papillon

Sunset in Samar

I have spent time in the Visayas. Leyte and Samar. I agree with what you say about the unspoilt beauty in general. You're right that you can live simply and cheaply but you still have problems buying land in your own name and you encounter corruption at every level. I don't think I want to be an old man, mostly defenceless in an environment like that. You often hear of foreigners getting murdered over there by the Filipina wife's family, for the money of course. It goes unreported a lot of the time because nobody is ever prosecuted. I'm a long way off retirement so hopefully things wil

I was confused before I read this post. Now I am even more confused.

You can get advice on a forum like this but is it going to be any good? What info are you hoping to hear that will be a deciding factor as to whether you buy or not? Unless real estate is your business, buying property is going to be a gamble, simple as that. Can you afford to play?

There are programs that can run in the background that will record a video of everything that happens on the desktop. This can be done from a remote pc also. Use your own laptop in an Internet Cafe wherever allowed and be careful of shoulder surfers and hidden cameras, etc. You really shouldn't do any banking in a public arena but as most of us have no choice sometimes, create an account and keep the bare minimum of funds in it.

Why would they even want to consider it? They are doing ok without us.

PI is a lot cheaper than Thailand to live in. Manila is not cheap for a foreigner but the rest of the PI is cheap. I recently spent 7 months there but would not live there or make plans to retire there under the present political climate. It is so corrupt you would not believe it. You can quite literally be ruined overnight there and there is sweet F.A. you can do about it. The fact that English is the second language for a large percentage of them makes it easier for them to scam us. I will be checking out Laos Indonesia and Malaysia on my next excursion and I hope to revisit Camb

I consider my 'airspace' in my home to be my own. If somebody invades my airspace with a wireless network I feel it's my duty to take advantage of it. Only joking! I have no need to. I bought a cable modem and have chipped it. I now have FREE 10 Mb internet I have downloaded over 200 GB in 3 weeks. Mostly full DVDs from the newsgroup servers. It's awesome! Any UK Board Members that want one, PM me and I will sort you out.

I wonder how much the fare was?

Let me re-phrase the question. Why have a gun if you're not going to use it when appropriate?

So why have you got a gun?

Anybody actually got a 30 year lease on some land and built on it? Or bought a lease with only a few years left on it? Does it work out cheaper than renting something comparative? I would imagine that has some strict rules as to what you can actually do on the land and the condition it's given back to the Freeholder when the lease is finished.

I have the Keerati Home Stay business card here. It's from July 2005. There's no website on it but they may well have one now. Drop them a line keerati_home@hotmail.com or give them a call +66 3841 6234 I took some photos of the room I stayed in if you want I'll post them here. Very nice room. Would recommend it. PM me if you want the pics posted.

X-Ray agogo. Is that the one on Soi 1? Is it still open? This is the first time I ever saw the place mentioned. Pulled a stunner out of there about a year ago.

Sinbinjack, Mofo, et all. I fired off an email to West East yesterday and they've just replied. I have to call them and if I can change my return date they should be able to fix me up on Thai, direct flight, £360 to £380 inclusive. Will call tomorrow and see what happens.

Was looking to go on March 04 and return March 28 OR go on March 11 and return April 04. Tried www.travelbag.co.uk cheapest was £600 plus

Just last week several companies were offering @£375. Now, I search again and can't see anything direct for less than £550. Damn!!! Please post if you know of any good offers. TIA.

£374 www.opodo.co.uk

Me and TG flew from BKK to Udon Thani with Air Asia last June. Faultless service for @ £10 each. Will be going again next month (hopefully).

What's that all about then?

I've stayed there a few times and have always had an in room safe which was big enough to hold a large laptop and lots of other crap. Great hotel for the money.

UPDATE. I arrived at the Top Inn after an 11 hour flight from London. Yes. they had a room reserved for me but the people in it had failed to check out at noon and had gone out for the evening! Welcome to Thailand. I said well why don't you take all their stuff out of the room. They wouldn't do that, saying the Police would arrest them, lol. So what are you going to do? We have a smaller room with 2 beds in it. Fuck it, ok then. We will give you a discount for the inconvenience. Sure. I dump my bags in the room and have a quick shower. I've got my TG with me (she came up from Pattaya a

grs90, that's a good starting point. Thanks.

Hi, What's my best way of doing these destinations? Ideally I want to travel from Bangkok to Singapore. From Singapore to either Jakarta and onto Manila or vice versa. Then back to Bangkok. I doon't want to be doing return flights everywhere. It makes more sense to do a round trip sort of. The thing is, it seems single flights are almost as expensive as return flights! Any help greatly appreciated.

No it doesn't sound like the Parkway. Anyway, I've booked the Top Inn now for my arrival in Bangkok. With the sleepless flight and a night out planned at Soi Cowboy/NEP I really don't care because I'll be able to sleep in an alleyway if need be. They quoted me 900 Baht for a double room. I'm sure I paid less than that in January (high season). I might just walk in off the street and ask if they have any rooms available. I can always say "oh, I forgot, I already made a booking" if they quote me a higher walk in rate. Thanks.