Peejay

My most humble appology. :-[ You wouldn't read about it, my flights ended up getting me int BIA an hour and a half early... Yes early. ??? So whats a bloke supposed to do. a. Wait around for you, having noticed that your flight was scheduled to be delayed, or :-/ b. Get to Pattaya as quick as I can and make the most of my week in heaven. Silly question. Of course Im here chasing pussy. ;D Will catch up for a beer and a chat at FLB..

Kahala, all of the above is sound advice. I used to work for a "Carrier" who is also an ISP. Things you must look at is where the particular ISP stands in the food chain. That is there are Levels of connectivity or we refer to them as Tier's in heirachcy. A Tier 1 ISP is more likely to be a carrier. A Tier 5 ISP gets there connectivity from a Tier 4 ISP who gets his acces from a Tier 3 ISP who inturn buys time/mb etc from a Tier 2 carrier etc. So each level has to make money. ::) And generally speaking the lower down the food chain the less suppport and less reliable the service to the customer. This is referred to as churn. Hey its easy to drop one provider and go to the next shop for a similar service. And they all tell you how good they are. In Australia there are only 4 Tier 1 ISPs, 3 are Telco Carriers also, one is dedicated to TCP/IP traffic. Everything else connects to one of these 4. What you should ask is: 1. How long can I stay connected with the one "Local" call. 2. What is the Idle time-out set to. 3. Can I use find a local PoP if I move from State to State/Province to Province. 4. Do you hve inter-connect agreements with O/Seas Carriers, if you need to get access O/Seas. All, I say again, all carriers have 2 levels of drop-out/kick off call it what ever. And they all say you can have unlimited access, 24x7 etc. But they will all drop your connection which means you them have to pay another call charge to you network provider, normally another company. I don't care what anyone tells you every ISP will drop you aff after 4 hours of being on-line and normally about 20-30 minutes of idle time. :-[ Unlimited access comes at a cost and you will pay the ferryman.

I'm arriving on the 8th, 10:50pm. Staying at the Residence Garden, what time are you arriving and what are your transport arrangements? Share a limo from BIA to Ptty?? :) E-mail me or send me a message from on thee board.

Thought I'd get in.. On the act also... So how's it Looking?

Glad to see that with FLB Members supporting this hotel that they return the support, in allowing multiple GFs to be brought back. Will be staying there 8-16 Mar and from what I've read looking forward to it. Remember to support the efforts of Ben by continuing to book at the Residence Garden!!

I cant believe you have a problem with accom in Pattaya.. :) It's main economy is tourism. Check out www.pattayalovers.com or www.pattayamail.com [classifieds], and simply e-mail a few of the motels etc you find. I tried 4, got 3 replies one with available accom when I wanted to visit. Then i went to the Residence Gardens and they had a vacancy so I chose this. 8) 8) It's a numbers game. No harm in sending a few e-mails with your itinerary. At the FLB they do have a room above the Bar, it's used for making money.... ;D S/T room, I also stayed there for a few hours ;D ;D Hope all goes well.

If you hadn't noticed, I posted a link to the "Tourism Authority of Thailand" web site, on the OLD board. http://www.tat.or.th/visitor/index.htm This has all the public holidays listed and includes Songkran 2002 which is on April 13, followed by Family Day on April 14 and so on. It's simple, just follow the links to Public Holidays. So if you're arriving on April 16, guess you missed the boat. :'(