LuukKoeyKorat

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Thanks again for the feedback :-)

Cheers guys

Hi all

I came across this brand recently in Global House in Nong Khai. Has anyone ever bought this brand name, and has any feedback..good/bad quality, reliable, safe?

many thanks

The bar shown in the picture is on Koh Phangan. Few years back back when I still lived on the island, I remember him and his mates on holiday were good customers in my own bar, a fun crowd. RIP

After 10 years here I still can't stop shaking my head . A country as advanced as TH cannot find the political will or drive or measure of humility to help out persecuted stateless people from your soon-to-be AEC buddy. Because the Kingdom's 'not rich enough'. But instead have to rely on the EU for a bit of (meagre) assistance..and while you're at it, please take all 2,000 to Europe. Meanwhile, more pressing matters between both couuntries concerning white elephants.....

Holy smokes!

Great....Lao Airlines uses a bunch of these for domestic flights here.. :-(

My advice is if you plan to make the effort to reach Bottle Beach (and its really not difficult) and are worried about paying 10 baht extra for a plate of fried rice compared to Chaloklum - don't bother going. Or bring a kettle and a week's supply of instant noodles.

Northwest Vietnam has many Tai or Dtai people whose language is almost identical to Thai. I spoke to some Vietnamese visitors coming from that area.

On a side note...2 months ago I explored further up into northeastern Laos courtesy of a good friend working for UNODC. We traveled 3 hours on paved roads then 5 hours off road through the mountains, arriving at an ethnic Tai Dam village seriously in the middle of nowhere. My friend suggested I try speak Thai to the villagers and to my amazement we could converse, albeit with difficulty! This village has no electricty, no Thai TV access, is 50km from the Vietnamese border and only the headman has ever been outside to the provincial town. But Thai language is understood :-)

@tomtomtom69

"In Lao, males usually say "doy" which sounds a bit like the Chinese "dui" meaning right or correct when answering something in the affirmative. Females either say "doy" or "jao". I have never heard a Thai Isarn speaker use "doy" but maybe I wasn't listening for it. I should ask one of my Thai Isarn friends if she knows this word; I suspect she might but probably wouldn't use it herself or even any males she knows would use it"

Butter in Lao is "beu" or essentially "beurre" from the French, whereas in Thai it's "neuy".

This is wrong I'm afraid. "Doy" is a more polite form of "jao" and used by both sexes to mean "yes" or used as conformation.There is no differentials in the Lao language between the sexes as there is in Thai.

Neuy is Laotian for butter also.

'Doy' was the respectable polite form of reply when acknowledging elders or people of higher class pre-1975. You still hear it used by the older villagers. 'Jao' was introduced and encouraged to the language by the Communists after they shortened the Lao alphabet and simplified the language to make it all more 'egalitarian'.

The Tai Yai or Shan language spoken in Shan State of Burma is in the same language family as Thai and Lao.

Burmese, however, is completely different.

Cambodian (Khmer) is also entirely different from Thai, although they use similar alphabets, and Thai has a number of loanwords originating in Khmer.

Vietnamese and Malaysian are both totally different from Thai as well.

because so many receive thai tv in Cambodia, many understand basic Thai.

As a caveat, you can speak thai to get around in Lao and cambodia, but only as a tourist. Settl down somewhere and you will quickly find that your Thai becomes a source of resentment -- the locals will soon bgin to wonder when you will begin to make the effort in their real language that you made with thai

Spot on! - I moved to upcountry Laos with my Thai girlfriend. Although my conversational Thai is adequate and she can converse in Isaan with the locals, after a few months I came to the conclusion that although the villagers and myself can fundamentally communicate OK with each other in Thai/Isaan...the Lao language completely has its own words and expressions for almost anything...after 2 years here I have forgotten most of my Thai and speak with Lao with a Luang Prabang countryside accent (think english Geordie or german Saxon) :-)

Out of sight is out of mind...springs to mind

Blether

Brilliant pics, hope you enjoy north Laos! This is my backyard - I live in Nong Khiaw 3 hours minibus drive NE of Luang Prabang. If you enjoyed the Mekong slowboat down from Houayxai for the nature and sights I can HIGHLY recommend the Nam Ou boat ride from Nong Khiaw to Muang Khua or otherway round. Simply stunning nature, mountains, jungle, isolated Hmong & Khamu villages on the river, even more isolated Akha villages inland. No organised tourism, the real deal...just find the village headman and ask to stay. Ofcourse they'll think you're absolutely mad because no one has ever visited them before, so you'll be centre of attraction :-). 6 hour boat ride town-to-town....one of the last treasures left in this part of the world.

I will be up there this year

Great! make sure you pop in and have a beer!

I seriously thought they were gonna build a MacD's in Haadrin when they knocked Chicken Corner down..

Great thread

Last week I did a visa run from Vientiane to Nong Khai. I returned to Laos on the 25th, which was the start of a 3 day Buddhist festival in TH (don't remember the name but it was Bang Fai time) - all bars in Thailand that day had definitely planned to close, but all bars in Vientiane were definitely open that night. I'm almost certain the same rules are not followed in Laos. :-)

So,......I just have to share this.

I was never a fan of the superstitions and ghost stories. The only exception to this rule has been the ghost that lives by the trees on the 16th green at Bangkok Golf Club (I once hit a 100 yard slice that disappeared into the jungle towards the 17th tee, and the ball was on the green as we approached. It was the ghost who brought the ball back to the green, according to the caddies. I never play that hole without bringing an offering). To put it simple, I laughed at peoples ghost stories.

A couple of years ago I had this weird thing when I ran in to the same series of numbers over and over again during two weeks. Phone numbers, addresses, visa applications, license plates; the same numbers kept appearing everywhere. Accidentally, I told my wife who told me "you must play the lottery". I have never played the lottery or gambled in my entire life. Next weekend we made a huge move to our new house and were forced to eat out for practical reasons. As we are about to finish our meal, a lottery sales guy passes by without catching my initial attention. As he walks away I glance at his lottery tickets and THERE'S THE FREAKING NUMBER AGAIN! It was a bunch of 10 tickets. I bought the bunch.

A week later my wife asked me if I checked the numbers. I looked it up on the Internet and felt chills down my back as I looked at the results. THERE WAS THE FREAKING NUMBER! I won 10X40.000THB (400.000)

I have never played the lottery again. And I dare not play the 16th at Bangkok without bringing a proper offering.

PS.

Every Thai person I know harassed me for 6 months in an attempt to get some numbers from me. They went through my phonebook, check book, cook book. And my license plates on my vehicles was the most sought after numbers within a radius of 3 miles. My weight, length, age, birthday - you name it. No one ever won.

DS.

1909 comments on TV..those will be my lottery numbers next week, thanks! :-)

"Last but not least is the "Bang Fai Sib Lan", a 30cm-wide, 6m-long PVC
pipe filled with two tonnes of potassium nitrate. The craftsmen who
design these rockets can make them soar up to 8 or 10km, higher than
some aircraft, which in low-flying areas cruise at only 3km or so."

You start to get the impression that Thais are collaborating with the N Koreans and Iranians on a domestic medium range missile program...thats in credible...2000kg of pottassium nitrate??

I'm more and more glad that I sold up after 8 years and left Thailand 2 years ago.

I don't understand a single bit of the OP....

I was dating a girl from Trang recently...she is studying tourism and has aspirations of becoming a guide.

She told me that there are some traditional peoples living in (and living off) the forest in that area.

She entered their (tribal) name into the dictionary on her I Phone and the English translation that came up was "Aboriginal".

If anyone knows anything about this tribe please post...as I want to ride down to Trang and check them out.

The girl told me that a several day hike into the forest is required to see them..

Check this article, slightly dated but still gives a fascinating insight: http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter36/text36.htm

Larb is a really tasty dish and i eat it alot, do you eat it cooked or raw, and with or without blood?

I've been to Laos many,many times as Larb is a Lao dish and I've never seen it advertised raw on any menu anywhere in Vientiane!

Maybe not in Vientiane, but up here in Luang Prabang province, one of the traditional dishes eaten on the 15th April (Pee Mai Lao time) after the morning family Ba-See ceremony, is Laab Pa Dip (raw fish laab) or Laab Neua Dip (raw beef laab).