tomcat76

I was ambiguous, wasn't I? Sorry. I was talking about going from Pattaya to the airport. Going the other way I wouldn't bother with prebooking either.

You talking about Suv. or here in Pattaya? Yeah I guess here in Pattaya you could walk right next door to the bus station - I assume they have busses to Suv. although I wouldn't know how often...

'Doesn't seem to be hurting their business (based on what I saw a cpl of weeks ago).

Their website just isn't ready for primetime, and they won't accept reservations over the phone.

Now that they have revised their website, and require prepayment, reservations with BTS can be a real pain. Twice I've gone to submit a booking request, gotten some kind of error, and been thrown out of the process without knowing whether there was a booking or not. If you then call them, they won't be able to help you unless you can either give them a booking no. ( which you won't have 'cause naturally you won't have rcvd the email they're supposed to send you), or your credit card info (so you'll have to call your credit card co. to find out if they've billed you). In my case, the 1st time around a cpl of weeks ago, they HAD. Have to call my credit card co. again now to find out. 'Think I need a new way to get back & forth. 'Don't need the aggravation...

I opened my Kasikorn account with a tourist visa in hand but think the 30-d stamp is just as good. Don't actually know if the debit card I got can be used elsewhere in the region or not, so that'd be worth mentioning specifically. TCs will cost you 33baht each to cash here; you'll get the same rate you'll get for $100 notes, or maybe slightly better. You might want to set up your bank account back home to be able to wire funds into your Thai account directly and you might want to research how to do that before you leave.

You DO cover all the odds, don't you?

...for either USD or THB here in Pattaya tomorrow or Sunday, 27Jan. Pls reply via PM.

If you buy DVDs here to take back home to the states or europe, how do you deal with the regional encoding thing on dvd players?

Yes, there's a version for MacOS...

There's the kind of soil they're grown in, too - makes a world of difference. Also, refrigeration guaranteed to sap the flavor.

One place I DIDN'T see them (and I'm not complaining) was the Nana "safety zone". Except riding thru on their bikes every so often...

Pharmacies in BKK along Sukhumvit were back to providing it freely as of mid-month this month. Counter-person was vanishing to the backroom for what seemed like quite awhile to get it, but no real problem. Street vendors freely selling the stuff to (or the facsimile) as well. Cops here & there, not apparently concerned.

...the times we live in. Many like him out there.

Checkout OpenOffice. There's a slight learning curve since they can't duplicate MS product features exactly, but its document file types are compatible with the Office appns. Edit: Oops - am not sure if there's a mac-compatible OO version or not...

Interesting. Not that I'm directly facing out on it, but it's not bothering me that much. Maybe there's worse to come.

At this point (21 Jan) there IS construction going on next door. I'm not finding it all that bothersome, but it does include some pile-driving which might disturb a light sleeper wanting to sleep in. 'Seems to get going around 9am. I thought I got a pretty decent last-minute room rate; maybe that's why.

Oh I have no doubt at all. I'll bet you can recite it word for word, and suck it for every penny you can. They say everybody's good at SOMEthing...

This one was a real bitch. Would have been quite entertaining to have seen some farang feminazi infuriated by the scene and taken her on. Excepting that he must be Muslim, I'd otherwise feel sorry for the husband.

Good point. In my case however makes absolutely NO difference. With either one, I'm NOT covered and would have to arrange separate coverage either way. License is not the issue. However, I think most renters are achieving their insurance through the credit card used for the rental rather than their own auto policies - CDW anyway.. That's worth checking into.

Isn't an Int'l DL just as good? (And easier to get...)

Or at least Big Government at work. Too bad most republicans jumped on that bandwagon decades ago.

Hard to believe. They may be limited in their authority to detain you (beyond what's necessary to make you miss your flight), but seems like they can do most anything else... Blaming this state of affairs on Bush & Cheney is just juvenile crying fit though.

The eternal tradeoff between security and usability. If you disable it completely, depending on what you need for your PC to do, you may find that you can't get by. No harm in trying to work that way though and see if you can manage without it or not. You can always re-enable it.

Yes, she was speaking English. Would love to have seen you do as you claim you would've done. Suspect the situation would've escalated rapidly. In all honesty, she was acting like a crazy woman. I can just see one of the other 2 on their cell calling down the wrath of the prophet upon you while she punched out a wrap rhythm on your chest with her well-muscled index finger.