FalangBaa

Bangkok is, of course, a renowned hiking destination. Try going up Sukhumvit from Soi 1 to Soi 30 any evening around 9 p.m.! Quite a hike!

Ahhhh, I remember a lot of people bitching about the concept of "face control" or "quality control" at Europe's more discerning clubs but the truth is, it really did preserve the tone of a club. Ironically, the same people complaining about such policies were the same ones crying in the hospital emergency room after being glassed by a peasant for looking at his girl for too long at club with no such policy in force.

Anyhoo, because of the low-rent nature of many of the punters and the girls in the foreigner-oriented venues, there are no such policies or queues at Q Bar so, as long as you can stump up the entrance fee (up to 600 baht on special nights), you're sorted.

For the love of God, don't rock up with two hoes on your arm no matter how good-looking they are. You'll look like a complete tool and people may subsequently - and justifiably - throw rotten fruit at you.

For 600 baht, I can have 11 large bottles of Singha from 7-11 or Family Mart, or 14 large bottles of Chang. If you're willing to pay 600 baht just to enter what at the end of the day (or rather night) is nothing but a glorified hooker pick-up joint where both the drinks and the girls come at hyper-inflated prices, then more fool you. And yes, I have been there once alone, and one more time with a friend who insisted on going there. Both times, I hated it.

If you're looking for professionals, you're looking in all the wrong places in Bangkok. The word "professional" doesn't exist in the Thai language. Pack up and go to Singapore instead. Good luck!

It's normal for hospitals to overwork their staff. Working sixteen hours is common amongst Thai nurses.

You can always check her duty rooster monthly.

Her "duty rooster"? Is that the chicken she keeps in her room to wake her up in good time to get to work before dawn?

There are clearly a lot of desperadoes in Western countries at the moment. I pity any teacher coming to Bangkok "to look for work". Surely you get the job first from your own country (including a short interview trip to Thailand, if necessary) and THEN you move over to Bangkok? I would not want to be here unemployed. Secondly, salaries for even well-qualified teachers are extremely low in Bangkok. I know two teachers, one of whom is highly qualified, who is living in an apartment that frankly would be classified as a garden shed in the West, since he can't afford anything better. This garden shed has air conditioning, but he cannot afford to run it. He cannot afford to eat anything but insanitary street food in Bangkok, and I am seeing his appearance and health condition decline every month. Thirdly, I pity anyone who has to teach <snip> Thai kids. You'll need a lot of patience and a lot of tolerance for repetition, repetition, repetition. Rote learning is the only thing that works here. You can forget about asking Thais to think creatively. Simply asking them to do that will result in puzzled expressions and silence all round.

Boy you do NOT want to catch Dengue - my wife who is Thai went down with it and it is not a pleasant virus to deal with !!

First point is that the Tiger mozzie bite at all times - day and night and is an urban dweller ! They are the main carrier for Dengue so you need to take action fast

1 ) Buy some mozzie plugs ( approx 100 Baht each ) and keep them running 24 X 7 ( suggest 1 in each room minimum )

2) Just before you go to bed close all the windows and doors and run the air conditioning at maximum cold for minimum 1 hour

3 ) If you want to have the windows open during the day you will have to put mozzie nets up

Good luck !!

Point 1): I heard these mozzie plugs are very ineffective at killing, and they constantly pump out toxic chemicals into your room. Not an attractive proposition!

Point 2): Why are you suggesting closing the windows just before sleeping? Surely that would mean it has already been dark for several hours (I usually sleep after midnight) and the mozzies already become more active at dusk (around 6 p.m.). Keeping the windows open for another 6 hours after dusk is a sure way to guarantee your room is filled with them.

Point 3): They seem to be getting sucked into my room through the air con. My building has a central air con system with vents at the ceiling level, not individual air con units mounted on the wall. My guess is that the roof of the building has standing water (and probably even a large water collection tank) and the air intake for the central air con system is also on the roof. I tried closing all my windows and running the air con all day as an experiment, and the numbers of mozzies actually seemed to increase! Turning off air con and opening the windows seems to be reducing them again. But I have to close the windows by 6 p.m. again, when they start coming out in droves.

Living on the 20th floor, I never thought this would be a problem. It's getting so bad that I'm actually thinking of leaving Bangkok for a few weeks (my situation allows me to do this) for some beach area that might have less of a mosquito problem. I lived in Phuket for 1 year and never noticed a mosquito problem there, even though I was basically living right next to a jungle.

This is driving me crazy... So if anyone can recommend the best mozzie repellent (spray or ointment), I'd appreciate your advice greatly. I have one from Boots which is 50% DEET, but it seems very strong and I heard it's toxic. I also have an ointment with citronella oil, which I heard works almost as well as DEET, without being toxic. I also heard that eucalyptus oil is effective. Anyone know about that? I don't really want to cover my whole body with DEET before sleeping, if I can avoid it.

In the past month, I've noticed a massive escalation in the number of mosquitoes entering my apartment. I wake up every morning itching and covered in bumps. Then I have to go around the apartment killing dozens of them in the dark places where they hide after drinking their fill of the red stuff.

I live on the 20th floor of a building on lower Sukhumvit. They seem to be coming in through the open windows during the daylight hours. After about 6 p.m., I always close all the windows and switch on the air con. I have lived in this same building since January 2012. I NEVER noticed any mosquitoes entering until about one month ago, but now their numbers seem to be increasing by the day. Being on the 20th floor, I never expected to be bothered by them at that height. What is becoming more worrying is that I have noticed a different species of mosquito entering in the past few days. Previously, it was only the smaller species with a dark black body and black legs. Now I'm also getting the much larger species which has longer black and white striped legs. I believe that is the species that can carry dengue fever.

Does anyone know what is the risk that I could come down with dengue? Bear in mind that I seem to be getting bitten multiple times every night, including by the big species now. I really would like to avoid this, but I don't want to cover my body with DEET spray every night. There hasn't been a tremendous amount of rain in Bangkok this year so far, so I'm puzzled why the mosquito numbers have skyrocketed in the past 4-6 weeks. I'm also very surprised that they fly up to the 20th floor of a building, and during the daytime hours too, even with bright sunshine around. Has anyone else noticed this problem if you live on a high floor of a building? They are just about driving me crazy at the moment. Of course, the solution would be to keep all the windows closed during the day as well as at night, but I don't really want to be breathing air con air 24 hours a day...

The hard part is trying to find a lawyer who ISN'T an experienced and aggressive criminal.

Hahaha, good one! The most successful airline of all time in the world, in terms of its meteoric expansion over the past 10 years... And they are adding 277 new planes between now and 2016! No airline in the world can say that. I love Air Asia.

17M? Where do they get these stats? 30% of the population? This however from 60 minutes will give most of the answers. Thais have an enormous appetite for sugar. Road stalls, condensed milk, on mango, fruits, with chilli, mixed in noodles and one of the four pots on every spice rack at restaurants. Kids eating soft serves at western fast food outlets, and even mixed surreptitiously into breads. Not just Thailand - the world is being addicted by fructose and sugars in just about everything we have and the worst of all is aspartame, used in all the diet drinks - we simply need to educate and of course that is always frowned upon as the corporate greed controls media. Don't take my word for it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2mSPIjDm1w&feature=player_embedded

Just exactly what quack website do you get your aspartame information from? There is more aspartame in a glass of low fat milk than there is in a can of diet coke. Aspartame doesn't even enter your blood stream so how can it affect you? I bet you also say MSG is bad too.

The quack is you. Low fat milk doesn't contain aspartame. Most milk in Thailand is not sweetened at all, in fact most 7-11s give you the option of 0%, low fat or full fat milk, e.g. Meiji, which is never sweetened. This is in contrast to Malaysia, where it's next to impossible to buy milk that doesn't have sugar added! The Malaysians have an even sweeter tooth than the Thais, in my experience. You cannot even buy fruit juices in Malaysia that don't have extra sugar added! I mean sucrose, as well as the fructose naturally present in all fruit! And regardless of what anyone says, Malaysians are quite a bit fatter on average than Thais.

A while back I tried to get a local small grocery to carry No Sugar Oishi green tea (they stocked sugary options of it) as I told them if they stocked, I would buy it and suspected their large foreigner customer base would as well. They tried. They were told only large stores are allowed to be stocked with that flavor. Most 7-11s and Family Marts don't stock it. The sugar thing is indeed institutionalized here.

Why on earth would you want to buy prepackaged (i.e. stale), overpriced green tea anyway? Just make your own at home with high-quality green tea bags or loose green tea (I like the Japanese stuff). You could make dozens of litres of it for a few hundred baht. If you don't want to drink it hot, chill it after brewing and fill up a small bottle to take with you when you go out, so you don't have to buy that expensive sugar-filled crap green tea called Oishi, which is also full of other additives and preservatives to try to keep it fresh when it's sitting around for weeks after production in a heated warehouse. Use your brain and make your own tea fresh every day.

Why do you expect Thailand to be cheap? Its the 21st Century, Thailand has far better infastructure etc than Europe, lets be honest, most of Europe is third world compared to Thailand..get used to it..the Euro will get worse and Thailand will be more expensive than ever.

"Thailand has far better infrastructure than Europe..." Hahaha, quote of the week! Where exactly in Europe do you live? Albania? Bulgaria?

Outside Bangkok, Thailand has minimal or non-existent infrastructure, even in so-called tourist hotspots like Phuket, Koh Samui and Pattaya.

What gives me the impression that some people only post on Thai Visa after a night of heavy drinking?

Weekday lunch at Lord Jims is around 1300++.

I am also a fan of Sheraton Grande SUkhumvit's Sunday Brunch. Its held at the living room on the 1st floor of the hotel where they open up the Living Room, Rossinis and Basil for a large Brunch. Different from their regular buffet dinners and lunches which are at the Orchid Cafe on the lobby level. 2700++ per person with free flow open bar and live jazz music.

I've never had a buffet at Four Points by Sheraton at SUkhumvit 15, but their "Beer Vault" serves plenty of nice beers on tap for some of the best prices in Bangkok! 160 or 170 Nett for a pint of Hoegaarden and good happy hour deals. The Ambar on the roof has a good atmosphere and good 1 for 1 cocktail promotion as well as shisha available. Service at Ambar is questionable but still good ambiance.

Some people clearly have more money than sense. My Sunday brunch yesterday on Soi 8 consisted of tom yam gung (the best I have ever tasted, with a huge number of large prawns), a whopping plate of steamed rice, and unlimited cups of free iced water, and it set me back a whopping 70 baht in total (tom yam 60, rice 10). I almost NEVER pay above 120 baht for any meal in Bangkok, and I eat like a king every day. And every day, I see dumb falangs sitting in hotel restaurants eating inferior tom yam gung which the menu quotes as 199 baht ++, and paying 30 or 40 baht for a small bottle of water, or 80 baht for a glass of fake orange juice made from concentrate, or worse, powder. Idiocy truly knows no bounds.

For absolutely any High End or hard to find Cooking / Kitchen equipment in Bangkok I would always suggest Verasu :

http://www.verasu.com/

Patrick

Would never buy from a place whose website has "SHOCK PRICE" written on every item, but never tells you what the price actually is.

The shock is that it's shockingly more expensive than you could ever imagine. You get ripped off on household appliances everywhere in Thailand. Far more expensive than in the West!

There are retail outlets in Loei that will allow you to use a bank card for payment? They even have ATM machines there now? Wow, Loei has really advanced since I visited it about 6 years ago. Couldn't find an ATM anywhere.

Poor suicidal me. I actually prefer Orient Thai, Nok is my 2d choice with AirAsia a distant third. I live on Phuket and know the accident site well, marked by the little hill along the runway, passed it many times. Prefer the service, staff, on-time record, Don Muang airport and the no-BS web site which is far more up-front without the gimmicky little add-ons that mount up in a big way.

Ironic that your name is "kee niau", but you throw away your money with overpriced, unsafe airlines who use old planes and inadequately trained pilots. I just flew Air Asia from Bangkok to Saigon and back for 2,090 baht, including all taxes and fees, and including two delicious meals (nasi lemak), although I didn't check in any bags. If you ask me, 2,090 baht for a round-trip flight from Thailand to Vietnam is great value for money. I always check Nok Air, etc., when I need to book a flight, and I have NEVER found Nok Air to be cheaper than Air Asia. Their planes are WAY older than Air Asia's planes too, with an average fleet age of 17.3 years, and they don't actually own ANY of their planes. Nok Air only has 16 planes... Air Asia has 62 planes and will own another 277 planes by 2016. I have flown Air Asia over 50 times, and I have never experienced the slightest incident. One time, my Air Asia flight takeoff was delayed 1 hour due to bad weather at the plane's origin. None of my other 50+ Air Asia flights have ever been delayed. No airline in the world can prep its planes for takeoff after landing as fast as Air Asia. This airline runs like clockwork, with sparkling new planes, great pilots and is the most successful low-cost airline of all time. 277 new planes on order and entering service by 2016!

Some people just hate success.

http://www.google.co.th/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=nok%20air%20fleet%20age&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNok_Air&ei=_KgLUO-dF4nYrQfY8fzHCA&usg=AFQjCNHUDODQqWV4NiWDaN1nHhdNWWuTdw

idiotic statements...going by your thought pattens you also wont fly with Thai because they also crashed in Surat Thani during a rainstorm...or Bangkok Airways who hit the terminal building on Samui during a Rainstorm

Air Asia are an accident waiting to happen, not to mention one of the most irritating cramped cabins on short haul flights

How idiotic of you to call me "idiotic" for making perfectly true statements. Air Asia's average plane age is 4.1 years, making it one of the airlines with the newest planes in the world. This average age will come down in the next few years, as they're buying dozens of new planes...

Orient Thai's average plane age is 24 years (!!!), putting it below most African airlines in terms of fleet age. These are some of the OLDEST planes in the world being used for commercial passenger operations.

http://www.planespotters.net/Airline/Orient-Thai-Airlines

http://www.planespotters.net/Airline/AirAsia

Air Asia has had only one minor incident in over 10 years. Four passengers suffered minor injuries.

On September 2004, an Orient Thai 747 flew within 200 meters of Japan's Tokyo Tower over the heart of downtown Tokyo.

On July 22, 2008, shortly after the crash in Phuket which killed 89 people (the now bankrupt brand of Orient Thai called One-Two-GO), and after the internet publication of illegally excessive work hours and check fraud, Orient Thai and its subsidiaries were ordered to suspend service for 56 days due to failure to train, failure to have a safety program and failure to supervise safe flight, check ride fraud and breaking the law at Orient Thai and One-Two-GO.

Expect Orient Thai to go bankrupt within 1-2 years. Air Asia is one of the most successful airlines of all time, and has 62 planes in operation and another 277 on order by 2016.

I know who I'd rather fly with...

Wouldn't fly on this airline if it was free. It has a terrible safety record, poorly trained pilots and ancient planes. Remember the One-Two-Go plane that crashed in Phuket a couple of years ago, killing 90 passengers (and 40 survived)? One-Two-Go was basically part of Orient Thai, but they rebranded it to Orient Thai only since that crash. There have been several other crashes and incidents. The Phuket crash was basically due to the pilot not knowing he shouldn't try to land during a rainstorm with strong sidewinds. NEVER fly Orient Thai unless you've got suicidal tendencies. Air Asia is the only way to go!

20,000? LOL. I pay 8,000 a month, no deposit, 1 bedroom, 1 living room and spacious balcony, quiet street, fitted kitchen with stove, dishwasher, washer/dryer and microwave, LED TV, air-conditioned gym with brand-new equipment, swimming pool, glass-walled power shower, nice furnishings, silent air conditioning, 3-minute walk to BTS Sky Train. There are a load of falangs paying silly prices like 20,000 and above, whereas the majority of Thais in Bangkok are paying 5,000 or less and living in perfectly decent accommodation. My ex-GF was living in Bangna and paying 2,200 a month and had a spacious room with everything she needed, even air con (but preferred to use a fan), also around 5 minutes from the Sky Train, with loads of restaurants nearby where you can get a filling meal for 40 baht. Falang him stupid.

How dumb can you be, if you have $100-300 K sitting idle, to want to invest that money in Thailand? One of the most xenophobic countries in the world, where taking money out (as a foreigner) is next to impossible. $300 K and you want to open a 7-Eleven? The phrase "more money than sense" immediately comes to mind. The ONLY way you can earn decent money in Thailand is to work for a major multinational corporation at the senior management level. Other than that, Thailand is the preferred destination of the foreign loser who's all washed up back home. Sure, there are a load of guys bragging about how successful they are. However, their girlfriend/wife is an ugly, 1000-baht-a-night soi 4 hooker and they dress/look like slobs, so go figure...

Besides the EPIC fail on the Burma/Myanmar thing, you also spelt tourist wrong (burmaturist.com)

Actually, a burmaturist is a Burmese naturist. Note that he also registered burmanude.com. The clever devil is trying to corner the market in Burmese naturism! To foil his cunning plan, I will have to register burmanudes.com as well as burmanood.com and burmanoods.com so as to also corner the market of naturists with poor spelling skills.

Firstly, all of those domains are crap, you have misspelled the English in several of them; secondly, you have inserted 's' unnecessarily (e.g. burmagirlsfinder.com instead of burmagirlfinder.com); thirdly, the country is not called Burma; and fourthly, it's going to be a very long time before the ordinary people in that country have internet access, and it's also unlikely to become a major hub for ex-pats, which you seem to be targeting with these domains. Congratulations, you have just thrown away your money. Then again, probably not even half as much money as you throw at Thai girls every single month. What were you thinking by registering crap domains for a non-existent country?

Do you have a Thai wife? Then I'd advise you against life insurance. It could very well be the death of you.