Sapper

I gave everything to my family back in blighty and came over with just my dive kit, computer and clothes. Cheap enough to buy furniture here and if you buy a house/condo more often than not it will come complete with furniture. It is pretty easy to ship stuff though. Charged on volume rather than weight if you are shipping it.

Thanks Johnnyk, Website is perfect! Gives me most of what I was looking for. I was also looking at land in Hua Hin and thinking of building there. Only thing I was worried about is some people might think it is too far out!?! Even though it takes less time to get there than it does to get up Nern Plab Wan!

Aren't they already building a pipeline from south of Bangkok (Bang Na?) to solve the water problem?? Extracting money from Thailand isn't really a problem either. You just make sure that your bank (or lawyer) gets a completed Tor Tor Sam (tt3) form on your transaction. This acknowledges that the money coming in was foreign exchange but make sure you send it in to country as Dollars, Pounds, Euros whatever and get the exchange done in Thailand. Change to Baht in your country of origin and you don't get the tor tor sam.

I see where you are coming from on the Farangs... I am back in Pattaya in Feb, should see a few then. I already have a few properties in Pattaya but want to look into building a few houses to just sell. Although my house I eventually build will be away from Pattaya, I think building houses around Pattaya (around the resevoir for example) will sell well. Just don't want to go into it blind and would like to hear peoples "horror stories". Thoughts appreciated.

Hi all, Anyone any expeience of building their own house or building for sale in Pattaya? It is something that might interest me later on once I stay permanently but would like to know what sort of pitfalls you run into. I would imagine you have to manage the project pretty closely and make sure the land you buy has the correct planning permissions etc. If anyone has any experiences and/or advice I would appreciate hearing it.

Mermaids will be good to get certified with as they do a lot of "zero to hero's" (non diver to instructor level in one long course) so have a lot of experience in teaching, but as they concentrate on this, they ain't so good to go with just for fun dives. Khram is ok to dive on once but is small and pretty boring after the second or third dive. The Hardeep is pretty good as is shark fin rock near to it. Yes, Pattaya is definitely the poor relation to other Thai resorts when it comes to diving but there is some great macro stuff about with lots of nudibranchs and soft corals around Koh Rin. Consider Koh Chang. It is only three hours drive from Pattaya you can get certified there for around 10,000 - 12,000 baht and there are some very good dive sites there. Not really over dived as yet either so is quite underrated. The island itself is beautiful and quiet... nice area to take a break from Pattaya!!