Gonzo

I thought Fascino on Pattaya Nua was the best for a while, until I was told about the pharmacy located on Sukhumvit. It is located on the left side of Sukhumvit about 100 metres after Highway 7 joins Sukhumvit driving South towards Pattaya Klang. The pharmacy building is painted green and not hard to find. Slow down before you get there on the left lane. I normally have no difficulties finding a parking spot on Sukhumvit close to the pharmacy with only Thai writing on it. They have 3 ladies working in there, one of them a pharmacist, have a good command of English. Unlike Fascino, where they seem to be always out of stock of certain medicines or other things sold in pharmacies and with quite a few clueless sales people as well, the "Green Pharmacy" seems to have most things in stock with often cheaper prices than Fascino. The knowledgeable ladies there always seem to find quickly what you are after and have all your blood pressure medications as well. If they don't have an item in stock they will be happy to tell you where you can buy them. Like Fascino they don't sell drugs which can only prescribed lawfully by a doctor in a hospital. The Pharmacy next to Tim's has been known to sell you sexual enhancer pills for as long as I can remember. Cheers.

Hi Jacko, I was hoping Gary would come up with some advice. He must be busy at the moment. I was glad when Mick told me about the Garmin shop at Tukcom. I will go there tomorrow afternoon and most likely will buy any Garmin available, if they can be bought for as little as 4000 or 5000 baht, as long as it has a recent Thai street map and gives directions in English. I can always buy a better model later if I am not satisfied with the one I get. I paid 15 000 baht for the Garmin Nüvi 3770 three years ago, which was a new model then. Gary did not think it was one of the better Garmins and always said it was much better to get a Garmin GPS with an ESRI Thai street map and not a Garmin map. I want to get another GPS as soon as possible, as the Khao Kitchakut event has already started on 31 January and continues until 31 March 7/24. Last year we started from our rented room near the mountain at 4PM and arrived back in the room after midnight. This year I want to get up the mountain sooner, as it can take quite a long time for the missus and her sister and niece to go through their rituals at the base, then going by baht bus to the first station with more rituals and then on to the second base with more rituals again. Last year I got a little impatient, as I wanted to take a few pictures on the top of the mountain. When we got there it was already getting dark. From the second station to the top one has to walk and climb and be reasonably fit. It is worth the effort in my opinion, even for an atheist or agnostic like me. It shows you a totally different Thailand from what we get used to here in Pattaya. After climbing down from the top again to the baht buses, it is quite an experience to drive on the baht buses on unlit dirt near roads going around sharp corners. The Thai drivers are especially trained and in my opinion are nearly as good as many Dakar rally drivers. They don’t handle any money either and are not after tips. You pay 50 baht at each station to get a ticket, 200 baht for each person altogether. When I bought my first car in Thailand I thought we could drive to Bangkok without a GPS. I got hopelessly lost and finished up on the other side of Bangkok on the road going north. I had no desire to drive to Chiang Mai. The missus comes from Bangkok, but Bangkok is huge and we had no idea which way to drive to get back to Highway 7 to find our way back to Jomtien. The missus then rang a Bangkok police station and they gave us the 1586 helpline, where a nice and patient Thai lady asked her for landmarks and street names and then gave the missus directions in Thai for nearly two hours in the heavy Bangkok traffic, until the battery in the mobile phone was nearly empty. It was a huge relief when I saw a street sign pointing to Suvarnabhumi airport. I want to get another Garmin GPS as soon as possible, because I want to go up the mounter during the day this year and I want to go there before it gets too hot. At the end of the You Tube clip you can see what happens when one thinks using an ordinary paper street map in Thailand is sufficient, even when one visits familiar places away from the main highways.

Deliverance, a great read and a great movie.

Hi Mick, I go to Tukcom often, to drink coffee and to eat a cheap meal in the basement, after I visit my Kasikorn Bank branch next door or the nearby Friendship supermarket. I only bought a Samsung Laser printer at Tukcom on the third Floor two weeks ago and asked in a couple of shops, if there was a shop in the building, where they sold Garmin GPS products, but only got negative replies. I also had a look on the fourth floor and must have walked past your Garmin dealer a couple of times. I will go there on Sunday after the Expat meeting. Jacko will tell me to get my eyes checked and stay off the grog, despite not having had a drink since a bit of a binge during the New Year celebrations. If I can buy a Garmin GPS at Tukcom next Sunday, it will save me an unnecessary trip to Bangkok next week. Thanks a lot.

Hi all, My Garmin Nuvi 3790T with an ESRI Thai Street map has stopped working and is beyond repair. I bought it about three years ago at a Garmin shop on the 4th Floor in Bangkok at the MBK shopping mall. I would like to go back there next week and buy another Garmin. I know there are a lot of different models for sale I don’t have a clue which one to buy. I want another Garmin with a suction cup, so I can attach it to the windscreen of my car. The Garmin Nuvi 3790T was less than perfect, but always got me to the desired destination, even when it had to often recalculate as it was only about 80-85& accurate . I still want to by another Garmin from the same shop. It has to be another Thai/English dual language model with the best and latest Thai ESRI (?) street map. I am not interesting in using a smart phone with a GPS capability. Any good advice would be appreciated.

For all the Liverpool supporters.

Good to see you back here. You started one of the longest running threads on this board. Great stuff.

Hi Pete, Hi Pete, You are on the right track. When I first came here in 2001 I thought I had landed in paradise. Shortly after arriving I started to mostly lurk on some message boards to learn a bit more about Pattaya. Many of the board members, who had been living in Pattaya long time before I found my way here, raved on how much better Pattaya was when they first arrived in the early nineties. When I tried to say that I thought Pattaya was still one of the best places to visit or to live in my opinion, the old- timer experts usually got stuck into me and told me that I was a totally clueless. Most of those “experts” are no longer around and I am still here after nearly 13 years and still think Pattaya is a great place, unlike most places in the many countries I have visited in the last 50 years. There only a few places I can remember to be equally as good and exciting as Pattaya. Everything changes as time marches on, including the people. The only thing that matters is how we deal with those changes.

A few more of the best ever http://youtu.be/VfXTCmWeNYo

The German team suffered from food poisoning on that day and were drugged as well. They certainly were not at their best.

Great to see Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash giving a performance together.

The Doors best song in my opinion.

Did anyone mention seeing Jimmy page on Walking Street? If anyone should happen to see him again,ask him if he ever heard about this song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcL---4xQYA&feature=share&list=PLC2164973F48193E8&index=2

Certainly one of the better games of any World Cup. I doubt if Italy has anyone as good as Rossi in the 2014 World Cup.

The best option would be to fly with Jetstar from Suvarnabhumi airport to Singapore leaving at 9.15AM arrive there 12.45 PM(SIN time), stay in the transit area so you won't have to go through Immigration and the return on the same day in the evening at 19.10 PM (SIN time) and return to Suvarnabhumi Airport at 2035 back in Thailand. You will then get another 30 days on arrival. To fly to Phnom Penh you would have to use Air Asia, which is more expensive and their flights leave and arrive from Don Mueang, which could be even more of a problem . Check it out on the Internet and book a flight there. The cheapest return flight is available tomorrow for THB 4670, but I guess that would problably cutting it a bit fine for you. To book at a later date will cost you a few hundred baht more, thanks to the Chinese New Year.

Quite a few of the top class ski jumpers and even a few of the medal winners were annoyed, when Eddie received more attention and praise than they did and wanted him banned from the sport. I have never tried ski jumping, but stood on top of some of the ramps and just looking down the ramps scared the shit out of me.

I hope Eurovision on BTV cable in Jomtien show every minute of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, when they start next week. Austria and Germany should bag quite a few medals. Australia is sending a reasonably good team and should be good for a medal or two. Who can forget Eddie the Eagle, the ski jumper. He will be part of Olympic games history forever.

I had a good workmate from the Gorbals in Glasgow. He was as tough as nails and a hard worker in the tropical sun on the wharves or on the rig tenders. Jock (James) would talk at times all day long about his beloved Celtic if you let him and would go mad when I happened to mention Glasgow Rangers. He died from alcoholic poisoning only a few month ago in Darwin after living in Angeles City for 12 years. We both retired at the same time in 1999, after getting a very good redundancy deal from the oil companies. When he returned to Darwin late last year we met again and he only looked like a shadow of his former self. He kept on drinking and cursing right until he died. I think I was his only real friend, as I had no problems with his abusive ways of treating other people including myself. He was quite intelligent and read books all day long, even when he was on the piss, which was most of the time. He had a huge collection of music, which he copied for me onto cassettes and later onto DVDs. His favourite band was the Rolling Stones. He knew every word of their songs and would sing along all day long in his broad Scottish accent. Another of his favourites was of course Rod Stewart, another great Celtic supporter.

Sorry for drawing a comparison between that great Italian side in 1982 and that infamous incident when your team played against Australia in 2006. You would have been less than happy when Italy played against Spain in the Euro Cup final in 2012. http://youtu.be/Ud0--48F9ag

CT mate, let's cut out the bullshit and talk about football.

Fair enough, Rossi was a superstar scoring his three goals against Brazil, but in my opinion he should have been banned for life for match fixing instead of only getting 2 years so he could play in the 1982 World Cup. What about that cheating cunt taking a dive in extra time to get a penalty against Australia in 2006 when the score was 0:0. He should have been red carded and sent off. What a dickhead of a referee. The Italians should not have been allowed to win the 2006 World Cup. If you google will find out that Ralf was Michael's younger brother, not a bad F1 driver himself.

CT mate, you are trying to have a lend of me. I don't believe that you really think that I don't know the difference between Harald and Michael Schumacher. Both were great sportsman and sometimes bullies, especially Harald, after he knocked that poor French player out. cold during a World Cup match in 1982.

I especially like the Wold Cup game between Germany and Scotland in 1986. Some still very famous names of high quality players in those two teams. Cheers mate.

What a great and brave man right to the end.

I am glad the two threads about the Wold Cup in Brazil have finally started. A bit of harmless banter is fine, but so far there has been too much of it, instead of discussing what will or could happen when the competition will start in a few short months . I was a still a kid in 1954 when Germany beat the hot favourites Hungary in Switzerland and listened to the final on the radio with my Dad. In 1958 I went to a pub in Vienna with an uncle to watch Brazil on TV demolish Sweden with a very young Pele showing the world what a superb player he was. In 1962 I had to listen to the game at home on the radio, as I was preparing for an exam at school, when Brazil won again playing against Czechoslovakia. I was in Australia in 1966, when England beat Germany in the final after scoring that still controversial goal late in the game. And again I had to listen to the game on the radio again, late at night lying in bed in a worker’s hostel in Australia. In 1970 I watched Brazil winning against Italy. By then I had my own place in Australia and could watch the final on TV at home. In 1974 I watched Germany beat Holland late at night on my TV again, after coming home from work. In 1978 Argentina won against unlucky Holland, being runners-up again for the second time. In 1982 Italy beat Germany and I have disliked Italian football ever since, as they always play such defensive football. In 1986 Argentina beat Germany in Mexico. I thought Germany should have won, but Argentina scored a late goal with not enough time left for Germany to strike back. In 1990 Germany got its revenge, when they beat Argentina in the final played in Italy. In 1994 the World Cup was played in the USA for the first time and Brazil added another title when they beat Italy, which I enjoyed a lot. In 1998 a very impressive France beat Brazil, winning their first World Cup. In 2002 I watched my first Wold Cup in Thailand on the big screen in the back of Tim’s Bar Beer a Go Go, when Germany lost against Brazil after the great Oliver Khan made a rare mistake by letting an easy goal in, which he would have normally stopped with his eyes closed. Ditto in 2006 at Tim's when I watched the cheating Italians beat France. Germany played well beating Portugal for the third place. In 2010 I watched every game in our condo in Jomtien with my soccer mad Thai woman. It would have been too much of an effort to visit bars at different times late at night. We set the alarm clock to wake up for all games shown late at night and then drank a lot of coffee. I did not mind watching the games with Thai commentators and also used the laptop at the same time, using the Bundesliga website to read their good commentary simultaneously. A very strong Spain beat another strong, but unfortunate Holland, being runners-up for the third time in a World cup. Germany were third again, after beating Uruguay, another team I dislike, because they try to win by cheating and try to inflict injuries to players from other teams, in my opinion. BTW, the last world cup was played in Germany, where they have excellent football arenas, nearly always filled to capacity with fanatical but fair football fans, even during Bundesliga fixtures. The USA played extremely well and would have advanced further with a bit of luck. I know this mail is of no use to the converted experts on this thread, but it might help some of the members less convinced what a great game football is and so very important for the many addicts of the game. I guess a South American team will win this year playing in a place more familiar to them and it might not be necessarily be Brazil either. Having said that, I hope a European team will win the World Cup and it and it does not have to be Germany either. France, Holland, England and a couple of other teams are all in with a chance to lift the cup. I hope C T won’t be able to find too many errors in this short mail. It is now time for me to go to bed. Good night.