fforest

Tonight

The Australian dollar finally cracked 20 and the Euro cracked 33...The Pound is just a quarter point away from cracking 36.... The Dollar seems to weak but holding firm....

The Indian Rupee at .27 Damm this takes the cake...The lowest I have ever seen it.....You can get .42 in Pattaya anywhere....

The Indian Rupee is also down in the dumps.....Things are much more expensive for the Indians in Thailand....Especially Indian food..

Day after day after day falling....

Hello I dont post on this forum but this is a good thread on Indian restaurants... I have been following this situation for a few years now and I thought I would throw my 2 cents in.... Until about 2010-2011 ?....Pattaya had what I would consider a normal number of Indian Restaurants to meet the demand for Indian food in Pattaya....I do not know how many there were then? But if I had to take a guess I would say maybe a dozen give of take.... From about 2011 the numbers slowly started to increase and in the last 2-3-4 years there has just been a explosion of Indian restaurants....If I had to make a wild guess I would say there are easily 200 Indian restaurants from Naklua to South Pattaya...Hell I might even be under estimating... 2nd Road near walking street is practically a solid mass of Indian restaurants and the area by 2nd road and Central road there are LOADS of Indian restaurants.... Like has already been pointed out in this thread most of these Indian restaurants have very few customers.. And some seem to have virtually no customers.... I would also say about 97% of the customers they do have are Indian.....I have never seen a Thai person in a Indian restaurant ever..Not one....I dont think I have seen any Chinese in them either....And I have only seen a smattering of farangs or Russians eat in any of these Indian Restaurants.... These Indian restaurants are also not cheap...I highly suspect that the Indians are not paying full price... Are the Indian tourist going to pay 5 or 10 times the price for Indian food in Pattaya than they pay for the same meal in India....NO... NO FRIGGING WAY are they going to pay out the wazoo for Indian food in Pattaya.....Many? Most? are not paying full price I would strongly guess... If you walk by and look at the Indians working at these Indian restaurants they NEVER look worried or stressed-out do to lack of customers....Most are just kicking back playing with their phones...They also are NEVER hustling for business......And I do mean NEVER..... Do any of these Indian restaurants offer blow-out specials to attract customers EVER? Not that I have seen.. My feeling is most dont give a rats-ass if they have customers or not.... I live near Central road just blocks from Pattayas little India,I see these Indian restaurants every day...And you know what I have NEVER seen a Indian restaurant close down or go out of business.. Not one...Once they open they stay open.... So lets see what costs they have to stay open...Rent,gas,water,electric,food they must stock,Employee salary,permits,taxes,repairs,visas,etc... And lets see what money they are taking in.....97% of the few customers that they do have are Indians who many I would guess are not even paying full price.... Houston we have a problem here.....No way is the customer base supporting all these Indian restaurants... So the 64 thousand or is that million dollar question is where is the money coming from to keep all these 200 Indian restaurants open month after month year after year? Could the restaurants be for visa purposes?.....If so are 200 really needed? Could the restaurants be for money laundering?....If so are 200 really needed? Or could the reason be because________? Fill in the blank...