jackcorbett

I've checked the place out a couple of times. The rooms look pretty slick being set up for some real debauchery if one is willing to pay the price. However, the gals in the club for the most part are definitely substandard in my opinion. Most are carrying some extra pork for one thing and if I wanted extra pork I would have remained in the U.S. instead of moving here.

Update on the Skytop rates. They start at 400 baht for a room without air conditioning. This small room is 450 baht with air conditioning. It is the middle sized rooms that go for 600 baht. So the Skytop web site is not accurate as to the rates, which means it's an even better deal than even Big D and I thought it was. I just received an e-mail from Pete that entirely refutes Cheshire Tom's allegations that his rates have gone up nearly 35 % but cross checked it by having my girlfriend call Skytop just so that no one could cast stones at my sources. The medium sized rooms went up 50 baht to 600 baht from their original price which represents just a 9.1 % increase, a far cry from the 33 % quoted here by Cheshire Tom. Pete stated in his email that the rooms are often discounted in the low season and further commented "THIS IS NOT THE RITZ BUT A CLEAN, FRIENDLY AND AFFORDABLE ACCOMmODATION HOUSE THAT EVEN OFFERS LIMITED INTERNET USE DAILY" So, there you have it, accommodations for as low as 400 baht which is a far cry from what the Residence Garden is charging at 1400 baht a night. And sure, I'll be the first to admit there are other great deals in town. But Skytops got a combination of great features, including a great location, at a very modest price point. I am still wondering what Pete ever did to Cheshire Tom to deserve all this huge distortion of the facts. Did Pete bang one of Tom's girlfriends, impregnate his daughter or what?

Not by a long shot as the same internal dynamics that either make or break Skytop are still there. 1. Same owner (with both his strengths and weaknesses), 2. Same location (albeit being 50 feet away from its old location) so it enjoys the same proximity to Big C, Sois 7 and 8, Soi Six and so on, 3. Same neighborhood as before with proximity to same bars, massage places, laundry, etc, 4. Same basic building type and structure (the old tourist police and Skytop building structures are similar), 5. Same basic renovation process as before (supervised by Pete) to adapt building interior to guesthouse rooms and so and lastly 6. An Internet cafe downstairs with the same computers and other equipment that used to be next door. In other words for those used to the old place the new one is not much different. But Tom, what you did was to state "Jack, The figures are also totally irrelevant since the place you stayed at has since closed" which although is technically correct seems to be deliberately stated in such a matter to dupe others into believing Skytop is finished so that you can tarnish Skytop for reasons that continue to baffle both Big D and me. Either that or you really must believe people respect you for correcting me that the actual physical structure I once stayed in does not exist anymore and that therefore everything I had to say based on 11 months of experience is irrelevant. This is what I meant when I called you a pissant since you are trying to present yourself as being correct in a small minded way while trying to create a substantially different impression---ie......What I said earlier has no validity as the building has changed and the place is out of business. Big D stated this correctly when he said you were intellectually dishonest. Some would simply call you a liar even though technically you aren't.

Denny....Do look me up. Pete has my number. Possibly you do too as it has not changed. Uhhhhhhh...Intellectually dishonest? You don't mean a pissant, do you by chance? I don't really know as I'd like to meet him face to face and judge from there. But let's say his comment earlier leads those who don't know better to believe Skytop does not exist anymore. That is dishonest. That is intellectually dishonest. For me it would seem he wants to deceive people into believing that Skytop is no longer in business in order to drive business away from Pete whereas you and I know a good kindred soul and wish to help our pal anyway we can. Pete is cool and that is one of the main reasons we support him. So it's intellectually dishonest to paint Pete with a tarnished brush of deception with what seems to be the goal of hurting him and depriving him of the customer base you and I both feel he so richly deserves. I would hope tom is much more than this. Why? Wel shit, I don't really know why. Perhaps I just like the name Cheshire Tom or perhaps one of my sisters had her wedding reception at a place called the Cheshire Inn in St. Louis. Gotta be the name because I sure as hell had a great night doing this photo shoot after getting a beautiful girl from Lake Tahoe to fly there for the following photo shoot at the Cheshire Inn which the Cheshire Inn payed for for the attendant publicity shots and I had a great night with the babe in these pictures. Forget the guns guys. So I used to do gun articles for an adult magazine. But the night, such a night to remenber and all paid for by the Cheshire Inn. http://www.alphapro.com/Septemberlooking04/rugersp101.htm Yeah, I know I digress and what do guns or St. Louis hotels have to do with Pattaya, but I'm sure no one will mind the naked pictures here. Thanks Tom, for rekindling such memories. Your name's cool even if I don't always agree with you.

Hell guys, I just like to stir the shit so when I saw all of this I thought it was time to stir up the pot. And since I enjoy stirring it up so much I decided to pass this threat onto Pete, the devil incarnate we are all talking about here. Just got this email back from Pete a few hours ago. "I HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO GET ONTO THAT SITE YOU MENTIONED SO I DONT KNOW WHAT IS ON THERE. PETE" So methinks that although Pete might have come here a few times in the past, he's certainly not a regular visitor. So I doubt very much that a majority of the favorable posts vis a vis came from Pete. I think the real culprits are Denny and me. But what the hell, go ahead and try Skytop for yourselves and draw your own conclusions. After all, I only got 30,000,000 baht from Pete for this advertisement which is small change compared to what I used to get back in the good ole days back in the U.S.A. where a dollar was a dollar and a great liar was hard to find and therefore worth paying well. (Denny, what the hell is Pete paying you to say good things about his place?)

Denny-------I found that interesting too. The new Skytop is smack right next door to the old one. In fact, to someone who might have even actually stayed here for a single night, having arrived from his home country tired from the long trip over but who then goes out to have a few beers, brings a girl back with him, Skytop might not have changed at all. So why does Cheshire Tom claim that Skytop's been closed down? Technically it has, in the sense the building it once existed now has a new business there. But here's Pete, the founder and guiding soul behind Skytop still doing business as usual and if he's sitting outside his front door he will be found no more than fifty feet from where he used to sit. If one likes Pete and enjoyed staying at the old Skytop such as you and I both have, then what's the difference? The answer is that even through Cheshire Tom might be technically correct, what he is trying to do is to either 1. Deceive the reader into believing that staying at Skytop is no longer an option or 2. Cast himself as being one of these "I never make mistakes, but I sure as hell can catch others in this forum for being incorrect thus invalidating those he is slapping on the wrists with his "correcting comments". I also want to mention that although Skytop represents good value for the money and that I liked it so much that I stayed 11 months there, I will also admit that there are even better deals around. For instance, I have an American pal who is presently staying at a spanking brand new place up the street from me in Naklua. He's paying just 6000 baht a month for it (it's 7000 for just a one month stay and 6000 for 2 months). But first I do want to point out that this American friend of mine has already been here to Pattaya a number of times and that he is renting a bike here. This place might seem to be far away from some of the best bar areas in Pattaya such as Sois 7 and 8 (the "dangerous Englishmen" not withstanding), Soi Six, Walking Street, etc. and it is, but for the man who knows the ropes, has a motorbike, this is not a big deal. Still, motorbikes are dangerous, and walking from Naklua Road to this place after getting off a taxi late at night even though it's just 200 meters, is potentially dangerous as well. Skytop's much safer. Also, even if my friend wants to go to Big C or Carre Four, he's going to be taking the motorbike or a taxi whereas I often walked from Skytop to Carre Four and Big C was so close I could easily do it even in my bedroom slippers. Skytop is extremely well located and Pete's quite a guy. Therefore I completely recommend it. And so do you. So all I gots to say is that we both can't be wrong.

let's apply Tom's logic to all hotels on Soi 7 and 8. Item.....An Irish co-owner who lives in my building here at Wongamat Residence (when not working in the U.K.) was thoroughly beaten up by three Englishmen a couple of months ago and he wound up in jail. My girlfriend and I bailed him out at 6 a.m. His face was so beaten up that it looked nearly as bad one week later as it did the night we got him out of jail. This occurred on Soi 7. Also several months ago I observed an Englishman going down just inside a bar on Soi 7...this would be the first bar on the South side of the street as you walk from 2nd Road towards Beach Road. Another Englishman had decked the man and continued walking down the Soi. Unconscious the Englishman was taken over to a spot on the floor next to our table. I therefore conclude that one should never stay anywhere near Sois 7 and 8 because of the violent Englishmen in the area. So let's see---it is not wise to even drink in these Sois because of the violent Englishmen marauding about. Hey...on second thought, Sois 7 and 8 are dangerous violent places because Englishmen are frequenting the bars here. THerefore Englishmen are violent so therefore one should stay clear of any hotels in areas frequented by Englishmen. For that matter one should never stay all night on Soi Six. Reason is, the Jimmie Bar where the fatal knifing took place Cheshire Tom speaks of is actually about one half a block away from Skytop, not next door. Greg's restaurant is between Skytop and the Jimmie Bar. Greg, the owner, is an Englishman. Therefore one should never eat here because 1. It is even closer to the Jimmie Bar than Skytop and 2. Greg is an Englishman and since many Englishmen come in, this place has gotta be very violent. Now Soi Six is about one block from the Jimmie Bar where the fatal stabbing took place so it's not much farther away from the Jimmie Bar than Skytop so Soi Six is a dangerous despicable place too. Furthermore a lot of Englishmen hang out on Soi Six which makes it even more dangerous and violent. Soi 4 is not far from Soi Six and although there are some nice places to stay there, one shouldn't as it is too close to Soi Six. One is much better off staying in Naklua because it's like Little Germany up here. This is where I live and the Germans are not causing trouble in the bars here or not that I can see...therefore everybody should be staying in Naklua and certainly not anywhere near Soi Bukoi (somebody help me with the spelling here). where a lot of Englishmen stay. In fact when my Irish fellow co-owner returns here from England I'm advising him to never leave Little Germany at night as there's too many Englishmen South of our end of town.

Well, i've stayed there for one month, then I returned a few months later and stayed two months. Bought my condo here at Wongamat Beach in April of 2005, went back to the U.S. for three months to return early August to wait for the condo to be finished. It was--late so I wound up staying at Skytop from August 3 until April 1. So, these figures speak for themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Skytop and still consider Pete, the owner, one of my best friends here. Also enjoyed having breakfast with and having beers in the evening with Big D when he was staying there.

Being an American, all I can say is that Americans seem to be headed down the same path you mention. Red tape, government interference, etc. Hell, here I am living here in Thailand and I have a farm in the U.S. Went to the government office to give power of attorney to the young man farming my ground so he can sign for me so we can deal with any government programs affecting this farm. Now I get something in the mail asking for a new signature from me and the form states that any previous powers of attorney will not be honored. This is just an excuse to expand the bureaucracy at the expense of Americans being asked to pay the increased tax bills to support the dead beats who only serve to cut down our productivity. But this is not the same. Although all businesses and businessmen in the U.S. and the U.K. are constantly being more oppressed by increasingly intrusive governments, they are at least being intruded upon equally. Things are not equal in Thailand. Just check and see how little Thais pay to get into certain places compared to foreigners. And it's worse when it comes to doing business here. It is an unlevel playing field that discriminates VERY heavily against foreigners to the extent that buying a business here is almost tantamount to committing financial suicide.

Far from being a level playing field, let me suggest that any foreigner thinking of opening a business in Pattaya will encounter a playing field that is approximately a 45 degree slope against him. Example in point, a man from Nepal opened a tailor's business in a shop below my condo. He needs to provide insurance for employees he doesn't even have simply because he is not Thai. I recall two bar owners both English who had Thai wives. None of them are together anymore. Another Englishman who now is really down and out lost most of his money in the U.K. took what was left with him in Thailand. To own and operate a bar he would have had to employee a certain number of Thai employees (Thai owners don't), pay them salaries, benefits, etc, so wanting to avoid such an un-level playing field he bought a bar and put it in his wife's name...also a small house. Ultimately she went on a gambling binge and wound up selling both the house and bar leaving him with nothing. Another Westerner decided to buy a small guest house. Got a three year lease with an option to renew and paid key money plus the monthly rent but when he got the business he had only about 1.5 years of the lease left. Several months prior to the lease's expiration, the "Thai owner of the property" from Bangkok stopped communicating with him. Turns out the Thai owner didn't own the property after all. He had merely leased the property himself and never had more than a year and a half left on the lease. Another Western friend of mine owned an Internet cafe. I went in there one night only to find out all the computers were gone. The police had come in and confiscated all the computers because someone had supposedly been downloading music on one or more computers. That night the owner friend of mine had to pay the police off 60,000 baht in order to get his computers back. I have a lot more stories like this. I WOULD NOT DREAM OF OWNING ANY BUSINESS HERE.

Joekicker.....do you know how often these buses run? For example if the 6 a.m. bus is full, is there another bus leaving at 6:30 a.m. a girl can get on? Reason I"m asking is I have a schedule from a friend of mine for going to and from the new airport. YOu can even get picked up at your hotel or condo and there is a 6 am. departure out of Pattaya and if you miss that you must wait until 9 a.m.

Joekicker......Thanks for the detailed info. What would you say is the average time it takes to get there by bus? Also-----You mentioned someone should easily get back to Pattaya by 12 if they leave at 6 a.m. Think the passport office will often have a long line there?

Short of driving or taking a bus all the way to Bangkok or close to Bangkok what does a Thai girl living in Pattaya do to get a passport? Is there a place in the Pattaya area she can go just like we guys can go to Immigration in Jomtien to renew our retirement visas?

TNT has just recently doubled the speed of my connection I pay 1200 baht a month for. It had been 256 kps download with a 128 kps upload. So at no extra charge starting 1st of September it supposedly now is 512 and 256. Just checked it and the highest speed downloading a file was 430 kps. This was before 7 a.m. At night this connection still gets pretty slow. But for the most part I am getting around the Internet much faster than before.

I don't find such speed tests to be all that accurate. For instance I have two connections, one with TOT I pay 140 baht for, the other with TT&T I pay 1200 baht per month for. The first, is the el cheapo connection everyone in this condo is getting through TOT. That is 60 units share whatever line TOT is also sharing with several other customers. The signal is all over the place with this setup. Rated speed is 512 upload and 1024 download. It will actually hit these speeds on a good day but at night when the Internet is busiest speeds can go down to 50 kps. I am going to call this connection Dog Shit 1 for test purposes. The second connection is through TT&T. I pay 1200 baht a month for this not to mention the initial 8500 baht setup fee I had to pay which included my modem. It is rated 128 upload with a 256 download speed. TT&T informed us it would never put more than 10 people on our line after which it will start a new line to add customers onto. Lately it's been out for three days and particularly at night I had to switch to Dog Shit One as it had gotten impossibly slow. For test purposes I am going to call this connection Dog Shit 2. I"ve been getting up real early lately---5 to 6 a.m. and I've noticed that Dog Shit 1 has been lightening fast. This is because hardly anyone's stupid enough to be up this early except for me. Today I performed the following tests at 7:30 a.m after Dog Shit one's already started to slow down. Using the speed test recommended here I was getting speeds of 127 to 130 with Dog Shit I. That's ISDN speed, hardly the broadband claimed by both TOT and TT&T. I then switched over to my high dollar Dog Shit 2 connection. Dog Shit 2 gave me speeds of around 117 to 125, thus proving there is no meaningful difference between these two brands of dog shit and that both TOT and TT&T are lying. Well, I decided to give them both a second chance. Because if you can't trust your internet supply company who can you trust, right? My test is based on the principle that whatever can do X amount of work in the least amount of time is better. I chose a 2.2 megabyte picture file to represent X amount of work and then I started up my ftp program using Dog Shit 2. My speed slowly built to around 256 as I downloaded this picture file from my web site to my hard drive thus proving that TTNT's claims are true in the sense that its output for my service is 256 WHEN IT'S WORKING. However, it took 1 minute and twenty-two seconds to download this file which is typical dogshit performance. I then switched to my El Cheapo Dog Shit One connection all Wongamat Residence condo owners get from TOT. It took one minute to download the same 2.2 megabyte file with Dog Shit One while my ftp program showed a speed of 350 kps. However I did notice a jerkiness in the download showing evidence of stopping and starting. So using the principle that whatever does X amount of work in the least amount of time is the fastest one has to conclude that Dog Shit 1 is better than Dog Shit 2 since it takes TT&T's Dog Shit 2 22 seconds longer or roughly 33 % longer to download the same file that Dog Shit 1 manages to download in just 60 seconds. Considering that Dog Shit 1 only costs about 13 % of what Dog Shit 2 costs, by using ftp as a test medium I'd have to conclude that eating Dog Shit one early in the morning is as the Thais say, cheaper and better than having to eat Dog Shit two. That's at 7:30 this particular morning. Who knows, consuming Dog Shit 2 might be better at 10 p.m. this evening than having to consume Dog Shit 1. But one thing I've learned and that is using ftp to analyze the speeds of different internet connections is far more useful than using speed services. such as speedtest.net. While such services might show that one's internet connection truly is dog shit, they really don't show all that much as to which one is the smelliest.

Okay guys....here's the bottom line. Here in Thailand there is no accountability. That is, say you are without internet service for several days in a row. Think either TT&T or Tot will credit your bill? No way. Complain about doing without service and see where it gets you. No one lose their job because they failed to give good customer support. Now, it's two days without service from TT&T, I do have the el cheapo connection with ToT but not the one I am paying 1200 baht a month for. Last night showed I was connected. But I could not do squat. I rebooted everything. Even did the ipconfig/release, then the ipconfig/renew at the MS dos prompt to reset the ip address from TOT to TT&T and it reset the ip address to what it should be. But no internet at my high priced connection. Called again today and finally a techie called me and walked me through a procedure to get the modem up and running again. He want through the same procedure twice. But I had a critical appointment at 4 a.m. Had my gf notify the people I had to meet that I was on the phone with a techie to get my internet running. Well.......Still didn't work so he said he would call me back in 20 minutes. I was telling him I was already late for my appointment and he should call me back in one hour. He didn't. And probably because his office was closing at 5 p.m. So his quitting on schedule was more important than a customer. They probably closed the books on me as a success and I will have to call gain tomorrow and get another incompetent techhie on the phone to waste another 45 minutes of my time. Both Tot and TT&T do not stand a chance of losing money no matter of how piss poor they do. What is lacking is a sense of fairness. I paid for 30 days of service, not 27. Or 25 or whatever. They contracted to give me a whole month's good service but have not done so in good faith. These people are not men and women of their word and they have no pride in keeping their promises. Only the customer loses. And that is why the internet service here in Thailand is going to remain third world for at least a few years to come.

Both TOT and TT&T are crap in my book. We have a special setup here at the condo building using TOT. What it amounts to is a special deal at a special price for all sixty units. But we are hooked into a line that is shared by a couple of businesses or whatever. The good news is it's rated at 1024 kps download. The bad news is one is often lucky to get 10 percent of that. On a good day one can. Good news it only costs around 150 baht a month. So I went with a line from TT&T rated at 256 kps download and 128 upload. No lengthy wait like I've heard there is with TOT. But setup costs around 8000 baht and that includes the modem. Monthly cost is nearly 1200 baht. In a make believe world the old TOT setup most people in this building get at 1024 kps download is four times faster than my new and much more expensive TT&T setup. But in the real world on average I'm getting at least 4 times faster speeds with TT&T. Lately in the mornings especially the new, much more expensive TT&T setup will often shoot craps. So I bypass the modem and put my hub going to all my computers direct into the wall plug going into the TOT line shared by all the other condo owners here. Lately it's worked much more reliably than the TT&T setup. A couple of hours later I'll run my wires back through the modem that's hooked into the TTNT connection. Yesterday and probably the day before everyone in this condo building had to do without Internet service. However, yesterday my connection was just fine through TTNT. But this morning I couldn't get online with either TTNT or TOT. A phone call to TTNT resulted in my giving them my cell phone number as my land line through TTNT was also out of action. Two or three hours later I got a call from TTNT that someone had stolen their cables throughout Pattaya. Service would be available by this evening or sometime tomorrow. But by late afternoon I learned that our entire building had its service back through TOT. I went upstairs and sure enough, I had service again. We have an electrician named Thor working for our condo building. Later on when I saw him he told me I should have service again with TTNT. I went upstairs to check. No Internet service.but this time the phone was working. So there you have it. In my opinion choosing between TOT and TTNT is like deciding between two choices, these being if you are in a large tub up to your neck in shit and somebody threw a bucket of snot at your face, would you duck?

Yes...And so I've heard that Raimon Land is one of the largest outfits around. However, just down Soi Wongamat from Northpoint is a much larger development in terms of the actual acreage of land the project will occupy. This I've heard is to be a shop-hotel complex. Every day there seems to be thirty of more workers there, four or five cranes, etc. The company doing the project has even built temporary housing just across the street for its workers. The rate of work here is explosive. I've heard Northpoint has been trying to get off the ground for years. Fact remains that if I've put good money down on a condo and the developer promises to have it ready within a given amount of time I expect the developer to at least try his best to make good on his promise. In the case of the condo I bought I was kept waiting three months after the promised move in date. But I could see why there were delays, and I have to say the developer, Nova Sunset, did its dead level best to fulfill its promises and that is still is. I would like to know some very good reasons why Northpoint has been put on hold? Is it because it is necessary to let the underground pilings settle in? Or is it because the baht has gone so high, political uncertainty and other things have kept projected sales from materializing and therefore Raimon Land wants to cut its losses until this project becomes a sure thing? If this is the case, once again, I'd be very upset waiting for something to happen here.

My first point, which I mentioned in a post elsewhere is, I would be damn careful about buying at Northpoint. Northpoint is not much more than a quarter of a mile from me. So I go by the place everyday, and the only signs of activity I've seen there in the past two or three weeks are a couple security guards walking around. The condos there were supposed to be completed in three years. If I had put money on a condo at Northpoint right now I'd be VERY CONCERNED. I can strongly recommend for you Plumeria Serviced apartments here at Wongamat Beach in Naklua. Plumeria You can check this out on my web site as well Plumeria my web site Most owners of upmarket condos are not going to want to rent their places to a guy who is wanting to rent short term only. All it takes is someone sitting in on my nice leather Lazy Boy couch with a screwdriver in his back pocket to ruin a $2000 couch. So Plumeria might just be your cup of tea. Rentals start at around 21,000 baht a month for the smallest units but go down to 16000 baht on a three month contract. Plumeria is very quiet and it even has a nice reasonably priced restaurant inside. Moreover, it's just 200 yards from the beach and it has a very nice Family Mart only 50 feet away. They clean your place for you, so you don't have to worry about doing it yourself or hiring someone to clean your place which can be a real pain in the ass. The pool area is magnificent (and very quiet, which I must emphasize again). I'd stay there again in a heart beat. And if the smaller units don't suit you, you can opt for one of the larger units at a higher price.

I'd have to take a closer look to see if one can get through to Sanctuary of Truth from the back side of Nova Mirage. Certainly not in the recent past and possibly the present from the first building, the one open to residents. The two new buildings one of which you will be moving into do not seem accessible due to the construction going on. You are correct...you can get through via the Garden Cliff Hotel next door or whatever Cliff it's called. And one used to be able to get through from the backside of that huge ratanakorn condo development I pointed out earlier via a dirt road I took my motorbike through a couple of times. But they have temporarily blocked that dirt road up with piled up dirt.

I just asked my Thai gf. She is now sending her 7 year old daughter to a Catholic school in northern Thailand with both mine and her father's support. This is so she can take daily English classes. But Ying contends that International School is number one. Price is, she tells me, 120,000 baht per year. So at the present horrific value of the American dollar that's around $4000 a year.

That is terrific. Looks like move in time is getting pretty close for you. Let me know when you will be around so we can get together.

I see nothing happening at the Northpoint building site. It appears to me as if they have sunk some deep pilings for the foundations for the buildings and these have been covered up with no work being done at this site whatsoever for some time now. A couple of security guards along Soi Wongamat and that's about it. Meanwhile just a few hundred yards South of Northpoint construction of a new hotel-shop complex has been continuing at a ferocious pace. I'm thinking Northpoint did not have enough buyers and they've put the entire project on hold until something noteworthy happens---the hotel shop complex is finished in a couple of years or so and that this spurs demand for a luxury condo developments such as Northpoint that are practically a stone's thow away or the economy here undergoes a dramatic transformation for the better. Here's another Wongamat mega complex I am wondering about as well. http://www.ratanakorn.com/tw_wong-amat/project_site_01.php This place is just across the street from Park Beach condo. There's a big sign out in front. I talked with an American who used to sell condos at the nearby Nova Mirage who put money down on a condo there with his brother but the developer kept changing the layout on them plus it never began construction. They got their money back. But I've been watching this place for many months now and still construction has not even started. There are however a huge number of trucks filled with dirt that come out of the construction site each day. The ground is quite high there so it needs to be leveled before anything can be done here. However....I inquired on their web site about what was available, and when construction was scheduled to begin and to be finished. It took three weeks for a reply to come in and the woman who finally replied seems to have dropped the ball. So I'm thinking they are just selling the dirt there to other construction companies all throughout the Pattaya area and have no serious intentions of beginning construction for quite some time if ever. Meanwhile several smaller condo projects in the Wongamat area seem to be progressing very nicely. It looks like the two new buildings at Nova Mirage will be ready to move into in a couple of months and that View Talay 6 at Soi Wongamat and Soi 18 will not be that far behind Nova Mirage.

Good point about the shops within 300 meters. Right directly below my condo, within the building itself is a Family Mart kind of place and if it's closed there is a Family Mart less than 200 meters up the street from me. So if I need a beer, more Vodka, Coca Cola, coffee, snacks, etc. I literally can call down to the female owner and lower a bucket on a rope with my cash in it. She's so accommodating, I'm sure she'd do it, except there's an overhang because of the tiled roof below me. Within two years or so there will be a shopping center hotel complex complete with movie theaters less than a half mile from me. Lots of low cost restaurants near me. My neighbors in the condo building I'm living in are from everywhere: Switzerland, Norway, Germany, Great Britain, France, Ireland, Russia, Australia, for example so conversing with the neighbors is much more interesting than it is in the U.S. There's sitting in a bar drinking beer and having someone come up to you with an assortment of new movie DVD's to choose from and for just 100 baht. Talk about easy going and minimal effort for entertainment, both before and after. There's the health club at the Long Beach Hotel next door I only have to walk 200 meters to use. Motorbikes---always liked them and here you get to drive them 365 days of the year. Always wanted to explore Asia, and did manage to get to China, Japan Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok around 1980 on two tours but they cost $3000 each or so even back then, so now I have a good base to explore out from at much much lower cost. Got the ocean (Gulf of Thailand ) just 200 meters from me to start out my walks. Beautiful two bedroom condo at a fraction of the cost I would have paid in the U.S. Thai massages and Oil massages at just 200 baht, and they can be gotten everywhere, starting with this great little place about one hundred meters up the street. Basically there's lots of everything very close by. And------in the U.S. there are DWI laws. So okay, I'm single and if I want to go out to socialize with people and have a few there's the Gestapo out there waiting for me. It's only a matter of time they'll get you and then it's huge fines. possible jail time, loss of driving privileges, etc. Just one big example of discrimination against single people in the U.S. where "Good People" sit around with the wife and kids, all of them getting to be fat" and bad people are those who do not toe the line. The U.S. is a police state where having fun is disallowed.

Could be simply supply and demand. There aren't that many four wheelers in Pattaya and probably the reason for this is the ideal machine for the Pattaya area is a small motorbike. So let's say you are Thai and you are renting atv's. And let's say you don't have a lot of demand for them so they aren't getting rented that much. Now in Western countries it works this way. If you can't sell a good or service at X amount of dollars you reduce your price rather than not being able to sell anything or renting what you have. So you might not get what you want but you will make a sale. In Thailand it works the opposite. If something does not sell because the price is too high, too many Thais will increase the price hoping for a windfall so as to make up for lost sales. Of course this doesn't work. But a lot of Thais haven't got that one figured out yet.