Some people may think we are only in the business of finding rentals for our customers but we are a curious bunch working here at Hua Hin Finder and get great satisfaction from sharing all the other things we discover while hunting for new properties to list for you.

A new theme park for dogs has been set up by Mars Petcare at Wat Khao Iti Sukhato in Hua Hin. The pet care company donated some modified exercise equipment for dogs to be trained in jumping, walking, sitting, crouching and crawling. We had heard a rumor a while back that Sing Beer was going to buy a Disney franchise and open it between Hua Hin and Cha-am, maybe this is the test run and the dogs are being trained as a circus act for the possible new theme park in the future. All kidding aside, the main idea is to train the stray dogs to be more obedient before families come to adopt them. The total number of dogs at the center is around 1,800 and it costs over 1 million baht per year to pay for food, equipment and trainers.

The new immigration office is finally up and running located in the old Thonburi-Hua Hin Hospital on soi 23. It will now be more convenient than before as the old immigration office was seriously a bumpy ride up soi 102. The new location will cut your travel time by 20-30 minutes.

Hua Hin is 100 years old and the local municipality will be organizing the Hua Hin 2009 Triathlon to commemorate it. The triathlon will be held on August 30th. It will include 3 categories of competition for the swimming, cycling and running disciplines. First, 750 meter swim, 20km bike, 5km run. Second, 1.5km swim, 50km cycling, 5km run. Thirdly, 2km swim, 60km bike, and 10km run. If you would like to register, contact the Bureau of Tourism at 032-532-43433 ext. 100.

Most of us have placed a classified ad at one time or another, sometimes with quick results or none at all. In 2003 the market for classifieds in the US was $15.9 billion (newspapers), $ 14.1 billion (online) and $100 billion (both print & online) worldwide (Source: Kelsey Research Group). Out of all these billions of dollars of classifieds, how many actually get the results the sellers intended? Possibly before the internet when most households would get the local morning paper, this was a great way to place your ad with a relatively high success rate because the classifieds were reaching the people in the community you lived in and even easier for the buyer and seller to meet up to make a deal. Not so anymore as print classifieds have dropped by 35% in 2009 and internet classifieds have jumped up 42%. If you’re looking to buy or sell you need to be online!

In the past it was easy as most towns or cities only had one or two newspapers to choose from, making it simple to place your classified or possibly find what you wanted. Now with hundreds of sites, some dedicated only to classifieds and others offering a classified section as part of their website, buyers and sellers need to put a little more thought into where to place their classifieds to get results. For instance, some classified websites are only dedicated to advertising cars and nothing else.

The good news is most of the legwork in finding the best sites to sell or buy is done by search engines if you know the right key words to punch into the search box. Google is the most popular by far but other do exist, Yahoo, Dogpile, Ask Jeeves to name a few.

Here is an example of how you may get more results if you are trying to sell some furniture after living in a foreign country for a few years and are getting ready to move on. On our website, www.huahinfinder.com we have a classified section. So let’s say you have a few beds, a dining table, etc.., placing your classifieds on our site may get you quicker results as new clients who will be moving to Hua Hin browse our site for rental properties and may also need an extra bed, they are likely to check out our classified ads as it is right there on the site making it convenient to have a quick browse..It just makes sense.

Other popular classified sites in Thailand are www.bahtsold.com , http://bangkok.craigslist.co.th , www.bkkok.com & http://www.thaivisa.com to name a few.