Pimped up Pattaya Motorcycles

On my rounds on Friday, I came across these two bikes and if I hadn't taken the photos, I probably wouldn't believe they really existed. I often dream of tricked up bikes when I've been drinking.....

The following bike costs Bt280,000/-, I'm speechless.... nay, typewriter-less  

Action Street, Soi Buakhow, Pattaya

Very quiet for a Friday night.


Action Street, soi Buakhow by @pattayarag

Pan Asia Hash Run 2013 on 5th/6th July in Pattaya

The Pan Asia Hash Run 2013 will take place on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th July in Pattaya, and it is expected to attract more than 500 participants.

4th July,Thursday (10.00am- 10.00pm)

• Registration & collection of goodies bag.
• Registration for RED DRESS (limited to 2,000 with “Sarong”) & BALL BREAKER RUN (limited to 300)

5th July,2013 Friday

• 8:00am – 4:00pm – Registration of participants & collect of goodies bag.
• 8:00am – 4:00pm – Registration of BALL BREAKER RUN
• 8:00am – 3:00pm – Registration of RED DRESS
• 3:30pm – RED DRESS RUN flag off by Mayor of Pattaya City
• 6:30pm – Dinner is serve
• 8:00pm – Welcome Presentation begins

6th July,2013 Saturday

• 8:00am – 2:00pm – Registration of participants & collect of goodies bag.
• 8:30am – GM meeting (Bidding Process) at The Royal Twins Hotel
• 10:00am – Bus Depart for Ball Breaker from The Royal Twin Hotel – 1 Ball Breaker Run
• 12:00pm – Bus Depart for Long Run from The Royal Twins Hotel – 1 Long Run
• 1:00pm – Bus Depart for Medium Run from The Royal Twins Hotel – 4 Medium Runs
• 2:00pm – Bus Depart for Short Run from The Royal Twins Hotel – 4 Short Runs
• 4:30pm – Bus Depart to dinner venue for those hashers in the Hotel
• 6:30pm – Dinner is serve.
• 8:00pm – Gala Presentation

7th July,2013 Sunday

• 10:00am – Hang Over Run
• 12:30pm – Lunch Serve
• 3:00pm – Closing

For more info go to the Pan Asia Hash website.

Sexy Asian Lady #109

via Kings of Thailand

Sexy Asian Lady #108

Sexy Asian Lady #107

How to Improve Your Wi-Fi Signal

An unusual post for the Rag I know but I followed a tip I read online for improving my wi-fi signal strength and it actually worked - so I'm sharing.....

Enter the IP address for your router in your browser address window to go to the router log-in screen. Log-in with your password and select the following from the displayed menu - Network/Wireless Lan/Advanced Settings.

You should see something like the following on your screen:


The setting of interest is '802.11 mode'.

Tip: Many current routers support two networking standards: 802.11b and 802.11g. Turn off the 802.11b option — it's older, slower and will clog up your connection speeds. This should give you an extra bar, but probably won't reach the far corners of your home :Untip

My router was set to 'mixed' so I selected '802.11g only, applied the setting and logged out of the router.

As the tip suggested, I got an extra bar showing on the wi-fi signal strength on my notebook. Pleased with myself or what.

Disclaimer - I accept no responsibility if you screw up your router..... you shouldn't have been messing about with it in the first place......

To read the full article on improving your wi-fi signal strength go to Mashable.

Sexy Asian Lady #106

Mad men take lesson from Russian Ad Agency

Bleeding edge advertising......

Sexy Asian Lady #105

via Sexy Asian Babes

Rhian touches herself... privates on display

A bit of a shocker - adult viewing only.......



via Andy P.

EU Ambassadors address Phuket scams

You know you have problems when 18 EU Ambassadors unite to request the following:

• An efficient and fairly priced public transport system in Phuket which is available to foreign tourists and residents alike

• An end to intimidatory and violent behavior by an element of tuk-tuk and taxi drivers

• Strict enforcement of marine safety standards, including flags on beaches to indicate when it is safe to swim

• Strict enforcement of standards of behavior for public officials, including police and immigration, to ensure that foreign visitors and residents feel protected, treated in a fair way and never at risk of extortion

• An end to scams involving hiring of equipment such as jet skis or motorbikes

• Strict enforcement of road safety regulations

• Promotion of environmental issues, including monitoring of water quality.

Read the full article at Phuket Wan.

I've been reading elsewhere on the WWW that long time residents of Phuket are selling up and moving out. It seems like this jewel in the crown of the Thai tourist industry attracts nothing but bad publicity these days.

Sexy Asian Lady #104

Euromillion lottey pot £141 million

Tonight's Euromillion lottery draw is for a pot of £141 million...... or ฿6,768,000,000 give or take a baht or two.......



Treat yourself to a ticket, you could be retiring to Thailand tonight......... in some style........

Pattaya FC put Manchester United and Chelsea's pre-season visits to Thailand in jeopardy.

Manchester United and Chelsea's pre-season plans are in danger of being thrown into chaos - by a fourth-tier team from Thailand.



Pattaya FC successfully won an injuction that prevented a vote of the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) taking place at the weekend which should have confirmed amendments to their rules in line with FIFA requirements.

The world governing body has taken a dim view of the development and warned the FAT they risk being suspended from international competition should a resolution not be reached by the beginning of next week.

Whilst the internal machinations of Thai football do not normally generate much interest in the UK, in this instance the impact of any suspension would affect both United and Chelsea,who are due to visit at the start of their pre-season campaigns next month.

Read the full article at The Mail Online.

Sexy Asian Lady #103

Insomnia Pattaya Photo Album

Insomnia Pattaya Photo Album, June 2013

'Least safe' aircraft models and 'least' safe airlines revealed

Airlineratings.com was developed by Geoffrey Thomas, an Australian aviation author, and is the result of two years of “painstaking” work by a team of researchers.

It has assessed 425 airlines around the world, ranking them using a star rating system. One-star airlines, it claims, are the least reliable.

More than 40 airlines were given three stars or fewer, including Lion Air based in Indonesia, Yeti Airlines in Nepal, and Solomon Airlines.

A total of 137 airlines have been given seven stars, the top mark, including British Airways, Flybe, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa and Aer Lingus.



The world’s ‘least safe’ aircraft models, based on an analysis of air crash statistics from the past decade, have also been revealed.

AirlineRatings.com urged travellers to steer clear of four models in particular - the LET410, the Antonov AN-12, the Ilyushin Il-76, and the CASA C-212.

Of the 55 models analysed by AirlineRatings.com, the safest were deemed to be Boeing’s 777, 717, 787 and 767/757, the Airbus A380 and A340, the Embraer 135/145, and CRJ 700/1000 – none of which have ever been involved in a fatal accident.

Click on the following links to read the full Telegraph articles on 'least' safe aircraft and 'least' safe airlines.

Rag - Always worth knowing when booking trips to Thailand.....

Sexy Asian Lady #102

Commart Next Gen Thailand 2013

The Commart Next Gen Computer Exhibition runs from 20 - 23 June at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in Bangkok. Opening hours are 10.00am to 8.00pm.

If you are in the market for some new tech in your life then this could be the place for you. Plenty of products are sold at discounted prices for the duration of the exhibition.

As always with exhibitions, you'll get the biggest discounts on the final evening when exhibitors want to sell their stock rather than carry it back to the showroom.

Sexy Asian Lady #101

Sexy Asian Lady #100

Bangkok F1 street race scrapped, next stop Phuket?

Phuket could be in line to host the first grand prix in Thailand after it was confirmed that Bangkok will not be able to welcome Formula One in 2015.



Bernie Ecclestone has been a big advocate for taking Formula One to Thailand, but a proposed route around the streets of Bangkok met widespread criticism due to its lack of challenging corners or characteristics. Instead, Thailand’s sports’ minister Somask Pureesrisrak has revealed to the Bangkok Post that efforts are being made to take F1 to Phuket.

Read the full article at MotorSportsTalk

No ASUS Service on Thai Eastern Seaboard

I've posted before about the there being no Asus Service Centre in Pattaya well the reality is, there's no Asus service centre on the Eastern Seaboard.

I phoned ASUS Bangkok for details of their nearest service centre to Pattaya and I was told it was in Tukcom Chonburi. I drove out to Chonburi and went to the Asus Centre. They didn't even look at my Transformer, they just took me across the isle to a 'Mr Fix-It' type shop. Mr Fix-It did at least look at my Transformer, from the outside, but could do little more given I'd forgotten the charger. He did say I could go to any 'Mr Fix it' in Tukcom Pattaya but they'd want Bt3,500/- to do the repair, in Chonburi, I could get the repair done for Bt2,000. Ridiculous thought I, how could they set a price without knowing the parts needed or labour involved. You can start laughing now.


I took my Asus Transformer in to a Pattaya Tukcom 'Mr Fix It' yesterday and he phoned me today to say it would cost Bt3,500/- to repair..... FFS, do I have mug tattooed on my forehead, (answers only from people who don't know me.)

At least I now know it can be repaired, I think, so I might just open up the sucker myself and have a prod around.......

Sexy Asian Lady #99

via Asia's Finest

English Premier League games to be broadcast in Thailand by satellite and cable

Kasem Inkaew, a member of CTH's executive committee, said that the company had rented transponders from VNA-Sat, the Vietnam-based satellite provider, to transmit its signal for 125 channels to subscribers in the Kingdom.

CTH will sell its own satellite-TV receivers, which include turquoise KU-band dishes, and set-top boxes. The receivers will be sold by more than 200 local cable operators in Thailand and will be in stock later this month.

Customers will have to pay Bt999 for a satellite-TV receiver, while cable-TV viewers who are not CTH subscribers, must pay a Bt1,800 deposit for a digital set-top box.

To watch the company's pay-TV channels, customers must subscribe to one of the following packages; Bt199 for 79 channels; Bt299 for 107 channels; Bt399 for 120 channels; and Bt899 for 120 channels plus high-definition channels and five EPL channels also in HD. If you click on the link to the CTH website they appear to be running a promotion of Bt599 per month for the first year if you sign up by 31 August but I'm not sure if that's for the package with EPL.

Rag - If I've read it correctly after my one time expense for satellite TV receiver(s), I will pay at most Bt899 per month for over 120 channels plus 5 EPL channels. Sounds a deal to me. Of course, I may need a digital set top box for each TV in the house and I'm assuming I only have to pay for the channels once and not for once for each TV..... CTH are scheduled to officially announce their service in the next few days so hopefully  things will be a lot clearer then.  

If you click on the hotlink to check out the 120 channels watch out for the hard to see right scrolling arrow at the right end of each channel category. Has to be clicked to view all channels in that category.

One final thought. Will Sophon add their own Pattaya channels to the channels offered by CTH or will they be an extra?

Sexy Asian Lady #98

Thai Baht exchange rates - 14 June

Today's exchange rate board from Krungsri Bank in Thailand.

Top 10 Destinations in Thailand

Thailand is one of Southeast Asia’s most desirable vacation destinations, and for excellent reasons. Endowed with misty mountainscapes in the north and northeast, dotted with thousands of colorful and architecturally ornate wats, lined with white sand beaches and turquoise waters in the south, deeply steeped in Buddhist history, infused with Khmer, Lao, Cambodian and Malaysian cultures, and peppered with spices, Thailand can serve whatever cup of tea a traveler prefers.

So where do 14 million visitors to Thailand go? If you were to poll them, what would they recommend? With so many choices and so little time, who would not want to experience only the best a country has to offer? Fortunately, travelers who have been to Thailand speak out, and here are their top 10 destinations in Thailand:

1. Chiang Mai


Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep by Whyyan


2. Koh Phi Phi

Maya Bay by Ben & Katherine Sinclair

3. Koh Tao

Nangyuan, Koh Tao by Lim Ashley


4. Pattaya, yes, Pattayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa at #4


For the full Top 10 list and a write up on each destination go to THA Holiday.

NSA Prism 'Big Brother' Spying Scandal

I wouldn't shut Prism down but I would put it to better use. Namely, :

• Now we no longer have representative government I would use Prism to spy on all civil servants, lobbyists and politicians, both elected and Lords, to ensure that we have accountable and clean government. Make it difficult for them to sell their votes, take bribes and cheat on their expenses. Any found guilty of gaining personally from their position should go to jail and be stripped of all assets and title 

• If one sector of the community is inciting rebellion then the Prism spies should be set loose on that sector of the community. NOT EVERYBODY IN BRITAIN

• Edward Snowdon should be recruited to head up the new Prism team. I think I trust that man.....  

And before we put Prism to more responsible use let's use the data that's already been collected illegally to arrest all pedophiles, particularly those in positions of authority and power. Okay, I can't have it both ways - I can't complain about Big Brother and then try to benefit from it. It would be tempting though wouldn't it........

Sexy Asian Lady #97

Insomnia Pattaya's Angels & Devils Party

Album of photos from Insomnia Pattaya's Angels & Devils Party.

Baht to weaken further?

Steve out at Valley View Restaurant sent me the following update he received from his contact in a local bank on the future of the Thai Baht. I'm sure it will be of interest to many, particularly the last para.

Quote:
From what we are getting internally in Thailand from the banks is that the outflow of capital will continue due to both profit taking and returning capital (USD / GBP) which would keep it heading lower. Our currency / FX guys are suggesting that it is a shorter term strengthening of GBP which has caused the GBP : THB move recently.

Personally being here and reading the news and talking to people in the banking and export sector I would be on the side of a longer term devaluation of the Baht. At the end of the day exports are becoming expensive and it has been made clear for some time that this needs to be addressed.

What I am doing with clients is making sure that they are not holding too much Baht here when there are good opportunities to move into GBP / USD and make 10% per annum. With guys who are bringing money from outside (Pension / Income / Investment) just make sure they transfer lower amounts until we get a better idea.

:Unquote

Rag - As always this is an opinion not fact but it's an opinion based on feedback from 'reliable' sources so it could be worth your consideration. Of course, if they find a major oil field in Thailand then all bets are off........

Thai Baht v US$ Exchange Rate from 2006

Sexy Asian Lady #96

No home for 2015 F1 Grand Prix in Thailand

Following demonstrations by Bangkok residents against the F1 race being held in historic Rattanakosin, the old part of the capital around the Grand Palace, Tourism Minister Somsak Phurisisak said that the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration had issued a law on May 16 which prohibits car racing in Rattanakosin.



Isaan and Phuket have offered to host the race but Phurisisak indicated the committee would look for a new site, focusing their search in the Chaengwattana Government Office Complex and Muang Thong Thani areas of the capital. 

Rag - surely anywhere within a reasonable commute of an airport would work fine and both Don Muang and U Tapoa airports are under utilised.

Thai SET and Baht swoon on US news

Thai shares plummeted 4.97% on Tuesday, the largest single-day percentage drop this year, on fund repatriation after the US received a credit outlook upgrade from Standard & Poor's, boosting the odds that the Federal Reserve will taper its stimulus in the coming months.



The baht's pullback is a clear sign of capital outflow. The currency fell to an eight-month low of 30.95/97 to the US dollar. Thai bonds were under foreign selling pressure with net sales of 500 million Baht.

Read the full article at The Bangkok Post.

Rag - 1 GBP now worth over 48 Baht.

Sexy Asian Lady #95

Affordable Asia, Expensive Europe, according to Tripindex Cities 2013

TripAdvisor®, the world’s largest travel site, today unveiled TripIndex Cities 2013, the third annual cost comparison of an evening out and overnight stay for two people in popular cities around the world.

Surprisingly, in Europe where economies are struggling, many cities are classified as expensive and in Asia where economies are thriving, many cities are classified as affordable.  

Affordable Asia
Asia is featured heavily in the 10 most affordable international destinations, claiming four cities in total. Hanoi, Vietnam (#2), Bangkok, Thailand (#6), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (#7) and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (#10). With an average cost of $203.79, these Asian escapes offer substantial savings as compared to the TripIndex world average of $321.70.

Least Expensive:

	Destination	Hotel	Return taxi trip	Dinner for two	Cocktails for two	Total cost
1	Sofia, Bulgaria	$96.29	$4.78	$40.44	$16.91	$158.42
2	Hanoi, Vietnam	$115.10	$6.10	$36.71	$18.23	$176.14
3	Warsaw, Poland	$103.30	$13.92	$53.15	$17.08	$187.45
4	Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt	$101.64	$2.90	$65.05	$21.75	$191.34
5	Budapest, Hungary	$103.89	$11.10	$49.98	$28.47	$193.44
6	Bangkok, Thailand	$109.27	$3.13	$69.75	$19.00	$201.15
7	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	$118.81	$2.13	$70.53	$26.26	$217.73
8	Tunis, Tunisia	$156.00	$2.59	$42.86	$17.46	$218.91
9	Cape Town, South Africa	$134.85	$13.69	$62.07	$8.85	$219.46
10	Riyadh, Saudi Arabia	$167.38	$6.10	$46.66	N/A	$220.14

Expensive Europe
Europe is home to the most expensive international cities with six of the top 10 destinations: Oslo, Norway (#1), Zurich, Switzerland (#2), Stockholm, Sweden (#3),Paris, France (#5), London, England (#7) and Copenhagen, Denmark (#8). Travelers committed to traveling to Europe can find affordable escapes with Sofia, Bulgaria;Warsaw, Poland and Budapest, Hungary all within the top five least expensive international cities, coming in respectively at first, third, and fifth.

Most Expensive:

	Destination	Hotel	Return taxi trip	Dinner for two	Cocktails for two	Total cost
1	Oslo, Norway	$229.99	$28.97	$276.72	$45.40	$581.08
2	Zurich, Switzerland	$298.77	$38.94	$151.02	$34.68	$523.41
3	Stockholm, Sweden	$243.23	$27.18	$209.50	$41.77	$521.68
4	New York City, U.S.	$379.24	$22.90	$81.50	$32.33	$515.97
5	Paris, France	$322.89	$17.73	$104.72	$66.06	$511.40
6	Sydney, Australia	$231.57	$24.26	$167.28	$37.10	$460.21
7	London, U.K.	$271.00	$41.47	$101.79	$37.09	$451.35
8	Copenhagen, Denmark	$219.35	$38.47	$148.46	$37.30	$443.58
9	Cancun, Mexico	$317.17	$20.20	$80.22	$23.47	$441.06
10	Punta Cana, Dominican Republic	$333.90	$26.59	$53.03	$22.14	$435.66

The full TripIndex Cities world list is available at:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/InfoCenter-a_ctr.TripIndex_Cities_2013_US

via Coconuts Bangkok

Sexy Asian Lady #94

Trang Linh via Beautiful Vietnamese Girls

Thai Baht at 1 year low

The Thai Baht ended today at 30.80-82, weakening from 30.64-66 in the morning.

The Baht was the lowest in a year against US Dollar. At the end of 2012, it was 30.60 per dollar.

Read the full article at The Nation.