fountainhead

you can book the Rembrandt cheaper than that on latestays.com, farangs.com and gothailand.com. and i agree, good place, good value. 5-10 minute walk to soi cowboy.

"goodwill." for example, places like Eden club in Bangkok are worth more than the sum of their parts (though often when a new owner steps in someplace like that, he runs it to the ground and destroys all the goodwill he's purchased), because the name and reputation alone will generate business for years. but i'm not sure why anybody would pay 5M for an unknown gogo on a street that's quickly becoming an annex to boystown.

quite often you're forced off. and sometimes they'll even change planes with the same flight number. "direct" flight is simply a marketing mechanism. doesn't mean you'll be flying nonstop, and doesn't even mean you won't be switching planes when you make the stop.

i've slept with bargirls in their non-airconditioned apts with non-flush toilets and no hot water, 3 or 4 people in each bed, counting me (ok, that part was cool). it was an interesting experience, but now my attitude is "been there, done that, this is my vacation and i want luxury." don't worry about what other people pay, just enjoy yourself.

most food poisoning will manifest within a few hours, the common symptom being vomiting and occasionally diarrhea. but some forms take days (many harmful strains of e-coli bacteria enter the human body via food ingestion and don't show for days).

let us know how that works out for you. i'm thinking of renting the place for a month this year. i've only seen it from the parking lot out front, but it looks spacious and nice from down below. take lots of pictures if you can and don't mind.

as you could probably guess, it's really hard to pay over $500 US per night for a hotel room in thailand. but what you may not have known is that it's also hard to find 3 midget ladyboys in thailand! try it if you don't believe me! there's a midget woman who works in NEP that i've been planning to do... just another item to tick off in my checklist of depravity. i've been trying to understand why the cheap charlies rag on the premium payers, but it's really hard to speak for other people. my best guess is that they actually think we're driving up prices and making it tougher for them to be cheap charlies, and their posts are 1) expressions of their frustration and 2) attempts to get us to stop the behavior that they believe harms them. of course, i think they're wrong (it's the number of whoremongers going to pattaya that drives the market prices up, not the amount a minority of premium payers shell out), but their posts only inspire me to pay more and then make sure to post about it later, just to raise their blood pressure. mai pen rai... just do what you want, pay what you want, have a good time and ignore the cheap charlies on the boards.

yes, but you lost close to 40 baht per month on interest! it's a scam i tell you, a scam!!! more than 1 baht per day!

an update... went to a place across the street and down a little from Heaven Above Gogo, maybe 3 or 4 doors down from SuperModels Gogo... can't remember the name, but they have the best pizza in pattaya.

i like: Cabbages & Condoms that japanese chain in Big C complex (i think it's called Fuji) Cosa Nostra just off Soi 7 the Indian restaurant on soi diana across from Papagayo Secrets i reserve my right to edit/adjust this post.

you beat me to it, but you left out Pizza Hut, Sizzler and MK. other places that i either don't like or are highly over-rated: Pig & Whistle, any western restaurant on Soi 6, Hard Rock restaurant, and all the burger stands on walking street (so dry...). gotta say that i did like New Orleans and Secrets (for the food). the walking street seafood restaurants are hit & miss... sometimes you get a really good meal, sometimes it's not worth finishing.

saw this post mentioning a really cheap ticket from darwin to singapore... i've never flown that route but it sounded like a really cheap ticket to me, so passing it on for anybody here. http://forum.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseact...mp;adTopicID=25 "tiger airways is offering singapore to darwin for SGD 330 (THB 7,700) return just now, inclusive of taxes and fees. travel must be between 01/08/2007 and 25/09/2007 inclusive and booking must be on or before 19/12/2006. travellers in thailand can take advantage of this by connecting from either krabi or hat yai to singapore for THB 2,800 return, inclusive of taxes and fees. outbound and inbound travel must be between 25/03/2007 and 27/10/2007 inclusive and booking must be on or before 17/12/2006."

you whined about losing the interest on 10000 baht in a 1-month period... at a 5% annual rate (which is more than you're going to get for 10000 baht in 1 month), that works out to less than 42 baht for 1 month. i didn't expect you to understand, given that you were complaining about it in the first place.

he's refering to the title you used for the topic: "WHY WAS THE THREAD DELETED ?, IT WAS A BIG AND SUCCESFUL THREAD." looking over the 40 most recent posts in this forum, only 2 have their headings capitalized (and you started both of those). please note that i don't really care, but i know some people do, and i'm simply pointing out that he's making an accurate complaint. whether or not it's worth complaining about is a matter of personal opinion.

classic... another guy in pattaya concerned about 41.5 baht per month...

7 photos of LK Metro and the surrounding area... not great, but since nobody else has posted yet... http://flickr.com/photos/72724961@N00/sets...57594417827187/

oh no, say it isn't so... you're the 2nd person to say that. where did the staff go? i swear by this -- from May to October, they had some real (female) hotties...

just adding a couple pics of the more "hidden half" of the soi... http://www.flickr.com/photos/72724961@N00/318901983/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/72724961@N00/318901986/

hmm... i remember being really drunk and trying to dance with the guy holding a bucket in that pic. i have really bad taste! lol

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72724961@N00/317631035/

i've been staying at the LK metro during my recent trips. i didn't like the soi diana area at first, but it's growing on me (especially once i figured out soi bhukhao). the laundry place on the corner of soi diana and soi LK is great. i like the bars around papagayos. i like some of the food in that area too. the roaming VW bus bar that parks outside LK metro is awesome. even the bars along soi diana are getting better. i think the first time i stayed at LK metro was april 2005, which wasn't long ago, and my how soi diana has changed since then... same buildings, but more hotties walking around. soi LK isn't a destination for me yet, but i'm sure it will improve. it'll get more customers and more women as pattaya grows... it seems like sparse areas of pattaya fill out and "improve" over time, and i can't imagine what would stop that trend from continuing (other than an effective attempt to end sex tourism by thai authorities, but i just don't see that happening). good luck w/your bar. not sure if i've tried it yet (often don't pay attention to what bar i'm walking into), but i'll give it a shot next trip.

solly i not go wit man.

i'd like to see the results of one of the Go Go bar owners experimenting with all of these suggestions... but on their dime, not mine

i think the girls are smart enough to figure out how to most efficiently work their cusotmers and make deals happen based on what they control. after all, they could ask every guy who takes them for 20,000 baht ST (and they certainly want that), but they don't... stunners will make guys wait, because they can, and the guys will wait for them. average girls will take what they can get. the market will control how long they can keep you around, and they're not going to blow a deal they want over it. markets have a way of finding their equilibriums, and experiments in pricing either result in the experiment ending or becoming standard practice...

now if you really want to experiment with barfines, and you're up for an even bigger logistical nightmare, try this one out... (MM looked at me like i was fuckin' crazy when i suggested it to him) keep your barfine the same throughout the night, but as the night goes on, give a bigger percentage of it to the girl. eg., if the barfine is 600 baht and the girl is barfined at: 7PM-11PM: give the girl her standard 100 baht 11PM-12AM: give the girl 200 baht 12AM-1AM: give the girl 300 baht 1AM-2AM: give the girl 400 baht after 2AM: give the girl 500 baht what will this accomplish for you? girls will have an incentive to keep a guy around (drinking) before getting barfined. also, at 1:30AM when they're thinking, "i can go home soon," they now have a huge incentive to keep working the guys who walk into the bar. from the bar's perspective, you're still giving a discount on the barfine as the night goes on, but you're giving the extra $ to your employees instead of your customers. it's also a way to sneak extra money to the women who are barfined most often (and are likely the woman who are drawing guys into the bar)... often you might want to pay your stunners more, but that can cause tensions with the other employees. this way, it's like a hidden bonus. what do you have to lose? it's a pain in the ass to implement (but that's what cheap labor is for anyway...). but you don't lose much from the bottom line (and might actually gain), since the incentive you're creating is for women to stay in the bar longer before getting barfined. you also take away the incentive they have to meet punters outside 15 minutes after the bar closes.