bangkok19

I once met a young Thai lady in Macca's (Robinson cnr Suk Soi 19)

It was just after the opening of the Grande Sheraton opposite.

I happened to mention to her that the hotel seemed to be constructed in a very short time. She then went on to tell me that the facade and much of the building was pre fabricated and all trucked in during nights.  She was studying structures/architecture at Uni. A lengthy conversation that led to an inexpensive relationship for the next 3 week before I departed BKK. Our liasons were always at HER apartment and I always walked past her hotel's reception (well dressed)and said 'Hi' with a book in my hand. It sort've created the perception that my frequent visits were for business rather than pleasure. Maybe "face saving " for her

Patpong 2 was quite a buzz in the 80's...  next to the Crown Royale was the RIFIFI BAR run by Mickey.

It often was quite popular just before sunset onwards.

Down the other direction was the CLEO BAR BEER ( later known as Vinai's).  Anyone remember the old cashier? she was 110° in the shade.

I actually saw her pay a visit to the bar last year. You can take an old girl outta the bar but you can't take the bar.....

Also the EXECUTIVE BAR was quite posh in its day.

I always remember the La Cherie (goldfish bowl) on Suriwong Rd at the end of PP2 near the Suriwong Hotel. It had a grand old escalator to get you down there, but you had steps to get back up.  I'd sit at the big glass window with Kloster in hand with my nose pressed up against it watching all the girls applying make-up to each other.

Chez Marco and Da Stefano are my favorites for good food.

Red Lion for the ambience and conversation.

On 3/1/2024 at 8:32 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

Errrr, do you want to revisit the reason the dinosaurs died out? While the meteor impact may have triggered a cold period, it wasn't a "normal" ice age as part of the climate cycle.

Theories, theories, theories...

I base my comments on stuff I've read or seen in documentaries, I wasn't here way back then, nor were you. Then again, you could believe the information you heard from a particular scientist who has said something different from the scientists I may have heard. Neither of us are right, neither of us are wrong. 

I'm just sick to death of the climate alarmism cr*p that's rammed down our throats. When people in high places with plenty of influence (U.N.) start telling the world that if we don't stop burning fossil fuels within the next 50 years the oceans will start to boil.  Puleaze......

34 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

PET ( Positron Emission Tomography ) scans are used to detect cancerous tumors in a full body scan.

 

After fasting for 12 hours, a patient is injected with radioactive sugar. They then wait  for an hour for the sugar to distribute itself through the body.

 

Cancer cells absorb sugar far faster than normal cells. The tumors show up as hot spots of radioactivity in the scan.

 

If cancer loves sugar so much, why give it what it wants?

PET scans don't show up Pancreatic cancer. You gotta have an Endoscopy to enable Biopsy from pancreas.

I'm Stage 4 PC.  I have a strong family history of cancers, mother had it twice, father had it twice. The Genetics Research section of the Health Department here is doing special tests in my blood to see if I actually inherited it from my parents.

If so, the current chemo treatment has to be altered.

The Climate change Cycle is a reality and has already, and will into the future, CHANGE, with or without our help.

We're probably fortunate that the ocean (and the Earth's) temperature is warming up..   record crops growth around the world currently - food sustains life!   

The current alarmism has turned climate change into the climate industry, lots of people making money out of it, which isn't a bad thing.

At this point if time on this Earth, I'd prefer to be here now, as opposed to some time in the distant future when world temperatures are dropping!  Plenty of reason to worry then. I doubt whether humanity could survive an ice age...  the Dinosaurs certainly didn't!

In 2004 I was doing exactly the same things as I do now...  cummuting several times a year between Bangkok, Sukhothai and Chiangmai.

Unfortunately my old hotel in Bangkok (The Honey) is now a construction site with a 14 meter hole in the ground.

My farm in Sukhothai has a nice modern house in it as opposed to the shack back in '04.

My old hotel's in Chiangmai have changed names - the Montri to just plain "M" and Rydges to the Amora.

If we go back another 20 years to '84. My old(er) hotel in Chiangmai was the Anodard and I'm really happy to see it ain't changed much.

Twenty years ago in Thailand I was walking everywhere, drinking way too much and enjoying the company of friends. Unfortunately about 75% of my farang friends that lived in Thailand back then have passed away. I'm living between Australia and Thailand so get the best of both worlds. I may be retired now but I thought the world was a better place back in 2004.  Of course Boxing Day of that year was the exception.

I opened an account with the Thai Farmers Bank over 40 years ago.

As I was visiting Thailand as a tourist 3 times per year the modest balance I had in the account was a sort've 'back up' in case my travellers cheques ran out . (!!!?)

In the 90's I opened a BKK Bank account for the same reason.

TFB became Kasikorn Bank, I closed that account.

Been using the BKK Bank account regularly since then as I don't have to pay a fee each time I use their ATM's in Thailand.

If I use my Oz cards, there is that 250/300 baht fee plus foreign exchange fee and crappy rate.

I just bring the big green Oz banknotes and change at Vasu and then deposit into BKK Bank.

Weekly withdrawals at BKK Bank ATM's. At the end of each trip there is still money left over in the acc for the next trip.  

To sum it up:  it's for convenience, security/safety and prevention of getting ripped off with fees and crappy exchange rates etc.

On 1/29/2024 at 12:14 AM, Denim said:

In the old days 40 years ago used to discretely slip the girls 20 baht instead of wasting money on lady drinks. Everybody happy.

 

Then the sex tourists turned up in swarms and the fun went out of it. Not been in a bar for at least 25 years. No need. Better watering holes well away from the tourist traps.

Yes, and rather than pay the barfine you could just arrange to meet up with the girl at the Tip Top Restaurant when she finished work.

On 1/29/2024 at 1:06 AM, JimTripper said:

I would not sign anything. It's still a cash society.  If more drinks come then I ordered then get up and tell the manager they were not ordered. Even better, get a drink menu. The price can be whatever they want if you don't have a menu.

 

If they still demand 1k per guy then tourist police settle it.

Somewhere in between the 1st paragraph and the 2nd paragraph you forgot to mention the 'security guards'....  

On 1/28/2024 at 7:47 PM, 2long said:

Warning for all those out there. At least a couple of bars in Cowboy are scamming punters.

I will not mention the names, due to Thailand's laws, but one is a reference to memory in French and the other is a time that 7Eleven stop selling booze.

 

Taking into account that I have been here 24 years and my mates are far from bar novices, and in their 60s. No one was drunk. This is not Patpong....

 

Order a lady drink and she brings two (a shot and a cola). In bars in Nana this is classed as one drink and costs about 200B.

More girls turn up and when you offer/say yes to a drink for the new girl, ALL the girls on the table get a shot and a cola, not just the extra lass. And the price of these lady drinks is 300B each glass, so you're looking at 600B/pop/lady.

There's a chitty/bill that the lady asks you to write your name on, but it's not like a bill in a plastic pot like normal bars. For me, it was in her bikini bottoms.

 

Then when the punters question 'what's going on here?' and it all kicks off, the management say 'you signed for it, and it's all on CCTV'

 

Two mates had one beer each and the bill was 4,300B but I negotiated down to the 3,000B that they had signed for.

Two mates and I had one beer each and the bill was 2,700B.

 

We all know that there are a few options to resolve the situation, and each has his own way. Yes it cost us a lot, and we made our feelings very clear in Thai language, and in a Thai way.

As I wrote, this is not Patpong and we have all been to many many bars before, hundreds of times and none of us were drunk. Yes, we should know better, but if we can get caught, others are likely to as well.

Yes.. this and similar scams are becoming widely known either by personal experience, or if you read Stickman.com

Here in Australia we've not much choice for DIRECT Syd to BKK flights.

Only QF and TG.

Of course AirAsia and Sh*tstar fly Syd to Phuket but I don't go there.

I was flying TG Business class for years and had no problems until around 2006 when I was able to fly Emirates Business Class for $1,100 cheaper. Better planes (A380) and much better service however Emirates ceased flying Syd to BKK in June 2019 (unless of course I want to pay QF prices in a QF plane).

I refuse to fly QF for several reasons as well as the ones that have been widely documented since the recent departure of the Leprechaun (C.E.O).

On the bright side, as from April, TG will start flying Syd to BKK using the newish A350's so with newer planes there might be a newer 'attitude'.

On 1/23/2024 at 10:46 PM, KannikaP said:

A great post VBF. If the vinyl records are digitised, with all the hisses and noises, using a 96kHz method, those should sound EXACTLY the same as the originals, with all those unwanted artefacts. But many flacs, and mp3s, are taken from remixed/remastered master tapes, so should be better.

WRONG!

Remixed tracks have probably come from the original multitrack master but they won't sound quite the same as the original. Because of the condition (due to age) of the original tape, the remix will have to have "noise reduction" to remove the tape hiss which in turn removes a lot of the detail (think cassettes, and when you switching the Dolby switch on and off). The Remix would then be overly compressed (as they do these days) making it sound loud with little Dynamic range.

As for Remasters -  Remasters means LOUDER. An engineer has just taken the digital production "master" and tweaked the EQ (altered equalizer frequencies) and compressed the audio making it LOUDER than the original.

Remasters means LOUDER!

And...  that's the problem with streaming these days. You don't know the source. It can be WAV. lossless or MP3 or Flac and might sound great to your ears and you're really happy with it. Great!

But if you compared it to the original (vinyl) version...  it'll be chalk and cheese.  

Of course I realize that back in the day the recording technology was simpler and there were obviously some low quality recordings however they were in the minority.

Some were even reissued a couple of years later with noticeably improved sound quality. 

If you're in Bangkok get off the BTS at Chitlom. Walk along the Skywalk towards the Ratchaprasong intersection. Take the first exit footbridge on the left straight into that building. There is a guitar shop there.

Also, I've seen a couple near each other in Centralworld and (from memory) there's one in the Siam Discovery Center upstairs.

On 1/19/2024 at 11:44 AM, arick said:

There is no queue going in Chiang Mai anymore you must be kind of confused it was like that 6-8 years ago but it isn't like that anymore. 

I guess you aren't at CNX airport to check in for the 10.10am flight to Bangkok.

Sometimes it's mayhem.

Hopefully now with TG resuming the domestic route a Business Class ticket will speed up the process.

On 1/22/2024 at 11:05 PM, KannikaP said:

I can hear far more on my digital files than I ever remember hearing on vinyl records. 

For those who prefer the 'vinyl' sound with all the noises, there are files available online taken from the records retaining all of them, with their reduced dynamic range. 

For those who prefer to hear how the tracks sounded in the studio, there are flacs or wavs taken directly from the masters.

You're hearing far more on your digital files than you ever did on your vinyl's because you're probably listening to an overly compressed LOUD remastered version.

The compression has brought up the levels of those quiet tambourines and cymbals to the same level as the drums, guitars and vocals....   which is NOT how they sounded in the studio.

The quality of the "source" (being the original vinyl) is just as important as the quality of the cartridge and speakers.

The (so called) new vinyl records that are available these days are actually recorded from the digital master, which is the same source as most modern CD's. It kinda defeats the purpose. The early pressed CD's from the 80's until around '94 are from the Analog masters (you'll probably see the SPAR code written on them -  AAD meaning Analog original master to Analog copy production tape to digital Compact disc.  Newer CD's are DDD however the more expensive (DCC Gold CDs) are ADD.

God knows what versions of tracks are on the streaming services, even if you pay for 'lossless' quality you're more than likely getting an overly compressed (brickwalled, if you're in the business)  LOUD version.

As far as crackles and pops and vinyl surface noise on vinyl records go, a decent record cleaner will get rid of most of those. There are still heaps of excellent quality "original" vinyl around out there, but in answer to the OP's question, I never venture to Pattaya so I don't know.

On 1/18/2024 at 10:08 PM, mokwit said:

Apparently you cant picpocket someone when they are moving. They have to be stationary.

Don't you watch the movies?

It can be done on the move.

I've noticed the very same thing!

Many factors come into it...

I'm over 60 and high frequency hearing loss is now evident. I kept blaming inefficient tweeters in my speakers but it's me.

Also the audio's 'dynamic range' in movies has me reaching for the remote quite often to turn up the volume on the quiet bits, or turn it down on the loud bits.

Many (TV) Sound bars have a feature in their 'settings' called "Audio Compression". If you turn this on, it sucks up the quiet bits, and squashes the loud bits leaving you with a more consistent level volume.

You'll notice you can hear TV Commercials pretty clear because they're heavily compressed to make them sound louder.

Another alternative is what I do with Netflix, turn on the subtitles.

The queues when checking in at Chiang Mai Airport are long and slow most mornings...  I'm sure having Airline staff sniffing through your Passport (as opposed to an Immigration Officer) will extend the delays even further.

16 hours ago, Nick Carter icp said:

If the first thing that you did when opening this thread was to look at their breasts in the photo , then you are a degenerate 

No...   but after you mentioned 'them' I had to scroll back up to see if I missed anything.

It's just become a habit with me...

I hand them my ticket and passport.

I've always thought it's been the rule!

16 hours ago, huangnon said:

 

Thailand has an actual 'vineyard' just out of Rayong province, called "Silverlake" , producing basically cooking wine at extortionate prices.

Given that the heat and humidity here does not produce anything near a decent wine grape, this place (owned by some Thai billionaire elite) serves the illusion that Thailand has it's own "wine industry" that needs protection against evil foreign competition.

I think there are other vineyards scattered around Thailand doing the same thing. If any of them manage to produce anything of note, please update.

Shiraz grapes love the sun.

In fact, if you're talking Thailand wineries, Monsoon Valley (Hua Hin) is probably the only winery in Thailand that is embracing and using new winemaking technology to produce some fine wines.

As a matter of fact, the chief winemaker @ Monsoon Valley says they actually have to defoliate many of the vines of certain grapes to make sure that they get plenty of sun.

I was given a blind tasting of a Red Blend from Monsoon Valley, it tasted very similar to some of the Aussie entry level Reds (light to medium bodied) and probably better than some of the skunk juice that Thailand imports from Oz, Chile and S.Africa.

It's actually on the Wine List at the Oriental Hotel, a red and a white and costs the same as some of their imported Premium wines.

I, personally wouldn't buy it as I prefer bigger, full bodied Reds .

4 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Go on, then, I'm ready to be taught a lesson.   What sicknesses are caused by cold airconditioning in vehicles.

This Doctor Lou seems to be an expert on every single topic that is mentioned in this forum. He poo-poo's most other forum contributors comments.

Some examples of ailments caused by very cold a/c in vehicles...

Three buddies of mine tried to escape the water throwing during Songkran by jumping into a taxi to get to their hotel.

They were all soaking wet. Taxi was held up in traffic, they were probably in the cab sitting in cold a/c for about 45 minutes (according to them)....  All 3 of them came down with a head cold and flu like symptoms a day later.

I was in a friend's car being driven around Esaarn for a whole day. The a/c was blowing cold air on the RHS of my neck but I didn't bother readjusting the vents. It wasn't even so noticable after several hours.

When I woke up the following morning I couldn't even move my neck/head. A bloody stiff neck, never had one before in my life... in pain for about 4 days..

obviously caused by the a/c the previous day.

I'm sure Dr Lou will have a 'comeback' sm*rt*rse response to

me because I corrected him, perhaps a 'pasted' quote from his often referred to mate, Dr Google.

13 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

Bearing in mind that in many countries it hits 40+ for large parts of the year and aircon is essential, I wonder how they survive? Maybe you got sick from something else, or do you have to carefully choose where you travel to, places too cool to use aircon, in fear of getting sick?

Nothing wrong with being in a heavily A/C room or car....

It's having the fan blowing very cold air at full bore into your face/neck/chest.