JohnnyK

It is running to favourable reviews. Check out www.huahinafterdark.com

No, I took it for sarcasm but it had enough reality in it for me to offer a semi-serious reply.

Or large numbers of owners never paying their fees so the building, and your investment, go to rack and ruin.

Hotel maids don't work 80 hours a week AFAIK. They can't start until the guest leaves the room which is 11-12am in many cases. Rooms must be done and ready by about 4-5pm latest. Seems to me to be about an 8-hour day so about 56 hours a week (they get a day off). Little Miss Reporter might have learned something worth knowing if she had taken the trouble to research all the great jobs available in the boonies. Ask any girl if she would rather clean rooms with aircon and TV on or plant rice bent over 12 hours a day in the heat with mud and grubs between her toes.

flyboy747, Forgot to add this... Build quality is just one thing to look at and you can easily find someone to check that if you don't know what to look for. With regard to HH look out for these scams that some friends of mine have suffered: 1) House built with no building license. It means the house is llegal and worst case would be a tear-down order. Thats unlikely but some $$ would have to change hands to bring it in line. Headache all around. 2) Houses built on land not owned/leased by the developer/builder. (Encroachment was particularly bad on Samui where park land was encroached upon with collusion of local officials, many of whom no doubt have shiny new SUVs) 3) Land not properly sub-divided into plots or not sub-divided at all except on the developer's marketing bumpf. 4) Plots not registered. A totally illegal tax dodge by some developers. Plots not registered, building licenses not obtained = officially nothing built or sold therefore no revenue therefore no tax paid by the developer. The property in question should have a building license and a chanote land title deed. Walk away if neither is forthcoming or you are told they are "not important" or "they are coming".

I own in HH and to be sure there are quite a few dodgy builders, Brit and Dutch being the worst. Caveat emptor. I own my property through a company and with regard to ownership, the Land Office looks closely at the 49/51% ownership. They don't look at 39/61%. Don't get hung up in those raw numbers, owning 39% doesn't mean you can be booted out. Here's why: A Thai company can issue two kinds of shares called "Ordinary Shares" and "Preference Shares" (often called "Preferred Shares" in the west). The important point is Thai "Ordinary Shares" hold more voting power (NOTE: What we call "Preferreds" are called "Ordinary" in Thailand). The two classes of shares explain how corporate looters like Conrad Black and Dennis Kozlowski (TYCO) could rape companies without majority ownership and without putting up 51% of the capital. How it works: In Thailand "Ordinary Shares" have 10 votes per share while "Preference Shares" have 1 vote per share. Company issues 1000 shares for example, 390 (39% of all shares) "ordinary shares" totalling 3900 votes and 610 "preference shares" totalling 610 votes. Totally legal. Who holds the "ordinary shares" controls the company. No decisions can be made without that shareholder's approval. It should cost between 10-15K baht a year to do company accounts and file the tax return, mine costs 14.5K baht. There may be a small amount of tax to be paid, if so pay it and keep the tax man happy (he is the main worry in any country). Cost of setting up the company is 35-40K. If the property is already owned by a company look into simply buying the company and avoiding the Land Office. ALWAYS USE A LAWYER. BTW, where is the house located? There are areas in HH that experience flooding.

Everything costs more in Phuket.

Again, open-air tin-roof beer bars don't have nice clean toilets in the bar. They don't even have dirty toilets. And the cleanliness of the toilet concession is not their responsibility.

Neither. Sometimes you are in the middle of nowehere. Sometimes you could be sick with stomach ailments. You can't always count on a restaurant having any bumwad in the stall. When you gotta go, you gotta go. Be prepared, its that simple.

Yup. 99% of us will never come near, never mind meet, hi-so Thais. We are not in that world, we have few ways of entering it and they don't need us. Pretty much the only ways falangs will meet them is if the falang is a very top tier executive of a multi-national or is in the diplomatic corps. Interesting distinction about middle class. Personally I view US$40K a year as working-class, a term not used in the USA. Basically at $40K in the western world you are living payday to payday. I'd say the middle class is more like $75K plus - 2 new cars, large house in a nice neighbourhood, maybe private school for the kids, orthodontists etc etc. and those things would still be pretty tough at $75K.

$40K a year and hi-so? Please. That is middle class territory even in Siam, people who have jobs and go to them. Hi-so own the business and pay themselves very very well, much more than 1.2 million baht a year. Really rich people don't work for salaries, the ones who do are called workers.

Nothing to stop people from carrying a few sheets of bumwad in their back pocket. Same when I'm on the road, I always have half a roll in the glove box.

If I need to piss, I need to piss. I'm wondering where an open air beer bar would put its own toilet? Behind the bar? Then you would need a work permit to piss. Get the fuck over it, its 5 baht. And if you don't have coins I'm sure the bar will break a 20 for you.

I'm looking forward to seeing Stacy get a job on soi 6 or at Lolita's. Be fun to see her on camera with a gob of cum running down her chin. That would be a story.

Don't know about Jomtien but in Hua Hin GARC add 7% VAT and 10% service on to the menu price. Just FYI, folks.

They don't all live in Moscow. The attraction of Pattaya for them is price first.

He didn't cum but he did get fucked. Walking around with $1700 in the pocket, what can one say?

Yes, but a lot of that happened on dirt/gravel roads upcountry or when they were 9 years old trying to control a motosai.

I use them, too. They can weave in and out and they also know the small back sois for shortcuts. Never been nervous. I offer a price to the driver first (I make sure I have that amount loose), usually about 10 baht more than a Thai would pay. Everyone wins and no aggro when you arrive at destination and no messing about over change.

Used to be they were only down the far end of Wanking Street. Last couple of trips I noticed them further afield, up in 7 and 8. So far they don't seem to know about 6.

The salt is the flavour

No worries, all that tasteless, industrial, artery-clogging, carcinogenic and fattening shit is avalable in Pattaya. Go nuts.

Sailor Bar on soi 8 and New Plaza right across 2nd road from soi8. Pushy girls IMO in Sailor but I disagree with New Plaza being full of dogs. I've seen quite a few cuties there.

Anything CAN happen in life. The only sure thing is you're gonna die, sooner or later. Might as well get on with enjoying things.

Choose busy food carts, I've never gotten sick from a cart. I did get sick twice, once after a falang brekkie at the old Thumbs Up on soi 6. The other time was a proper restaurant in the Hua Hin tourist zone, ate there many times no problem then got giardia after a mango shake. Note to self: bottled drinks!!!!