection in San Francisco because my connecting United flight arrived two hours late. United kindly rebooked me on the same flight the following day, but when I asked for a hotel voucher and coupons for meals to get me through the unwanted 24-hour layover, its staff refused to help. “But it was your late incoming flight that caused me to miss my connection!” “No,” said a very short-tempered man at an empty V.I.P. check-in counter. “Air-control tower error. You’re on your own, bud!” “Just get me to Tokyo then,” I said, “and I’ll make my way home from there.” If I was going to have to pay for a hotel in San Francisco, I thought, I might as well get to Japan and take my chances there. Sure enough, after the United gate-agent reluctantly sent me on to Tokyo — reminding me, “Once you get to Japan, you’re on your own. We won’t help you!” — I flew across the Pacific, arrived in Tokyo, threw myself on the mercies of ANA, United’s Japanese partner — and was instantly and smilingly put on a flight down to Osaka (the flight United had said was full). The Japanese attendants all but apologized to me for my own presumption. U.S. carriers lack, of course, the government subsidies that many other airlines enjoy; and any number of relative newcomers to the skies — from Jet Blue to Virgin America — promise to improve things a little. Yet still it’s strange that when it comes to one of the world’s most international industries, a place in Northwest’s business class has afforded me less comfort than a seat in the economy class of the national airlines of Bolivia, Cuba and even North Korea. Many United frequent fliers I know often head west from Los Angeles with Singapore, and east, to London, with Air New Zealand (United’s partners). Fly on those planes and you can even sit in a splendid lounge, if you hold a United gold card. United’s own lounge, however, is on domestic flights closed even to United gold card members. Link: http://jetlagged.blogs.nytimes.com/

bloom county also cutting edge and very funny... another fave of mine, a bit under the radar though... The Tick