View Talay 2a Condo, Jomtien Beach, Pattaya, Thailand

The condominium development named in the title of this post is, according to my wife Su, the best place to rent or buy a condo in the Pattaya area, and I have to say that I agree with her. She should know after all, because she is Thai and lives in the area. Read her unbiased post about it in her blog here:

Condominium advice for Pattaya and Jomtien Beach, Thailand

New home in Pattaya

After deciding to come and live here in Pattaya in November last year, Su and I rented an apartment for while and started looking for a proper home to live in ready for when our new baby is born.

We bought a three bedroom swimming pool villa in March, about a mile from Na Jomtien beach, and it is finally all furnished and sorted out for us to live in now, about two months before our new baby is due to be born. Phew, that's a relief! :-)

(See here for some photos)

I now own a Samsung Galaxy S2, and it's awesome!

I bought a brand new Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone last month with a 32GB memory card in it, giving 48GB of total memory, for around £375. I bought it from the Samsung shop in Central Festival Center in Pattaya. It is the best gadget/smartphone/pocket PC/piece of technology that I have ever owned, it really is perfect in every way!

I previously had a Nokia N97 for 2 years, which is by far the worst piece of technology I have ever owned, utter garbage, the complete opposite of the Galaxy s II (see my blog about that here: The Nokia N97 - it's rubbish really).

It was so bad all of the time that I swear I will never buy another Nokia product ever again, no matter what they make in future. Nokia - YOU SUCK!! What a rip-off of over £400 the damned thing was! It cost too much money for me to be able to change it until last month, but now I wish I'd bought an Android phone instead of the N97. Oh well, you live and learn!

If you're looking to get a new smartphone any time soon, go and get a Galaxy S II right now - nothing else, not even the latest iPhone, comes close to being as good for doing everything you want. The Galaxy S II is the best all-in-one mobile phone, pocket PC, mobile web browser, social network manager, HD photo and video camera, portable media player and pocket games console that there is!

Su and I have moved to Pattaya now

We got a bit bored living in the family village near Suphan Buri so we decided to come and live down here for a more interesting life, lol!

Actually, we're staying in Jomtien which is the next town down the coast from Pattaya City, although the two are only separated by a large hill on the beach side and there is no break at all between the two inland. Despite the nearness of the two, Jomtien is much quieter and more family-oriented than it's larger, brasher neighbour. It's the prefect place to live.

Here's a really useful guide to the area if you're ever thinking of coming here for a holiday, which I would thoroughly recommend to be honest, as it's only about an hour and a half from Bangkok by road, and it's great fun:

Pattaya Travel and Tourist Guide

Really useful Pattaya, Thailand tourist information.....

.....can be found here: PattayaSecrets.com

Primarily it's a free-to-join discussion forum site with more information about Pattaya than you can shake a stick at. Everything you will ever want, or need, to know about Thailand's most famous tourist city will be in there. And of course, once you join you can post your own questions to the more than 16,000 other members.

Calm returns to Thailand after the recent troubles

After all the recent political trouble in Thailand, I am very happy to be able to report that things have significantly calmed down here now, and that it is therefore once again safe to travel to Thailand. Hoorah!

So you can now refer to my previous posts about cheap flights to Thailand and cheap hotels in Bangkok and Pattaya, and hopefully come here for a wonderful holiday without "breaking the bank"! :-)

Happy Easter!

And happy Songkran (which is the traditional Thai New Year) for tomorrow!! :-)

I hope the Thai anti-government protesters take time out from their ongoing demonstrations for the holiday - unfortunately, there is now some very serious trouble in Bangkok following on from yesterday's ructions in Pattaya.

It's very sad to see ordinarily very placid Thai people getting so angry and behaving in this way, but I always say that when so many people get as incredibly agitated about something as this, the powers that be really ought to listen to them and try to find a peaceful solution for the benefit of all sides.

Back in England, I see that the very admirable Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, has spoken out against there being two Premier League football matches today, saying that Easter Sunday should be kept as an equally special day as Christmas Day. I have to say that I totally agree with him, and you can read all about his most excellent outburst in this article in Yahoo!

Anyway, on a much lighter (but still reverential) note, if you get bored over the holiday period you can always play hundreds of great free online games at MarioSonicGames.com, www.Dan-Dare.org/Disney and all the other free game sites linked to from within those two. Plus there's always tons of interesting stuff to read over on my MarioSonicGames.com blog. I feel sure that none of these activities contradicts the spirit of either Easter or Songkran! :-)

More serious political trouble in Thailand today

Further to my previous posts about all things Thailand, including the on-off-on and (now) seemingly endless political troubles over here (see here, here, here and here for example), I am very sad to have to say that there is, as of today, even more serious trouble, this time in the major tourist city of Pattaya.

See this article in Yahoo! for more info on what has been going on, and this article in the Wall Street Journal for full details of what happened and, more importantly perhaps, why.

Basically, this afternoon anti-government protesters stormed the ASEAN summit of Asian leaders (including the leaders of China, South Korea and Japan) being held in Pattaya, despite increased security at the event, and despite actions by the government yesterday to try and ease the recent surge in protests.

This has led to the summit being cancelled amid security fears just as it was getting under way, with some national leaders having to be evacuated from Pattaya by helicopter, all of which is hugely embarrassing to Thailand. Indeed, given that this summit was postponed from late last year due to the political protests taking place back then, it is difficult to imagine anything that could be more embarrassing to the nation.

Given the very serious nature of this latest development, and the potentially dangerous longer-term consequences, clearly it is once again not a good idea to come here on holiday at the moment, despite what I said about it being fine recently - things have changed very quickly here with no real warning, and this unpredictability is making the situation even worse. Oh dear.

Cheap but good hotels in Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand

If you want to stay in Thailand really cheaply (and who doesn't, because it's fine here now, there's no serious political trouble any more), in a room with hot water shower, fridge, satellite TV and air-conditioning, here are a few decent little hotels for you, with room rates between 500 and 650 Baht per room per night at the time of writing - so really, really cheap! :-)

They're very basic, but are fine as long as you don't expect 5 star luxury:

Bangkok

Sukhumvit Soi 4 (200m down the road that Nana Plaza resides in):

Happy Inn, tel: +66 (0)22 526 508

Swan Inn 1, tel: +66 (0)22 529 923

Swan Inn 4, tel: +66 (0)22 510 931


Pattaya

Soi Buakow (500m from the Pattaya Tai Road end):

Utid Court, tel: +66 (0)38 428 221


2nd Road (opposite Tipp Plaza, near Mike Shopping Mall):

Ice Inn, tel: +66 (0)38 720 671


I have stayed in all these hotels, and they are especially good if you want to enjoy the fantastic night-life of both cities!! ;-)

Pattaya, Thailand

In one of my previous posts I included a link to what at the time was a useful website all about Pattaya in Thailand, which is where I am currently staying. That website no longer works, so here is a link to another useful site that does work: www.pattaya.com. If you are ever in South-East Asia, it is worth coming here for a few days at least, if you like life a bit on the crazy side... :-)

Christmas and New Year in Thailand

Lucky, lucky me! Although Christmas is not generally celebrated in Thailand, I am currently in the tourist city of Pattaya (see www.pattayacity.com/pattaya/), and there is plenty of Christmas to be seen here. Plus a whole lot more too... what fun!

This is my last post for this year, so all the very best to you wherever you are, have a great time over the holidays, and have a Happy 2007!