teelack

Rawhide. If a couple of million tourists less turn up this year from China, then this could be a reason. As I understand it all tour groups have been cancelled in/from China at the moment and this in turn is having affects on airline and tourism stocks which reacted very quickly to the expected down turn. .

Thanks guys. This has focused me a bit. I have sat down with the calculator and for me to buy the odd amounts of currency that I would like has a cost of about 2.5 % at home and after paying a transaction fee. In other words, its not worth worrying about.

Yet again I would like to express my appreciation to those posting here. When you are a long way from Thailand and considering how to fund you spending knowing whats happening to the baht is a great help. I compare the figures with my local bank, take into account a 1% buying fee and then decide how to proceed. Can anyone tell me this please. Is it possible to buy other currencies from a TT Exchange? At home I am caught with an exchange fee and well as crap rates. I appreciate that I may have to use a bank but needless to say I will always try TT first as they always seem to be the leader in rates. The reason that I asked is that I did try some years ago and was told "No Hab" and never tried again.

Thanks. That all sounds like good advice. I do get the questions but and was only once asked if I had pornography on me. I guess that its having my onward flights disrupted that's the issue with me. Over fifty years ago I learned a lesson and it has stuck with me. Around the same time in my life I met two guys who were deep into photography. One was a semi professional and the other a private detective in the era where you needed compromising photos for a divorce, Both told me independently that almost all women liked to be photographed and in the right circumstances, in the nude. I took this on board but never had a chance to try it out till I got to Thailand and BINGO! Yes, its a fact and I have ended up with a treasure trove of nude stuff. Almost all of these ladies are in there 20s and 30s but as we all know some older ladies in Thailand still look a bit young. I really haven't the heart to dump them off my computer but I think that the time has come. The other thing is that Google Photos is a bit of a monster for finding photos that I thought were long since dumped. It truly amazes me but once again its a warning that I need to take notice of.

Malaysian have had a rough time of and they to changed the time table out of Auckland and this one suits me. It departs at 1.30 AM, has a changeover in KL and gets into Bangkok at just after 10.00 AM! This is great for me as it also gets back to Auckland at a time where I can also get a lower cost domestic fare. This is in line with my current thinking. In the past I would get to Pattaya between say 11.00 PM and 3.00 AM and that was a wasted night. Getting in at this time of day allows me to clear Bangkok and be in Pattaya for lunch. Getting in at this time of day is great as I can get my stored gear, haircut, bank and even a swim before getting ready for my first night in town. The only downside is a reasonable wait prior to my flight and I am thinking about paying for a one time lounge membership to speed me on my way.

Last night I checked out my February flight on Malaysian and was pissed off to find the cost lower than 5 weeks ago. Then again they have blotted their copy book again in New Zealand. They had to cancel 2 flights in 2 days due to the plane not getting off the runway due to some engineering issues and then screwing up the way that they treated the held over passengers. The sooner they get new management, the better but at the moment they are still the best deal for me and if the plane is half full that's fine with me. Sent from my Nokia 6.1 using Tapatalk

To add to this list of reasons I have another one to add. I have been to Thailand so many times that I am starting to feel that my time may be up for a big search. In NZ. The computer knows a lot about my travel and there is sharing among government departments. I really do believe that its going to happen sometime soon and during the last year I have been paying a surcharge for a transferable ticket. In essence this means that assuming that I can get quickly through customs and immigration I can get an earlier flight home on a domestic flight. If on the other hand I am held up for perhaps an hour or so I will still have time to catch the original flight. The point about Thailand is not only its bad drugs reputation but also I would anticipate my mobile and lap top to be looked at. I would like to know if any others feel that they have been or will be targeted because of their frequent flights to Thailand.

I guess that its all about your age and time available. Of recent time I have had to spend nights in Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong and Auckland and other places due to all sorts of issues. As long as the airlines put me up and I sometime get a chance look at places that I have never seen before then I put it down as a bonus. The only thing that got me really wild was finding out that the HK $75 that I got for breakfast at the airport was a joke. I complained and got $US 100 in compensation! I would also be pissed of if this was my once a year holiday but other than that I accept missed planes and connections as part of the deal.

I have tried three street sewers on Soi Buakhao and they were all good. I also went to a tailoring shop off Pattaya Klang and it was crap. Go figure! The place I used in November was outside Cheap Charlies and the one prior to that was where New Plaza starts. I was really pleased with the speed and quality of work with the November one.

Thanks again for taking the time to give me a slice of Pattaya. I had a quiet chuckle about the end of the New Bat gogo bar. I had come to the conclusion that this place was a secret retirement home for disabled gogo dancers. It really was bizarre from the bean bag chairs for the girls and the armchairs inside the place. It was worth buying a drink just to see the place. May it rest in peace

Without commenting on the wider subject I have found it a reasonably normal conversation with Thai girls. I even had one Thai lady tell me that she was open with her son as she would rather he did that than get some teenager pregnant. I think we could be surprised how many Thai girls have a "Buzz Buzz" in the bedside cabinet. Sent from my Nokia 6.1 using Tapatalk

So much to the point that perhaps it should be pinned! I haven't seen a better summary of the situation. Sent from my Nokia 6.1 using Tapatalk

I guess that near the end most of the ladies in Crazy House were not worth putting 'hands on' but I see your point. I guess that CH was itself getting to the stage where it needed to be gutted anyway and few things stay the same. Pacha is a different concept in that lookers seem to have replaced doers. There are still enough hands on places in Pattaya to ease the pain!

Thanks as always for taking the time. While Pacha may not be wonderful it is still possible the best 95 baht cheap draft intro fee on Walking Street. 100 plus girls, some of who are very desirable, for that price is the November bargain. Sent from my Nokia 6.1 using Tapatalk

There is a dreadful amount of angst in people’s minds regarding the value of the Thai baht and their respective currencies. To be honest I cannot recall rates from years past and its all a bit irrelevant but here is something to chew on. In the sixties many commonwealth countries decided to decimalise and I was a constant visitor to four of them, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. I am aware of the history of these four places and it might interest you to know how things stand today in relation to Thailand. The UK was the only country to retain the pound sterling as its main unit whilst NZ and AUS and SAR used half that amount, or ten shillings as it was then. Who, after all these years are the winners and losers? The following figures are reasonable averages of today’s exchange rate against the baht. Pound sterling, 38.5 baht NZ Dollar 19.1 x 2= 38.2 baht AUS Dollar 20.5 x 2 = 41.0 baht SAR Rand 2.00 x 2= 4.00 baht So there you have it. The $ AUS is a slight winner while the SAR is a vast loser. There is only one point to add to these numbers and that is that the three commonwealth countries had issues with importations unless you had currency stashed away overseas, mainly in Britain. For this reason people would pay a premium for pounds and dollars, often as high as 25% therefore the UK loss has been even greater.