Toy Boy

With the roads in Britain these days, there's no need to go to the beach for a dip this summer...

The largest lakes compared by size.

Check the map, traffic can now only go south down Beach Road towards Na Jomtien.

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but Jomtien Beach Road is now one way (heading south) from the Dongtan cop shop to Soi Chaiyapruek, while they start digging it all up for the next 2 years or so. Most of the side streets have also been made one-way, so you can only drive to Immigration on Soi 5 from Second Road now, though I expect a lot of people will still try to get there from the beach lol.

I tried a can of this Thai craft rice lager from Friendship, not cheap at 95 Baht, and memorable mainly for what a mess of tastes it was, no balance at all. I'm unclear if it's a 100% rice brew or, like Beer Lao Gold (one of my favourites), a lager made mainly from malted barley with a malted rice adjunct. And they didn't show much imagination in selecting the rice variety, just off-the shelf Thai jasmine rice or Khao Horm Malee, at least the people at Beer Lao did some homework and used a specialised rice, Khao Kai Noy. Just because jasmine rice might go down well with your pad gra prao for tea, but that doesn't mean it's good for making beer, lol.

Bird watching mostly, especially the tropical birds that have somehow lost all their plumage and engage in an exotic mating dance, lol.

I saw that when Larry posted it, but it's only for Android devices and I'm watching it on a (locked-down) Samsung TV. I know I could probably install it on my phone and then cast the ad-free YT video from the phone to the TV, but this stuff is supposed to make your life simpler... lol

... and just to make sure people interested don't convert to the wrong religion:

About 15 years ago, I did the Death March route in Bataan. First I visited Corregidor while in Manila, then headed up to AC for a week. While there, I hired a taxi and we drove down to Mariveles, then slowly retraced the route all the way back up to the monument at Tarlac, stopping off at anything interesting along the way. I did it at the same time of year as the real thing, in April when the sun gets directly overhead (Pattaya residents will understand the reason for choosing that date, lol), and it was bloody hot, even in an air-conditioned taxi. The intention was to head up to Camp O'Donnell the next day but the driver didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I ran out of time on that trip, but the next year I returned and found Camp O'Donnell in Capas. The driver the year before didn't have a clue what I meant as it's now called the Capas National Shrine. I'd intended completing the whole thing by heading across to San Fernando (if you want to know more about that then watch the excellent 2005 film 'The Great Raid') but again I ran out of time, and that's still on my to-do list. The problem with AC is that there are so many distractions... I was surprised nobody was running tours to visit the route, but at that time there were lots of kidnappings going on, with many police road blocks on the peninsula, and it wasn't safe to be driving after dark. Doing it myself and piecemeal like that was quite expensive and time-consuming, but I'm glad I made the effort. The whole route from Mariveles up the Bataan peninsula has a special road marker every kilometre along it.

Nope, only that the adverts seem to be getting longer and longer. I never minded 5 seconds of compulsory watching of the ads and then skip to the video, but now it mostly seems to be a fixed 20 seconds. With all the adverts during videos too, I've given up on it, downloaded around a hundred music videos from Bit Torrents and stuck them on an external HDD to watch, blissfully advert-free. I enjoy watching a bit of music on the TV before I go to sleep, but so many manic Thai adverts on YT were doing my head in.

Found this on the Wales Online website... our much-loved Dear Leader, lol

Locals will understand... lol!

I went back to Lotus looking for some more large bottles of the Carabao dunkel. Typically, they'd completely sold out, but then I noticed a gopher stacking a shelf with packs of half-litre cans of it. A closer look and at just 552 Baht for a dozen half-litre cans that might be the best beer bargain in Pattaya right now. I bought a pack and it's fine, but I wonder how they can turn this stuff out at just 46 Baht for a large can?

This one appeared in my feed on FB, and it's interesting but I find it a bit hard to believe... like the French on 36%, and the Italians on just 47%?

I've been wanting to try the Carabao beers for a while, but my usual sources of booze - Makro, Friendship and Villa - don't seem to stock it. I was in Lotus last week and noticed that they had some so I bought a couple of large bottles, one the lager and the other the dunkel. The price was very reasonable, I think 62 or 64 Baht per bottle, and I wasn't expecting much but I was pleasantly surprised. The lager is an easy drink, smooth with a pleasant taste. I'd certainly sooner drink that than Chang or Singha, anyway. It's at least as good as any other Thai lager-style beer I've tried, anyway. And then the more interesting one was the dunkel. Again, an easy drink with a nice, gentle toasty flavour. My only criticism was that the head disappears far too quickly once it's been poured, but I've noticed that with a number of the dark lagers. For 64 Baht you can't go wrong, anyway, if you like a dunkel. It's not going to win any prizes against the German dunkels, but it's less than half the price of those and I think most of us can forgive that for a saving of between 70 and 100 Baht a bottle. (To be totally fair, the German beers tend to be in half-litre bottles, whereas the Carabao bottles are 620 ml, so the price difference isn't quite a much as that.)

I'm not sure if this pair had already enjoyed the experience or were simply savouring what's to come... lol

Map of the London Underground from the sky. To orient you, south is to the right of the photo.

The Beetles crossing Abbey Road...

I flew business with Qatar in August and October, BKK-DOH-LHR-DOH-BKK, and I was, by and large, disappointed for an airline that regularly claims to be the best or second-best in the world. I wrote a trip report for my own records but never finalised it as I had better things to do. My first gripe was that all four legs were scheduled to be in Q-Suites. That’s great, especially as they all have aisle access so there’s no need to worry about reserving a seat. Then, a few weeks after booking I was informed that, due to a change of aircraft, the BKK-DOH and DOH-BKK legs would not longer have Q-Suites but the conventional 2-2-2 business class seating in a 777 instead. As I like to have aisle access, I reluctantly coughed up an extra 6,000 Baht to reserve a seat on both legs (3,000 Baht per flight). All of the first three legs were OK but nothing terribly special. There was nothing in the food or drink or service to write home about, but there was nothing really to complain about either. When I arrived at Doha for the final leg back to Bangkok, I was informed at the gate that the seat reservation I’d paid 3,000 Baht for had been cancelled as they’d changed the plane. I was pretty cheesed off until I saw that it was an A380, which I’ve never flown in before but was keen to do so. That flight was brilliant, one of the best ever, great food, great drink, great service, and a full-size bar behind the business class cabin where I spent the final few hours getting pished with an interesting Chinese guy from Guangzhou. Ten out of ten for that flight with Qatar, anyway. One aside, when I got to Heathrow for the flight back, they weighed my suitcases and informed me that, at 42 kg, they were 2 kg over the allowance and I would either have to move 2 kg into my hand baggage or pay £65 in excess baggage. I would have tried rearranging the stuff in my cases, or even chucking some cheap things away, but they were chocker full of chilled and frozen food, and I didn't want the staff seeing any of that lot so I decided to pay up. I’ve been flying internationally for almost 60 years and this was the first time an airline anywhere had ever made a fuss about 2 measly kg. And in business, as well, that’s just taking the mick when you’ve paid around three grand for the ticket. Are Qatar the only airline now that’s strictly enforcing the luggage allowance, or are they all up to the same trick? One further aside, I realised that the seat reservation had been cancelled by the airline not by myself and, according to their own terms and conditions, I was due a refund. After quite some e-mailing to and fro, they finally agreed to refund me the 3,000 Baht for the DOH-BKK leg. Almost 2 months later, I’m still waiting for it. In terms of price, Qatar still seem to be the best value airline on the LHR-BKK route, unless you really like flying in a crappy little plane all the way to Helsinki. It’s a shame that they’ve become so petty about small extra charges, and the quality of their business class has deteriorated noticeably since my last flight with them before Covid.