TheFiend

I'm in Thailand for Songkran, but I won't be suffering the chaos of the Pattaya festivities instead I'll enjoy the much more sedate version up north....

Sadly there is 3 of us travelling this time, so I've got seats on the lower deck, but in October when it's just the 2 of us I'll be booking upstairs.

My April flights with Emirates the MAN-DXB and DXB-MAN legs (EK18 and EK17) are down as being 3 class version 2 A388, EK19 and EK20 was the one being changed to the 2 class version. The DXB-BKK leg on EK376 is 2 class A380 but our return on EK385 is 3 class A380.

I was eyeing up Finnair to try the new A350 to Bangkok but the long stopovers in Helsinki was putting me off.

Last flew on Emirates in Nov 14 and my April trip with Emirates is 15% cheaper - and that was booked when a "Black Friday" email offer popped up in my inbox. In the 10 years since I started visiting Thailand last 3 trips to Thailand have all been cheaper than my first trip 10 years ago.

Merry Xmas to all BMs....

Booked for Manchester-Bangkok next April and the 2 class A380 is on the EK376 diagram so I'll get to enjoy it on one of the 4 legs.... might be tempted to book one of the upper deck seats...

The front porch has a light as does the carport and every night could spot at 2 or 3 ready to feast.... a walk around the house I could see at least 10 geckos at various locations on the walls.

Getting sick of gecko poop... seem to be finding it everywhere!!! It appears as those quite a few geckos have seen our house as being a desirable location to live!!!

Mrs Fiend had a frog in one of her shoes last time we were here,but thankfully the vegetation across the road from our house has been cleared so the noisy little fucker has moved on!!!

Just had a very close call with one of those bastards!!!! Was putting my foot in a sandal when it shot out of the toe hole and scampered off at a fair rate of knots!!! I'm going to be very careful in checking my footwear from now on!!!

I once got a parking fine for failing to display my parking permit and they supplied photographic evidence to support the issue of a parking fine, which clealry showed the permit on display....... result was fine cancelled!!!

Mine's been hit and miss....sometimes it's been it's been hanging and sometimes not. EDIT..... and this one appeared straight away

MrsFiend fell foul of the new carrier bag charge yesterday........ I doubt shell forget again!!!

We're back in the cheap seats. I find the 3-4-3 of the arrangement of Emirates and Etihads 777's a lot more cramped than on the 2-4-2 they use on the A330 and A340's.... Looking forward to the A346... the only other time I've had an A340 was with Air France when I flew to China 10 years ago. Don't care about the size of the craphouse... As long as I can hit the target I'm happy!!!

I use Firefox (up to date version) to access the forum and the little button to the left of each topic that you can click to take you to the unread posts seem to be missing.

What about donations for covering the server costs? i know of quite a few websites/forums that are kept running on donations. It would be a shame to lose this forum.

Since I booked my trip in June Etihad have made changes to the flights on 3 occasions.... 2 of those were flight times and I have now discovered what the 3rd change was.... When I booked the aircraft were 773ER MAN-AUH, A332 AUH-BKK , 773ER BKK-AUH and 773ER AUH-MAN Just been checking my booking today and now they've changed the AUH-BKK leg to a 773ER and the AUH-MAN leg to A346.... The good thing about that is I get to fly on an Etihad A346, the bad thing is they messed up my seat allocations on 2 legs and didn't bother to inform me what the changes were...

When it matters, the World Cups, the England teams aren't good enough to beat the Aussies in either code... The Kiwis are coming over to the UK to play a 4 test series end of this month.. don't think we'll win the series, we'll maybe draw it if we're lucky

With England now out I wonder if the Rugby Leagues Superleague Grand final will get more column inches next weekend in the British press... Somehow I doubt it.... Didn't watch the match but I'd hazard a guess Sam Burgess gets singled out for criticism... This appeared on Twitter shortly after the game finished https://twitter.com/BarRorkes/status/650412352366596096

But the basic tier level the allowance has dropped from 30kg down to 23kg, and the miles award has also dropped depending on fare option chosen for base level members. I know one things for certain I won't book with Etihad again after this trip. I was lucky I booked my next trip before both mileage and luggage changes came in.

It seems the majority of posters on this thread have had no problems after eating at Little India. I think I'll give it a go next time I'm in Pattaya. It is interesting to note that the OP has not revisited this thread since posting it.

Mod note - I've edited the title to remove the avoid. Quite a lot of BMs have used this restaurant with no problems and have been repeat customers. There are several causes of Diarrhoea and it isn't always food that is to blame.

The RFL have brought in a marquee player ruling which will allow teams to sign one player not governed by the "Salary Cap limitations" imposed on the clubs. It's to try and stop the best players being attracted by the big money being offered by the NRL in Australia, but it could also be used to attract players back from the NRL but also from Rugby Union. If the right money was on the table Sam would come back to League. Marwin Koukash at Salford Red Devils has the money to sign him as a marquee player if he wanted to. i could see Sam Burgess being like Sonny Bill Williams and swapping between the two codes.

Nice to see Sam Burgess get a few minutes on the pitch and showed what he is capable of..... Also interesting to see how much Rugby League pedigree was on that pitch tonight.. Part from Sam Burgess both Owen Farrell and George Ford played rugby league in their younger days. Such a shame that such talent has been lost to Union, although I reckon Burgess will be back playing League in 2 or 3 years time.