hwells

Friend of mine stayed at Robins Nest in the same block but on Soi Diana, was impressed with the rooms, DVD, fridge, phone nice & clean. i think he paid 10,000 per month, not 100 percent sure about the price but if interested in staying in that area would be worth a look. The bar downstairs has a very good menu & always seems to have a lot of customers in there. i have eaten there a few times & have no complaints about the food, a good breakfast for sure with friendly staff.

Believe it or not Thailand is one of the best countries to bring an elderly realative for a holiday. mate of mine has his 84 year old mum up here twice a year for 3 to 4 weeks at a time. He goes on as usual, takes mum out when going for a few beers & if he needs to take of somewhere speacial there is always some of the thai girls that will take her out for the day. She loves it ,has a very open mind as to how the girls survive & gets on well with all of them. Just makes sure she gets plenty of rest & bring her over during the cooler time of the year. March , April, May can be a kil

jimmy had some mates stay there a while back & they where not overly impressed with it. rooms/bungalows are pretty basic & in need of some work. Mosquitos at night where plentifull. Staff where very good but would think there are better options around the place. if your are looking for the bungalow type hotel try Jabba the Hut resort on Soi Boakow I believe they have a website, only know of one person that stayed there & they said it was ok. Hope its of some help.

Mikal, if you cant handle the humidity dont go anywhere near pattaya in april it is hotter than hades. Wait till Nov or dec for cooler weather.

The rooms are certainly fininshed well and yes there are still apartments for sale in the building. I would think that the apartments will be avialble for some time> Lets face it for over 4 million baht, no pool, no views, some of the rooms are actually quite dark with the buildings around i believe there are better value properties avialable. If you do get the notion to purchase make sure lock in the maintanance fees water & electric charges per unit. Also a very detailed contract defining the hotel responsilbilties to his condo owners.

1500 baht for a room with no view or pool in the hotel is a bit steep. Have a look at the Areca on Soi Diana, better rate with breakfast thrown in for you & your guest, no hassles 2 nice pools & good location. IMHO much better value.

Hilly has the golf invasion from the North started yet or are the dogs still safe from the BBQs for a while

Granted living in thailand health insurance a must but read the fine print on the BUPA insurance carfefully. Family member recently had an operation with policy for surgeons charges of of max 50,000 baht, surgeon charged 26,000 baht but BUPA would only reimburse 21,000 because thats what they say their table on the cost of that type of procedure is . The operation was performed at Bangkok Pattaya a BUPA hospital. So just beware that whats on the policy is not necessarily what will be reimbursed.. This is from the farang BUPA rep not the hospital. Another little scam in their is that after pay

Niall I had banked with Standard Charted in Singapore but they used to bung on the charges fairly heavily when transfering money. Have since moved to HSBC in Bangkok & have had nothing but good service from them. May be a bit harded to open account there now but give the customer relations mob a call & see what you require to open foreign currency account,> if you want to stop in & see them they are on rama IV opposite Lumpinin Park, highly recommended. Harve

Hilly you are spot on with the summary of Burapha it has headed down hill since the change of management there & they got rid of the very able & pleasent Charlie. The other thing that reallly pisses me off is when the courses make you take a cart & then dont let you drive it on the fairway. Fair enough if the fairways are wet stop the madatory use of carts for that day. As you said there is nothing worse than being on one side of the fairway & your ball on the other. Do you noitice that all the holes you hit to the right the path is on the left , golf is a game of oposites i

A word of warning for anyone staying at Areca during the xmas new year period. be sure to check that there are no surcharges for any of the days. ie last year i believe that xmas & new years eve had a 600 baht or there abouts surcharge. this even effcted guests who had been there a week or 2. This is a common practise in a lot of the upmarket hotels.Another one at the 5 star hotels is to charge for the new years eve gala dinners whether you attend or not.

This girl has indeed been around for many years, she used to frequent Ceasars bar when it was located near the police station. She has not changed much in all that time. She now earns some money by telling fortunes for the bar girls around the area. You will often see her having a one on one conversation with the girls in the mornings. Some of the girls seek her out constantly. I guess they figure she has lasted this long she must have some speacial " powers".

Kenshi, We had no problems carrying the stones back, although all countries have differnt laws on importing of stones. Some of the stones where made up into jewelry & some were loose. All the stones where brought with a GIA certificate & the grading was confirmed by jewelrys at home. In answer to Cowboy & Sinbinjack you are certainly correct in most of what you say & I agree with you both. The diamonds in Thailand are from outside the region. There are different reasons why stones here can be a bargain.If the diamonds are originally brought into the coun

Hi Dani, Some friends & myself recently purchased some diamonds from The Diamond Shop in Soi Regent Marina in North Pattaya, it is the first soi as you come onto beach road from the Dusit Hotel end. Can also be accessed from 2nd road by turning left at Pattaya Bowl, just past big C. While we were there we got talking to the owner & asked him about semi precious stones he said that no problem he could get them from Bangkok for us, he also had some in the store that a friend brought a couple from him. The owners name is Dave he is am american with a long history