Jambo

The definition of eccentric is "unconventional and slightly strange." Is that not how the general public as a whole view (at the very least) all expats? 😄 As for solo regular male visitors to Thailand? They think we are all having sex with Thai females half our age. I wish 🤣

Me too with same positive experience.

Personally, I have never liked beer bar complexes. Or maybe, more accurately, I infinitely prefer the ambience of the individual bar/club with a good but not too loud sound system, air con, cold beers and hot slim friendly girls. I mean, whats not to like? Given how it would seem Pattaya already has an over-abundance of existing beer bar complexes mostly devoid of paying customers does anybody think adding new ones to the mix is going to be any more successful?

I took a Tuk Tuk just the once from the airport to street 136 in Phnom Penh and several times thought I was going to end up in hospital. Apart from the terrifying ride breathing in the air pollution was awful. I have only stayed in the Riverside Hotel in street 136 which was fine and right in a busy entertainment area.

I will fly Nok Air to Mae Sot where my car is waiting for me to use during my stay having been basically in storage. Sai and her sister have a Ford truck and some monster Isuzu. I finally changed my flights today. I will fly to Bangkok on the 20th October and then Don Mueang to Mae Sot returning to Edinburgh on the 15th November. On the way back I will give myself a week or so in Pattaya. I picked those dates to hopefully miss the rainy season both "Up North" and in Pattaya. Qatar Airways ripped me off to the tune of four hundred pounds to change my flights. I suppose that reflects how much the fare has increased since I originally booked.

I will be spending the first 19 days of my trip way "Up North" in Mae Sot which is a large town with both a football and separate athletics stadiums. The local football team is not (too) bad and enjoys very enthusiastic and good support from the locals. The climate is somewhat different to Pattaya and usually September is the last month of the rainy season . So if I arrive in October I probably will miss most of the rain but my recollection of mid to late October in Pattaya was often huge thunderstorms and the occasional extended period of several days of non-stop rain which does not usually happen any other month. I think I will change my flight to arrive mid October which means when I get to Pattaya it will be a week or so into November which always used to be dry and was the start of my fair weather golfing season. 😊 Unfortunately, I believe last year was an exception with heavy rain well into November. The worlds weather has gone crazy so why should Thailand be any different.

I have to change my flight back to Thailand and I am trying to decide between September and October. The rainy season usually ends "Up North" by October but in Pattaya (second half of my visit) invariably October is the last and by far the worst month for rain is it not? Decisions, decisions. 🤣 Either way, there are already way too many entertainment venues so maybe it just becomes another white elephant like Tree Town.

Me too! 🤣 I distinctly recall booking my second trip quite literally the same day as I returned from my first. My two grown up daughters were far from impressed and very suspicious. I dread to think what their reaction would have been to my 10 bar fines. 😊

I wish you well. I waited well over 2 years for my hip replacement operation and only jumped the waiting list when my hip became so bad that the surgeon mentioned the possibility of complete collapse.

Beware, watching this film. It could affect your pocket. Following such a positive recommendation I decided to try to find this film. Firstly I searched on Netflix but they did not have it available. Then I tried Prime video as I have an account through Amazon. I do not watch a lot through Prime and never films that require an additional payment. Up came this film available for free for 7 days through a streaming service which included the word "Chanel" in its name. The film starts to load as a message comes up on my phone telling me that I had subscribed to "Channel" and my first monthly subscription will be deducted through my bank details already held in my Prime account after 7 days! f**k that! I spent the next few minutes cancelling my "Channel" subscription then started to watch the film as entitled by my 7 days free period. 😊 I am sorry but we must have very different views on what constitutes a "masterpiece". I have nothing against a film containing a high degree of violence. For instance, "Pulp Fiction" is one of my favorite films with a lot of violence but you find yourself cheering for the bad guys. I have never watched a Tarantino film I haven't liked. I gave up on "The Place beyond the Pines" after the young policeman started to go to pieces. I just didn't care enough whether he got over shooting the character played by Ryan Gosling. The Ryan Gosling character was impossible to relate to because he had absolutely no redeeming features. He was a complete violent waste of space and there was absolutely nothing to like about him. I simply had enough of watching him and thus when he was shot dead by the policeman I gave up on the film. I don't believe I have ever watched a film before that didn't feature a single likeable character. Maybe the female shrink excepted? 😃

My first proper paid job was a morning paper round for the princely sum of £3.50 a week but as I delivered to an extremely posh part of Hampstead, North London I made more than a years wages in Christmas tips. The owner of the paper/sweet shop which was in Highgate Village loved bowling. So at age 15, in the School holidays, he put me in sole charge of the shop from 9 to 3 twice a week and paid me £3.00 a day. I loved it as it not only gave me access to all the top shelf magazines but the pick of all the bars of chocolate for my ex gratia lunch. Given I had nobody to give me a break for lunch I felt that was the least I could reasonably expect. At age 18, having passed all my exams, I commenced full time employment at Sun Life assurance society at a branch overlooking Nelson's column, and thus Trafalgar Square, as a junior clerk. My salary was initially £550 per annum and part of my duties was to make the tea for the whole branch both morning and afternoon but I only had to wash up in the morning. All the salesmen met together in the branch every Friday morning after which the Sales Manager took all of them to a local Pub. As one of my additional duties was to manually produce all their quotations for potential sales they took me to the pub with them and refused to allow me to buy a drink. I quite often returned pissed which would explain why the stamp book never, ever, balanced on a Friday. Three years later my salary had risen to £800 pa which enabled me to buy my first house being a new 3 bedroom semi costing £4,100. Sun Life would lend staff a maximum of 5 times their salary for house purchase and I couldn't afford the additional £250 for a garage. Happy days.

For some reason the words "Ratree experience " popped into my mind? 🤣

I do the same post cardiac event walk every day to see if it is getting any easier. The first time took me a full 10 minutes to recover after virtually inducing a panic attack thinking am I about to have another heart attack and blowing like a steam train. I would not say the walk itself is getting any easier but today it took about one minute for my breathing and pulse rate to get back to normal. That is a vast improvement. I am handicapped to some degree as the last 200 yards or so of the walk is a killer (hopefully not literally) being up a steep hill. The cardiologist tells me to exercise patience as I had the heart attack only about three months after my new hip. Two major events I know but very frustrating to be so unfit.

Spring has sprung in Scotland! 🙂

I am sure this topic has been a feature in every forum I have been a member of which goes back almost 25 years. In an ever changing world if there is one thing that never changes is the Thai's inability to make any road repair survive the first half decent downpour. First time tourists have been known to ask how much does the baht bus cost to Soi Pothole?