F1fanatic

Monday night around 8 p.m. I went upstairs and was suprised to see (through the landing window) 2 incredibly bright lights - something I've never seen before.

I live in Rawai, but close to the main road in-between Chalong and Rawai.

It was suprising enough for me to go outside and look. The stars were all obvious, but these 2 lights were FAR brighter. I went outside again about 5 mins later and they were still there. An hour later, and they had gone, whereas all the stars were still clearly visible.

This morning I read in the UK internet news that Venus and Jupiter are in line, so I wondered whether this was the explanation. But, could planets disappear in an hour?

V odd. Anybody else see them or have an explanation?

Does anyone know what is going on with motorbike parking at HomePro Village?

I hadn't been there for a couple of weeks (whereas normally I go a couple of times a week), but when I went on Friday I came very close to just driving on out of the bloody place.

A while ago they stopped motorbikes parking in their normal area and moved them to a '15 minutes only' zone near Villa Market - but now they have stopped that (for no discernible reason) and moved them somewhere near the back, necessitating a walk through the complex.

To be fair, it wasn't quite as bad as I originally thought (albeit annoying) - but does Villa Market realise the custom they may lose?

I spent over 3,000 baht in Villa Market (about normal for me), but will only go in future when desperate for something.

I'm a realist that believes nothing unless 1) it is proven or 2) I have personal experience that makes me believe it is true.

Therefore... I treated all the 2012 'end of the world' theories as laughable - but lately I'm beginning to wonder....

There can be little doubt that every country is experiencing 'odd' weather over the last year or so.

I would be interested to hear others' thoughts - but not those who for whatever reason have always taken the 'imminent end of the world' seriously.

Coming from the (cold) UK, I was really looking forward to enjoying the 'tropical' plants that were treated as annuals there (unless you had a greenhouse or conservatory) growing happily in my Thailand garden.

Unfortunately, living on Phuket, I've found that those 'tropical' plants are not available here - and the few that are, are not 'good' varieties.

One can buy Gardenias, but they are obviously  not the 'best' variety as they rarely flower. Marguerittes? Forget it, haven't seen any. Fuschias, ditto. Impatiens ditto.

I could go on and on, but you get the point.....

Phuket is a 'wealthy' island, so why is it impossible to find anything other than the 'bog standard' plants sold in EVERY 'garden centre'?

Over the last few days HomePro Village (I think of it as Villa Market) has started trying to force motorbikes to park in a designated area a long way away from the shops in the 'Village'.

At first they just stopped motorbikes parking in the shaded area where they had always parked. This 'row' was often full so motorbikes also parked in the next 'row'.

Now, they have put up signs saying motorbikes cannot park in this area either - they are both reserved for cars, even though cars have always parked in other (shaded) areas that are just as close to the shops....

To be fair, they have allowed motorbike parking nearby for a maximum of 15 minutes! How pointless, anybody looking to spend some money in the shopping centre is going to be there for more than 15 minutes.

The car parking areas near the shops are never (in my experience) full, so why have they decided to seriously annoy those on motorbikes??

Personally, I have decided to ignore the signs - park my motorbike near the shops and if they come up with a way to enforce this ludicrous ban, will stop shopping there.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm seriously annoyed by this as I can see no justification for the new 'rules'.