After a month in the UK it is a delight to be back here, to wake up and see the sea, to walk on the beach, dress in shorts, T shirts and sandals in the wonderfully warm weather. It is a far cry from the ball-chilling winds and icicle rain of a typical, miserable UK [...]
I am in my final few days back in the UK, where the recent Bangkok fighting and mall fires were headline news on the BBC and all news channels, and on the front page of every newspaper. I suspect Thailand will now be a hard sell to UK family holidaymakers, as its mass media reputation [...]
I am back in the UK for a month on my annual visit to see friends and family, sort out business matters, renew my annual Thai visa and to travel around the country. Luckily my Thai missus enjoys travelling and she loves seeing different parts of the UK, bizarrely revelling in the often-freezing temperatures we [...]
I am writing this in the Philippines, where I have spent the last few weeks escaping from Songkran in Pattaya.
I have also fortunately been outside of Thailand for the country’s latest international demonstration of political immaturity and failed statehood with the appalling scenes in Bangkok (again), which could not have come at a worse time [...]
by Peter Lloyd
I HAVE walked up Pattaya Beach Road a few times at night recently just to get a feel for how it is changing. Each walk, depending on what day it is and how late at night, is a real eye-opener.
Reel around the fountain
Whilst the upper end of Beach Road, going towards the Dusit, [...]
For reasons too boring to explain, I had to do my first visa run in four years last week. The last one I did was a nightmare, on a sweaty bus full of ageing visa-running perverts, two of whom were loudly discussing the scams and problems they had encountered as they mated their way through [...]
Barely noticed amongst the rush of other nationalities and races visiting Pattaya, the Arabs, a long time ago, carved out a niche of bars, hotels, food, shisha and retail outlets around Marine Plaza and Second Road.
I had an Arab friend from Tanzania visiting me last week, so I took him to Walking Street to show [...]
To Hell and Back
Well, it certainly felt that way when I renewed my driving licence last week.
Because it was just a simple licence renewal, I made the schoolboy error of assuming I had everything, and that this would be straightforward, and off I went with my missus to the licence department out by The Regent [...]
UK Thailand News
I have just come back from a two week trip to the UK, where she ‘summer’ weather was terrible, and where the general mood is still overshadowed by economic concerns, particularly job losses, even though green shoots are there to be seen in the real estate market and in other economic indicators in [...]
Given Pattaya markets itself as a family beachside destination, the dirty state of the beaches and the sea, the lack of available sunbathing s pace, the fatalities in its waters, the drugs, prostitutes, beatings and thefts on Beach Road, and the fact that the beach is actually disappearing are problems which at some stage have [...]
