thaiophilus

Not sure if that's what you meant, but don't buy baht until you arrive - you will get a much better exchange rate in Thailand than back home. Use exchanges (Super Rich, TT or similar, not banks.) Don't exchange money in the arrivals area of Suvarnabhumi, go down to the basement (Airport Rail Link) level where the rates are better. Be aware that the ATMs will charge you 220 baht (around $6) per transaction. That's on top of whatever your home bank charges for foreign exchange and use of foreign ATMS. ... and if hotel are not paid in advance you may find that sometimes they insist on cash. "machine broken, no card" (which may not be the real reason!)

Fortunately, despite the assurances of the (more?) dreadful Rees-Mogg he has chosen not to stand even though he still thinks he's the best person for the job. That probably means that an Invisible Hand made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Anyway, Prime MInister of the day is now Rishi Sunak. Can he beat 45 days in office?

... and she's gone, setting a new record. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-63309400 One of the things that first fascinated me about Thailand was its bizarre politics, with so many parties and and a continuous succession of new scandals, new governments, new constitutions. Where else would a PM (Sarit, 1952) launch a coup against himself? Where else would a party bring down the government by not standing for election? (Abhisit, 2006) TiT, I thought. Couldn't happen anywhere else. Little did I know...

I've had a look through my collection of ancient guides and have unearthed these maps from 1994-1997 (those are the publication dates, so they may already have been obsolete by then. Apologies for the unclear text on some - it's difficult to scan pages that won't lie flat. In that little alley the 1994 map has Khun Bar, Golden Cock, Super A, Lucky S, Super Lex Matsuda and Mama Sun (which was karaoke bar) 1994 (Thai Scene/Notcutt), 1995 (The Men of Thailand 5/Allyn) 1996 (TMOT6) 1997 (Thai Scene) 1999 (TMOT7)

Yes, that's the one.

Then there was Nicky's Gay Pattaya/Thailand/... - another valuable source of information until he retired and took up writing novels.

Another couple of good but not fancy Thai restaurants in south Pattaya: ฟ้าพัทยา: Fra Pattaya, on Pattaya Tai between Second Road and Walking St. The speciality is duck but if you ask for any Thai dish they can probably provide it. The menu used to be written on the walls in Thai only, but nowadays they have a huge picture menu. ผักบุ้งลอยฟ้า: Pak Bung Loy Fah on the corner of soi 13/3 and Second Road has a good menu of seafood and other dishes. They don't throw flaming morning glory across the road any more but that's the origin of the name. Both do excellent กุ้งแช่น้ำปลา

Agreed, and I make a point of getting myself lost and randomly exploring any new city I visit. But not before breakfast. Not so... My first experience of BKK culture shock was in a taxi. After traversing what looked like a modern city with multi-lane elevated roads and high-rise buildings, and a litany of strange place names on the signs - Chatuchak, Din Daeng, Rama IX, Ngam Wong Wan, Chaeng Watthana, Sukhumvit, - the taxi turned off the expressway and dived into the bowels of the Khlong Toei intersection, which appeared to have trains mixing with the cars, and suddenly I was in what felt like an impossibly narrow canyon of decomposing concrete with festoons of wires draped everywhere... Of course, that was before the ARL, MRT and BTS existed, and meter taxis were still a rare novelty, so the challenge of negotiating a taxi or tuktuk for every journey was part of that first impression.

PS Make sure you see the taxi driver turn the meter on! It should read 35B to begin and increase by around 5B per km or 2B per minute if stationary. Suvarnabhumi-Silom is about 30 km via the expressway.

For the first-time visitor I'd still recommend using a taxi. The train journey requires you to buy tickets, find your way on foot between stations and then from station to hotel, with luggage, in the heat, in a non-English-speaking environment with a weird alphabet, after a long flight, in the wrong time zone... At some point culture shock is likely to strike. The "old hands" posting otherwise good advice here may have forgotten what that was like 🙃.

Using a local SIM (especially if you want internet access) is usually way cheaper than paying international roaming charges on your home phone. BTS (Bangkok [Mass] Transit System) is the Skytrain (elevated as the name suggests). MRT (Metropolitan Rapid Transit) is the Metro (underground). ARL (AIrport Rail Link) is the elevated train from the airport to the city centre. TiT[1] so they don't properly connect and there's no cross-ticketing, so there is no simple rail route from the airport to Silom. Yes, a taxi from Suvarnabhumi (pronounced "suwannapoom" [2]) is probably the easiest way to get to the hotel. Ignore touts trying to sell you overpriced "!limousine" services, go to the public taxi counter just outside the terminal building. You should be given a form which is the taxi driver's registration details in case of complaints. Make sure you keep it! The driver will ask you for cash for the expressway tolls (~70B unless they have gone up recently?) and on arrival you pay him (THB cash, no cards!) whatever is on the meter, which should be less than 350B, plus a 50B airport surcharge To get cash for your taxi fare, don't change money at the overpriced exchanges in the baggage hall, go down to the basement level (signposted "airport rail link") and use one of the money exchange booths there. (And don't buy your baht before you arrive, either - you'll get much better rates in Thailand than elsewhere.) [1] "This is Thailand", a phrase that can only be understood by experience... [2] aka "Swampy", but that's not a name a Thai would recognise.

Not a "violation". Wrongly accused of violating their "SPAM policy" though I can't imagine how. As he says, "I could be accused of a lot of things, but spam is the last thing that comes to mind. I asked for a review of their action and hope to be back online soon." See recent postings on Gaybutton's blog.

No, Greece. Educated in France, Germany and UK.

Is he pissing razor blades?

If your favourite exchange in Pattaya is closed, take a walk along Soi Buakhao. They are nearly as frequent as 7-11s. 😊

Not quite the best. I used to find better rates still in a little enclave in the Siam area at Soi Ratchadamri 1 just off Soi Petchaburi 30, behind Pratunam Pier. Something like 6-8 exchange shops all in one block. Street View will give an idea.

Silom 4: Balcony Pub http://www.balconypub.com/ 500ml draught Chang 140 baht. London: hard to find exact prices. Expect to pay 5-7 UKP in Soho. Exchange rate: do your own conversion!

"Would they"? They do. Just turn on the "traffic" option in Google Maps and see for yourself.

The popcorn hasn't run out yet 😉

So when will you be naming the posters here who you claim are their owners and "tricked" you into visiting? Inquiring minds want to know.

You say that as though you think it's a good thing.

So why don't you you name them, and their bars? Never mind the alleged owners, can you even list the bars in Sunee?

Really? Perhaps you could name them so in future we won't be swayed by their biased comments. And "to get there was a nightmare 30 minutes" ? Via where? Sunee is all of 270 metres from the VC hotel on Pattaya Sai 2.

" they have killed tourists in this soi a few times" "the police pretend to make arrests" I think you're over-dramatizing. Many of the regular posters on this forum have a long and intimate acquaintance with Pattaya and their reports don't match what you are saying or indeed my own experience. I took your advice and Googled and yes, The Pattaya News has a number of recent articles reporting where the police have indeed made a number of arrests recently. As for "killed tourists" the only ones I found were riding the motorcycles, not innocent bystanders.