MM

Nice photo spread, Evil...esp the first picture without any sign of food, lol. I hope to soon see this in the FB group, since your companion has many admirers there as well.

BigD just likes to sound cool by saying pub grub. That's from his short visit to Cambridge on the bus tour, I'd suspect.

Yes you can. They actually have a desk there called "International Remittances" where the whole USA bank test deposit issue is well understood. I explained what I needed, and she was immediately printing out a 1 page report for each test transfer. The report included sending bank's name, sending bank transfer description, and sending bank amount in USD. I did that yesterday for one of the banks that I had signed up for transfers in the USA. I needed to know which bank it was so that I could go verify on the correct bank website. I don't recommend doing two transfer setups at once for this very reason. Today, I received the second of the test deposits from the other bank. Since I knew who the "other" bank was, I didn't need to go into the branch. Instead, I used Bangkok Bank's published TT exchange rate for USD/THB for this morning, divided that into each of the trial deposit amounts, and came up with the amount in cents. You have to use the rate on the day the transfer is deposited. This exchange rate page has a calendar where you can select the date for which you want the rates. Go to the column labelled BUYING RATE:TT, row USD50. That is your divisor. Divide that into each of your trial deposit amounts and round the result to the nearest penny. Anyway, that worked for me. I should mention that I had been trying to turn on SMS OTP (One Time Password) via their phone support number (1333) and spent over an hour on hold for one call, and no less than 15 minutes on subsequent calls on hold. I never did get through to them, so I have not been at all impressed with the phone support. I actually had the bank staff at 2nd Road Soi 4 (across from Soi 6/1) on the phone and they were getting frustrated as well. They did finally get through, however, so there was somebody working at the other end. So as it stands, I now have 2 USA bank accounts that will allow me to do simple bank to bank transfers without all the rigmarole and hoops that my regular bank keeps throwing my way when I do an international wire transfer. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread and added information or prompted for more information..it's been my road map to getting this done!

The test will be if I can watch live sports..nothing I want to watch on now, so I'll have to wait. Composed on a mobile phone.

The Godfather 3Sofia Coppola Composed on a mobile phone.

I am posting this as an example of the kind of satire John Oliver has found himself in hot water over here in Thailand. I won't post his Thailand segment, but here he goes after Assad of Syria...and you can see his style.. For more information, you can google "Last Week Tonight Thailand" (his show title) to find current stories on your own. Here he is on Assad...

I don't recognize one of them...where did I miss this?

I just bought lanzlad's Minix M8 box for travelling and my second TV room. It's crisp operating and gets a ton of channels. I've just cancelled my NFL Game Pass subscription in the (perhaps too optimistic) hope that I can watch NFL (American Football) games broadcast from local channels in the USA....saved me the cost of the unit itself. Plus, I now have thousands of movies in the various movie library sites to watch. More interesting of all, from the from all the ranting and raving from the liberals who are frequently claim I get my views from Fox News, I have, for the first time, access to Fox News since 10 years...I didn't watch it in the USA when I was there, but since I've been accused of watching it, I'll give it a look. Maybe I can become an even more rabid libertarian now. Anyway, these boxes are the cat's meow...now if I can just get Mrs. MM to use it, I can have my bedroom back.

Good catch, Dunghie...I missed that. Composed on a mobile phone.

Thanks for the summary. Composed on a mobile phone.

I find this subject quite apt for my situation too. I just opened a Bangkok Bank account (thanks to info from this and perhaps another thread). I just yesterday added my BB account as an external account for two financial institutions in the USA. They are both sending test deposits in the next day or two. I'll be struggling with this very issue by Wednesday, I think. So, if someone comes up with an answer, I'll appreciate it greatly. It has to be possible or few would be able to use the ACH system for transfers. If I can figure it out, I will come back and explain what I had to do. The branch personnel are pretty much hopeless at the WS/Pattaya Tai branch, btw. They didn't even know about ACH..kept telling me to use a SWIFT code.

Arachnophobia (sp?)

Some eye-catching photos there..thanks.

Okay with Chrome on a laptop. With an android tablet, the map icons are there and, when selected, give you the information in English, but the list is missing.Yes, the list isn't there using the app. I can't see how to get it to show myself. I've been using the mobile app for navigation once I find the correct icon on the map. Composed on a mobile phone.

When I go back to the USA, my first meal is a good old fashioned Mexican carne asada burrito at a tacqueria I love..my second meal is a toasted asiago bagel with salmon and cream cheese. Yes, it's a delightful snack or small meal.

I saw the problem of the list covering the map now and the map details in Thai...it happened when I selected Firefox as the browser for the link. Try installing or selecting Chrome as your browser and see if it works.

2001..A Space Odyssey.Keir Dullea Composed on a mobile phone.

Many do. I don't. Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

It's definitely not in Thai on a PC...here is what it looks like. I can't say what it looks like on an Ipad. On an android system, you have to use the mapsengine app, rather than maps app, because google dropped support for custom maps in google maps application. Did you try loading the map in a browser or a Google map application on the Ipad?

In collaboration with some Facebook friends, including Beerbelly from the forum, we are developing a map containing the locations of many of the Pattaya restaurants that are reviewed in the Facebook group "Pattaya Restaurants" and sometimes here. I will post my reviews in this subforum from now on, since Evil has been doing such a bang up job keeping us all entertained with his food porn. I am also going to try to get a bounteous breast shot in at least one of the photos, circumstances allowing. Pattaya Restaurants Map is at http://goo.gl/1YNwul. Check it out and if you have any favorites that aren't there, let me know. I can't promise every eatery will be added, but we are doing the ones we have reviewed and a few that others have reviewed.

The mrs and I had some business to take care of out in the hinterlands of Soi Arunothai (not an area I am very familiar with), and on finishing it, we spotted this place. We checked that they had both Thai and Italian food, and decided to stop here. It's simple, basic, and has little in the way of "ambiance ", though it was quite busy for an out of the way eating venue. I ordered a caesar salad, spaghetti bolognese and a coke zero. The mrs ordered tom yam goong, pad kapao moo and water. After about 10 minutes, the dishes arrived sans the caesar salad, which took longer. I thought the waitress had forgotten the salad, because when I asked for it to be served at that time, she didn't recall my ordering it. So, my wife said to cancel the order. This was because, after a look at the spaghetti bol, I realized I had ordered too much. The waitress came back and said they'd already made it, so it was delivered a few minutes later. The thing is, I prefer my salad before the hot meal, but the spaghetti bol was so tasty, I didn't stop to eat the salad. My wife said both Thai dishes scored a 9 out of 10 on her taste scale. That's marvelous praise, since she normally finds something wrong with Thai food in a mostly farang restaurant...not here. My spaghetti bol had a good deal of meat in it, hidden by the spaghetti in the photo. The sauce had a strong flavor of, I think, either oregano or thyme..I wish I knew. At first I wasn't sure if I liked such a strong tasting sauce, but after a few bites, I really appreciated the full flavor of the combination in the plate, enhanced and governed by this sauce. I was not so happy with the caesar salad, nor would I order it again. The dressing which the waitress said was caesar dressing ruined the salad. I should have tasted it before putting it on, and would have been better off with oil and vinegar instead. Also, it was heavy on lettuce and short on chicken and croutons...and much of the lettuce was in 5 or 6 inch strips, so I had to use a knife to cut them to bite sized pieces. The menu contains no prices that I could see..apparently they are on a whiteboard in front of the menu that we didn't notice. So, it was a real suspenseful moment when she brought the check over. My wife guessed it would be about 500 baht, while I estimated 650 baht. The total (shown in the attached picture) was 468 baht, so she won. That always makes her happy I took a picture that included part of their business hours sign, but it was cut off at the edge of the photo. I did some research and apparently this place is open from 5pm to 5am, but never on Sunday. This makes it an ideal place for a decent meal after being out late...beats Kiss Food or street food, IMHO. Recommended if you're in the mood for a casual, yet hearty meal that is quite inexpensive. Pizza and Pasta is on the Pattaya Restaurants map.

Don't Look Now

Did I miss the price somewhere?

Miss Pink, I'm guessing you are Thai, so you probably know your soups. One of the things I have noticed about the absurdly famous "hole in the wall" popularized in a TR long ago, is that the clientele, whenever I have gone by there, is all farang or mixed farang male with Thai female. For a hole in the wall place to attract my attention and credibility, it would have a large proportion of Thai only groups eating there. This place seems to never have that, so I go by my one unimpressive (though not bad..just unimpressive) visit and the lack of Thai customers, and look for other options. I'm sure it continues to be inexpensive however.

Just a followup...I've walked by dozens of taxi "stands" around Walking Street and seen only 1 sign at a taxi stand at the entrance to Soi Diamond off 2nd Road. It was mostly obscured by some junk that was put in front of it. They aren't making much progress with this initiative yet.