CDB

The whole Silom area has rather gone downhill compared to other parts of Bangkok.

I recommend Sukhumvit 49/Thonglor/Ekkamai. This is the most happening part of Bangkok with so many international restuarants. It's a mixed community of Japanese, Korean, farang and middle class Thais.

In particular the Racquet Club on Soi 49 (http://www.rqclub.com/) has recently rennovated and apart from the gym, it has 2 swimming pools, tennis, badminton, rock climbing, squash, snooker etc, etc -- all for around 22 K THB per annum.

If you want to be surrounded by other Brits than I guess the British Club is the place to be, but in terms of value and facilties, look at the area from soi 39 to Ekkamai.

Cost of accommodation is quite high here though.....

My Thai doctor flew on THAI return to London on THAI last week. He had previously flown on the upgraded THAI to NY/LA. Says he was shocked that there were no personal TVs inbound or outbound, food was shockingly bad, and the on screen projector was faded/fuzzy and impossible to watch. He'll go EVA next time.

I have over 200 K air miles on THAI, and have no complaints at all about their (now cancelled) direct flights to NY and LA. Using airmiles to upgrade business class was a great experience, using the lounges was good, service was fine and direct flights beat the opposition. Sadly that is becoming the exception not the rule. I've avoided flying THAI to Europe, because it's luck of the draw what you'll get.

On shorter haul flights around Asia, you get better service and prices on Cathay, Singapore Airlines and Korean Air. THAI is worth using if you got the airmiles (and they do great promotions with AMEX and Citibank credit cards), but unless you feel patriotic or have air miles, THAI is not first choice.

As others have mentioned, that fact that every THAI board member gets free flights for himself and his family for LIFE, is the number one of many corruption/poor business practices that affects their ability to make a profit and to charge reasonable prices.

I did once also bid for services for THAI and was shocked at the blatancy of the corruption involved and sheer wastefulness of what they spent -- which never related to value but merely divvying up the budget....

There are not a lot of options for Irish Music in Bangkok these days.

Celtic Colors are a long-standing band here that play some Irish numbers and trad. However they recently lost their star fiddle player, Tets, a classically trained Japanese violinist who could play gigs and reels and plenty of trad stuff. At this point they have no Irish members and I'm not sure of their current line-up.

Error 99 are an all Thai band that play a wide range of tradtional music and popular Irish numbers. Their lead singer does good Pogues covers and the band all play their instruments  well, but when it's other than Pogues, the lyrics are rather mangled by a strong Thai accent -- so this might not suit your needs.

Other Irish bands pass through from time to time.

If you are really set on getting Irish music, you should either import it or get one of the above bands. However things change quickly, so you never know when someone might arrive.

I'm also from Dublin and resident here for 20 years.

I suggest you join the Irish Thai Chamber of Commerce (www.irishthaicc.com) and chances are we can hold an event at your place which will more than cover the cost of joining (not expensive at all). There are some other members on the board who know more about the music scene,

PM me if you need more info...

Best Regards,
CDB

Based on my experience of buying multiple properties here and getting loans from BangkokBank, Standard Chartered bank and many others, I can note as follows:

• I have never seen a contract where your 15-20% deposit is simply forfeit. Instead they usually gave some time to complete transactions followed by penalty interest on the overdue amount (typically 10%). Check your contract, but it is unusal that there is any instant forfeiture.
  
• In the worst case you can simply sell the house at the cost price and get your money back. Usually your property will increase in value while it is being built, and was probably discounted because you bought off plan rather than on completion. As such, if you offer to onsell your right to buy at lower than what the selling price would be close to completion date, you'll get your money back.
  
• Continuing the above, it's common for Thais to buy before securing finance and often they buy with no hope of getting finance -- purely to flip
  
• Despite having a perfect history with Bangkok Bank for 10 years, when I bought a second condo they declined my loan. Reason.. because I often did not answer my phone when they called me to notify that I had overdrawn my account, My explanation of being out of the country in a different time zone was not accepted. My reminder that I told them to use email was not accepted. Standard Chartered and other banks just laughed and gave me the load right away. It's well known that BangkokBank is much stricter than other banks, They decline more loan applications than other banks. Just try another bank and you should be fine.
  
• Or ask the Bangkok Bank guys on TV here

PattayaParent, on 2012-01-20 15:16:13, said:

Any nationality of person can hold 100% of a Thai company without the need to to have 2 million baht for each foreigner with a work permit and without the need for 4 Thais to one foreigner.

The BOI has nine categories of business that can get these and other benefits. I have done this under 3 categories.

Many, many kinds of companies qualify, and it has gotten easier and cheaper over the years. The BOI are helpful in trying to get you privileges and offer advice on which category to apply and how to present your application.

This does not apply to opening bars or doing very simple businesses that would compete with Thais.

But neither is it as hard as many naysayers believe....