Observations of a Tourist in Pattaya

[Jun]

Despite that you don't like Lazada, both Lazada and Shopee carry a variety of Ecco styles at prices much lower than Central or any other shopping mall.

Thank you.
The whole idea of buying Ecco was to pay for quality and get a longer life in return.
That's exactly what I'm getting with Ecco trainers, but their sandals have been unsatisfactory. So for sandals I'm switching brand.

Decathlon deliver on Tuesday, hopefully.

[Jun]

Decathlon deliver on Tuesday, hopefully.

Ordered Saturday. Promised for Tuesday. Actually delivered on Sunday, well within 24 hours of ordering, so good delivery performance by Decathlon.

[christianpfc]

The electric train is the one with the blue fire- rot fay fa.

If this happens to be the metro-not in Laos yet and likely never to come, its ´buried in the ground: rot fay fa taay din. BTW: taay also means ´dead´ obviously, even tough most such are not in the soil here in TH, but also gone in the fire.

รถไฟฟ้า rót fai fáa, literally: car-fire-heaven, with fire-heaven being electricity. ฟ้า fáa can mean sky or color blue, here fai fáa electricity.

น้ำเงิน náam ngern means blue as well, there are several languages (e.g. Russian) that have different names for light blue and dark blue.

รถไฟใต้ดิน rót fai dtâi din, dtâi ใต้ meaning south or underneath (here: under the ground), whereas "dead" is ตาย dtaai.

[Jun]

You need good eyesight to read this Thai script.
I would have read ฟ้า as ฬา, but of course they are totally different.

Some Thai language text books compound the problem by printing the Thai script smaller than the Roman. I don't quite need reading glasses, but would with those. The books remained on the shelf.

[Jun]

More random observations of a tourist:

Pattaya Second Road has at least 3 examples of pedestrian crossings that go half way across the road. Proof that Pattaya City Hall often do half a job.


I was looking for come medication in Fascino.
Option 1 didn't have the ingredients I was looking for.
Option 2 did, but it scanned at 403 baht, which I thought was steep for 10g
Option 3 had a larger quantity, but didn't have the right ingredients.

I went back to Option 2, which scanned at 91 baht when I went to pay for it. I'm still trying to figure that out.

[Jun]

So how far up the chain do you have to be to drive around Pattaya without a number plate?

I've seen a red Ferrari with no plate, on both this trip and the previous one.
Now there is also a Bentley coupe with no plates.

Where I come from, only Charlie gets away with that.

[Gaybutton]

So how far up the chain do you have to be to drive around Pattaya without a number plate?

I don't know how or even why they do that, but the police never seem to stop them, at least not that I've ever seen. It's not only cars. I see plenty of motorbikes doing the same thing.

When you buy a new car from a dealership they put temporary tags on the car until your true license plate arrives. Those are the red tags with black writing that you may have spotted.

Only a guess on my part, but if buying from a used car dealer or even an individual, I don't think they are allowed to issue temporary plates. Maybe that accounts for driving around with no plates at all until their true plates arrive. With my car it took 4 weeks for my number plates to arrive, but in the meantime I had the red temporary plates and was never stopped.

I don't even have a guess how it works for motorbikes.

Another guess - electric motorbikes are rapidly gaining in popularity. I'm thinking about getting one myself for local errands, although I have not yet investigated how far they can go when charged, whether they can be charged on home electric currents, or how much to expect your electric bill to increase. They usually cost between 15000 to 25000 baht, depending on what you get. I believe license plates or even driving licenses are not required for those at all, not yet anyway. I also think they are not required to pay Thailand's annual road tax.

[Jun]

With my car it took 4 weeks for my number plates to arrive, but in the meantime I had the red temporary plates and was never stopped.

When you buy a used car you get a new plate?
I thought your car had Krungthep on the plate, rather than Chonburi. But perhaps I was looking at the wrong car. I would have expected Chonburi residents to get Chonburi plates, but how does it work?

As for the Ferrari, well I saw it a year ago and again recently, both times with no plates. Well, perhaps 2 different cars, but I doubt it.

electric motorbikes are rapidly gaining in popularity. I'm thinking about getting one myself for local errands, although I have not yet investigated how far they can go when charged, whether they can be charged on home electric currents, or how much to expect your electric bill to increase.

I used one of these in Bagan, Myanmar for 3 days. It was some Chinese brand. The hotel gave it to me ready charged every morning and the charge indicator barely moved, despite doing over 30km per day.
So some are capable of doing more than enough distance for local errands. I'd still want a safety margin, as the range will deteriorate in time.

Not having a motorcycle license, I usually don't hire motorcycles.
However, on my way into Bagan I'd noticed two things:
1 Some of the tracks had loose sand and I know cycling on that can be a miserable experience
2 There was very little traffic on the roads and even less on the tracks
So I made an exception and really enjoyed my time there. I wouldn't visit at the moment.

[Gaybutton]

When you buy a used car you get a new plate?

Yes. The old plate is in someone else's name.

I thought your car had Krungthep on the plate, rather than Chonburi. But perhaps I was looking at the wrong car. I would have expected Chonburi residents to get Chonburi plates, but how does it work?

That's right, my car has Bangkok plates. As for where the owner lives, that's not how it works. The plate is issued by the province where the car was purchased. The Pattaya Toyota dealership did not have the car I wanted, the Toyota Sienta, available, but their sister dealership in Bangkok had what I wanted available. The car was delivered right to my door, with the red temporary plate already on the car. 4 weeks later the permanent plate arrived at the local Toyota dealership and they're the ones who removed the temporary plate and put on the permanent plate.

So, I live in the Chonburi province, but my car has Bangkok plates. If you're considering asking me why it works this way, don't bother. I don't have clue and as long as everything worked out favorably, I didn't care and didn't ask questions.

Here is a picture of the car, still in Bangkok waiting to be delivered - temporary plates already in place. I didn't go to Bangkok to see the car. Someone at the dealership took a few pictures and sent them to me.



By the way, if you're wondering how Jun would know what car I have and what plates are on the car, we met for lunch.

[Jun]

I'm surprised resident board participants aren't driving something more like this .