lazeeboy

It seems the premise and assumption in the OP is that only Westerners qualify as potential good friends?   I was actually wondering reading it if he was speaking of local Thai people, but I guess it became clear by the end of the post he was talking Farangs-only.

Either way: yes, that's pretty normal.  To the point that I'm really not looking to be overly chatty with unknown farang individuals.  Though occasionally you do meet a sane one.  ( And then very rarely you meet a sane one who isn't boring you to tears. )

I feel i have answered all the important questions but that seems to be not enough for you Raindancer ? maybe you make pies and sell them in Rimping ?? you are the only tv member who like to have a go at the sausage king company ummmm. Sausage king is proud of our products and 7 years in business here shows we have passed the test of time.(Quality)

Fascinating.

Not only thinking behind the OP's initial inquiry, but the smattering of fragments that have been thrown back. Mostly (IMHO) they are fair enough but the responses also seem to have been side-tracked by newspaper headlines, which I feel is unfortunate and a bit like giving someone your latest medical reports when they ask - hiya-you OK?

Seems like you're used to Pattaya.

Once you get away from the fact it's the biggest brothel in the known universe, that there is always a series of twofers on a happy hour from 4:00 pm to midnight  somewhere if you plan your schedule, that you can work your way from Soi 7 to BoyzTown on free BBQs and parties, (schedule again), that there are chip shops doing rare grub for 120 baht a plate (if you can stomach the endless re-runs of Fools and Horses), that there are street markets where you can get almost everything for no money, where there are baht buses that go all over for only 10 baht, the fact that it's a proper city with intersections and traffic lights and hi-rise buildings . . . then there's the other things.

As in, Pattaya is a lot more than just the Marine Disco to Soi 8. There's Jontiem and Naklua, too - and all the bits between, right up to Sukhumvit. There is actually a huge area and maybe 70% of it is cheap - housing/rents/food/pub grub/alcohol/girlies/ plus there's 3G for your phone/tablet/ etc. It's a proper city.

To compare a proper city to Samui is a bit like thinking that the clockwork swimming toys that your kid has in the bath are almost like real, somehow. Or that the first Apollo shot actually got to the moon.

Samui is a coconut island that only 2 generations ago didn't have a complete ring-road, a regular ferry service or an airport. Everything here has been patched together and cobbled up bit by bit, mostly over the last decade. Most of the things here don't work so good. Transport (there is no public transport - even the 'baht buses' are comparatively expensive) is hit and miss - and the "meter taxis" here are a national embarrassment.

When it rains the lights go out and your broadband connections cuts. Sometimes (often, actually,) this happens for no reason. (Now and then the only way I know it's raining is when the power goes off.)

The main Chaweng Beach Road has huge 3-metre drainage pipes under it that don't go anywhere as none of the resorts between the road and the sea wanted to be dug up to provide an outlet. (But they do act as a kind of resevoir when it rains.) The rest of the island seems to channel its sewerage into the nearest downhill channel, which mostly seems to surface next to every 7-11 on the ring-road.

Food is comparatively expensive. You won't find a noodle soup for less than 35 baht - but, then, we're talking pennies. Decent and authentic English grub is hard to find for less than around 300 baht a plate.

There are no megastores that have hundreds of clued-in nongs to change your phone settings or print you a copy of your SIM card contacts.

But we do have Tesco, Makro, Boots, McWhatsists and so on . . .

Housing is actually quite cheap now - if you shop around. Samui has been constructing accommodation at the rate of 24% a year (TAT stats for 2008) whereas the arrivals have been increasing at the rate of between 8% and 10% a year (TAT). There is still a lot of the Thai thinking that goes "oh this house has been empty for a year now so I'd better ask more money to reduce my losses". But if you look around you'll still find a nice 2-bedroomed house (unfurnished) for as little as 6,000B - more usually 9-10 K a month.

Liike-minded chaps? I dunno, as I don't know what your mind is like. There's a ton of English, Germans and Aussies ('n Russkies, too - an ever increasing amount) (in that order?) living here, but very few under the age of 40 or so. It's not a kid's island, despite what you might read.

At one time I used to keep an apartment in Pattaya and a house on Samui. It worked out at the same cost to go to Pattaya for a week every month as it did to stay here full time. But after several years I gave it up.

I liked the slow and stupid life here. I liked being able to see the big blue wet thing all around for most of the time. I liked the fact that, in only ten minutes, I could go from bars and bistros and restaurants right up into the mountains. Or find a beach where there was only me (plus suitable female company - clothes not compulsory and nobody to see or know.)

I liked this rustic, annoying, coconut island.

Try to imagine a great big mansion somewhere made out of bits of tin can and scrap wood, held together with duct tape and superglue, plus the odd nail or two, but connected with wire and string to mains electric, and with a water pipe coming in that's connected to Nam Papa up the mountain somewhere. There are holes in all the windows but it's warm so who cares.

Compare that to a Travel Lodge or the plastic-yet-secure comfort of a motel somewhere.

That's the difference between Samui and Pattaya, as I see it.

Phew.

Finished now.

Rob

You can get the dam_n rubber bands off plastic baggies without spilling the contents all over yourself.

davehowden, on 2012-04-13 10:49:02, said:

I'll bet you are the life and soul of every party and on everybody's invite list.

Im not a vindictive person but if I thought I might lose my daughters I would have done the same thing, I don't know the guy or the daughter but the kid is lucky to have a dad who would put him neck out like that. That takes balls.

Goodbye everyone,

I'm leaving this forum. From time to time, there is some good advice and some good dialogue. However, lately this forum has an overly negative slant to it, in my opinion, from disgruntled westerners who come to this part of the world with their own personal agendas and rigid value systems and base a lot of their opinions about the culture based on their experiences with bar-girls or alcohol oriented people.  For example, I post a simple question about building a house or buying a ring for my wife and I just get negative feedback about how dishonest and dangerous the people are here.

Yeah, I know all that, but that wasn't my question.

Later,

Focus