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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/15/2021 in all areas

  1. "When this all blows over, the tourists will be back." Where were all the tourists before Covid? It is easy to forget that for a couple of years prior to Covid, Pattaya had no real high season at all and that there were just far too many bars/GoGo's chasing the same diminished customer base. The continued high value of the baht was resulting in customers coming less often and spending less when they did. The baht continues to be far too strong for western tourists. Buy a bar now means putting it in mothballs for the whole of this year at the optomistic best. When Thailand eventually opens up to any meaningful influx of tourists I very much doubt that they will becoming from "western" countries. The chinks do not spend money in our bars/GoGo's. Thailand needs to come to terms with the fact that Covid is NEVER going to go away. There will always be some positive cases from tourists irrespective of world wide vaccination. If they do not accept that then they will retain quarantine periods and then you can forget mass tourism. As for condo projects. Surely any building going on now was the result of decisions/planning undertaken well prior to Covid. Pattaya and Jomtien is absolutely surrounded by new completed constructions conspiculously absent of any purchasers. Sadly, I do not think the Pattaya we have loved and enjoyed to the full will ever return to anything like its former self.
    11 points
  2. Keep going. Except you cannot much further because for every bar or GoGo like the ones you have listed there were 10 who would have said "Never known it so quiet" "Whatever happened to the high season" And "Only three customers in so had one drink and left" which was a very common comment, or very similar, in this forum. The one growth sector has been with the so called Gentlemans Clubs which are simply hostess bars by a different name. They have been springing up all around Town but away from the high priced rental scene. They seem to have been surviving even when there only customers are expats. Modern, airconditioned with realistic drink prices and lots of very friendly hostesses. I think the days of the GoGo's paying expensive rents and silly money to dancers and charging outrageously high prices for drinks and particularly lady drinks will be largely be at an end. Why pay 170 baht for a beer and 250 baht for a lady drink in a GoGo when you can get both for less than half away from the main drag. There will always be the odd exceptions with regard to GoGo's that reopen and may do well if for not better reason than two thirds of their competitors will have closed for ever. Infact, the permanant closure of very significant numbers of GoGo's may be the only way the remainder will survive.
    9 points
  3. Corned beef hash topped with cheese which I had with baked beans.
    6 points
  4. Excellent summary of things..... Another thing I have been watching for years is Gambling/ Casinos.......I think there is a movement underway to take-out the underground casinos in Thailand and give that income to the big boys...I don't think morality has any thing to do with the recent crackdowns... I hate to say it but Pattaya is ripe for a Sihanoukville part 2 with all these empty condos and almost empty shopping malls.......It would not take much to get another Sihanoukville disaster going in Pattaya.... China just needs to open the floodgates on easy cheap flights after gambling is legalized and the old Pattaya will be just a memory.....
    5 points
  5. There is an old lady that appears to be a little off her rocker I only see her when I go to the market .. she seems to sleep wherever ... and just rides her bike all day long Anyway, Ziggy and I were at the market this afternoon and we saw this old lady sitting on the curb crying her eyes out and stomping her feet .. acting kinda nuts ... Ziggy walks right up to this person and asks her what is wrong ..... I don't know what the lady said to Ziggy because whenever she says something to me it is all gobbly guck ... Ziggy tells me the tires are flat on her bicycle ... I tell Ziggy not to worry .. we will fix .... Ziggy gets this old lady to stop crying ... we walk a couple of blocks to this motor bike shop ( they always seem to be everywhere ) ... I sent a young guy at the motorbike store to go buy whatever he needed to fix this old ladys bike ... About 1 hour later .. the old ladys bike was fixed and she seemed happy ... I asked Ziggy how did she know this old lady .. she told me she always stops by moms flower shop and mom gives her a little baht to eat .... I told Ziggy good ...
    4 points
  6. Wine is subjective around the $25 and lower price. You can get a good one,a bad one and something in between.It’s a lottery. if you find something you like for $12,then that’s great.I have some $15 wines that are absolutely superb. but when you want to step it up...a $60 Prisoner is going to blow you away. then an 82 Grange for $1000 will knock your socks off.But,a cold six pack of Tiger light is absolutely fine as well. Im lucky enough to be able to appreciate them all and would never assume to tell someone else what they should enjoy. Its your money,you spend it on what makes you happy.
    4 points
  7. It's been a stressful day. I woke up to a cold house. My boiler had packed up. Good timing with it being freezing outside! After taking all the covers off and doing a bit of investigation I found the flu fan to be burnt out. 30 minutes on the phone resulted in not being able to source one until Monday. I decided to take the hit and call out a National company in the hope that they would probably carry one on the van, or at least be able to get one today. A bit of a shock when a guy knocked on my door within the hour. Apparently he was working 2 streets away when the job came up on his phone. The good news was he accepted my diagnosis, double checked himself straight away and confirmed that the fan was faulty. ( This saved alot of time as they charge by the hour ) Bad news was that he didn't carry the spare, nor did he have time to fit it today anyway, but he rang a supplier and they said they would have one in stock for him for tomorrow. So I am in for a cold night. Fortunately I have an electric portable heater which is man enough to keep my living room well warm, but the rest of the house is going to get rather frosty. I also bought a new dovet this week for my bed and I haven't thrown the old one out, so it's a double douvet night in bed and see how we get on. As a last resort, I do spend nights fishing on the bank, so I do have all the thermal gear to survive in the cold if need be. So I won't freeze too much. LOL Just hoping he turns up tomorrow with the part and nothing else is wrong.
    3 points
  8. It looks like for the foreseeable future, any of the previous discussions on the best countries for holidays in SE Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines) are going to need to include the local Covid restrictions as part of the equation. For years I have read hundreds of posts concerning the best place to vacation in SE Asia, with metrics such as cost, crime issues, attractiveness and willingness of the ladies, quality and price of accommodations, food availability, etc. Now we are definitely going to need to include any hassles, restrictions, and costs associated with Covid to any of these SE Asia destinations, when things start to open up again. It is definitely going to change the calculations in some very severe ways, and the actions that the various SE Asian governments take will probably have long term effects on their tourist industries. For me, as things shake out over the next year or two, I might have to start a spreadsheet to track the various costs and restrictions to enter and vacation in each of these countries. I have always found that Thailand, for me, was the best destination, but in the future, who knows?
    3 points
  9. Good idea? A Best Western hotel in London is now taking in Covid-19 patients as hospitals run out of beds https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/14/uk/uk-covid-pandemic-hotels-gbr-intl/index.html ...This 107-room inn is now a recovery ward for coronavirus patients, as part of a pilot program to relieve local hospitals that are under enormous strain in the second wave of the pandemic. The hotel's manager Alex Palaghiu said the transition from 4-star hotel to makeshift medical facility was driven by the need to help the country's ailing National Health Service (NHS). "We are very proud to be part of this, so it's a very good feeling to be a part of something," he said, "I believe everyone should get together to support the NHS and save lives." This is the first hotel in the UK to take part in the scheme, but if successful, it could be a model for converting more of the hospitality industry's spare rooms, many of which lie empty amid the country's lockdown...
    3 points
  10. Woohoo top of the league!
    3 points
  11. Not sure about "more bar areas than ever before" , years ago Soi 2 was huge , as was the area where Central is now and the one that was on Beach Road before you got to walking Street on the street side can't remember the name , plus all the side Sois on the way to WS were busy , as was Soi 7 and 8 ..
    2 points
  12. Just made me decide to have fish and chips tonight and a few drinks. Haven't had a drink this year and been on a strict diet to aid my liver etc as I have just had a blood test this morning. I will relax tonight.
    2 points
  13. Argument by assertion means little as it is just opinion based on f**k all. No one knows the future. What you write above was believed by many in Pattaya before this all started - ie more specifically by many who owned/ ran bars. If their customers are "Western sex pests' - what are you ? What are the bar owners ? Or are you just have a pathetic potty mouth. A Thai Tourism industry that emerges after all of this may not feature so much of the bar scene, but again none of us know. None of us know how this fucking virus is going to f**k us up. Thailand looked like it had the virus under control for a long time, now thats questioned. None really knows how the vaccine will pan out either. But opinions are still like arseholes - everyone has one.
    2 points
  14. Correct based on the trial of Sinovac in Brazil: "Last week researchers at the Butantan Institute, which has been conducting the trials in Brazil, announced that the vaccine had a 78% efficacy against "mild-to-severe" Covid-19 cases. But on Tuesday they revealed that calculations for this figure did not include data from a group of "very mild infections" among those who received the vaccine that did not require clinical assistance. With the inclusion of this data, the efficacy rate is now 50.4%, said researchers." Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-55642648 However the global standard for deployment of any vaccine is that is has to over 50% effective. Myself I'd obviously rather go for the expensive 95% stone cold Pfizer. Sure private providers will spring up offering the "good stuff"- you pays your money and you takes your choice🙂
    2 points
  15. Up at the crack of sparrows for the cricket.Watched the first session on the laptop in bed with the missus supplying me with cups of tea.Got up when they took lunch.Root just got to 100.
    2 points
  16. I am sorry to say that is exactly the reasons Thailand may quite possibly NOT be lifting restrictions such as quarantine on arrival simply to maintain Thailand's relatively low case rate. They are already making noises about the efficacy of their initial supplies of Covid vaccine. Which, incidently, is hardly going to go very far. Until the Thai government ( and the Thai population as a whole) accept the fact that world wide Covid is NEVER going to go away and that there will always be some positive cases from tourists they are going to maintain restrictions such as quarantine on arrival maybe for ever.
    2 points
  17. Pork fillet, onion and mushroom gravy, roast potatoes. Majority cooked in that well known gadget, the airfryer...
    2 points
  18. Loads of boats now anchored of the coast by the Police Station..... This made me chuckle, we've just seen that 7-11 on the corner, been there for years, a couple of doors away around the corner a brand new hi-so 7-11, you can't make this stuff up..... Back to the road work going towards the gold Hanuman statue... Homeward bound via Friendship for me now, stay safe lads........
    2 points
  19. About 16.30hrs....... No boats getting dragged up today.. A furry thing on a tree.... Loads of birds about....
    2 points
  20. Normally yes.....But we are only one year into operation shit show, no telling what extremes they want to take things...
    2 points
  21. That is a frame of snooker that you won't see better. Unbelievable clearance from nothing.
    1 point
  22. I have bought a variety of flavoured teas and have been drinking them this week. A few more tonight are in order for sure!
    1 point
  23. Drummer and bass guitarist are sisters, their name Dea Matrona is Gaelic meaning divine mother goddess. Love all the 60`s and 70`s gear they wear. They do have some great original stuff on YouTube as well as the great covers.
    1 point
  24. What deciding frame pressure?, just bang in a 141 to win. Totally cool unlike Wilson yesterday.
    1 point
  25. Yan Bingtao looks like a star already at 20yo
    1 point
  26. Yeah, they tried it in Vegas...had to go back to vices to make money. Besides, if Pattaya loses its "last chance" destination label for desperate (lazy) Thais lovelies... Where will they go? Some bra factory in Samut Sakhon? Ooops...already staffed by Burmese.
    1 point
  27. Yes, bar opposite the Irish Clock (in background)
    1 point
  28. I'm a sex pest and bar owners are pimps, just ask Bruce Mangosteen. Stop getting offended so easily ffs. The tourism industry in Thailand hasn't featured on the bar scene for years and years. That reminds me of a sex pest in soi 4 who said that if they closed nana plaza the tourism industry in Bangkok would collapse.... What a statement. 🤣🤣🤣
    1 point
  29. The Coronavac trial will adjust the figures to give you the efficacy you want. The 50.4% (50.38%) is what you get when all trial participants are included. Saw some figures a while back. Moderna and Pfizer about $US20 per dose (dunno if wholesale or retail). AstraZeneca about $US2-3 per dose. No idea the cost of Coronavac but it's manufactured old school. Whip up a batch of virus, clobber them with chemicals, stir in some aluminium salts and you're good to go. It's called inactivated virus. I guess if you not a particularly wealthy country and have hundreds of millions to vaccinate you go cheap.
    1 point
  30. 1 point
  31. Off to the pub for "Thirsty Thursday" - cheap draft beer night...
    1 point
  32. Hope you have a quick recovery. I just ordered some KN95 masks for when I go shopping and/or for anywhere around people. Better than the cloth masks I've been wearing... . . . Why Aren’t We Wearing Better Masks? https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/01/why-arent-we-wearing-better-masks/617656/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20210113&silverid=MzQ1ODAyOTY3ODM2S0
    1 point
  33. Barely a cloud in the sky and that lovely coooool breeze still with us, where shall I wander too?.. Jomtien is not really for me but I jumped on the Baht Bus and got of at Soi Chaiyaphruek.... Now if your going to Jomtien Beach the baht bus (because of road works, pics later)goes up 2 nd rd, does a ''U'' turn and then goes down Soi 7 to the Beach Rd.....I doubt if many people needed to know that..lol... Start of with a quick look in Soi 21, no progress apparently, short on the square concrete manholes..... This is the pipe they are laying on 3rd rd... So today Soi 19 open, top of Soi 21 closed.... By Soi X Zyte..... New bar that recently opened and closed in Soi Chaiyapoon..... And this sad old place..Crazy Dave, Boars Head is now up for grabs again.... .
    1 point
  34. I'm envious of those that still have hearing good enough to notice the difference between sound systems. With my tinnitus, it would be just wasted money buying a good sound system. Can any BM's still pass the mosquito sound test? I failed after level 1 in this vid.
    1 point
  35. Turkey crown Mango and passion fruit cheesecake
    1 point
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