JimsKnight

NOT

Looks like the OP hit a nerve. I think they spend all day on Thai Visa and make themselves feel better by berating people.

Other options might be that they wait for the unemployment/pension or disability check to come.

Misterbunny....I havent stopped laughing since I first read this pathetic post....he is far from striking a nerve...unless one tingles with you?

I already know that I'm a washed up farang, whats your excuse?

For your information, he didnt see me under a bridge drinking beer, i don't do alcohol & I am clean shaven. What amuses me is this twirp actually thinks that just because he saw a couple of guys having a beer that they are washed up, he should take particular note of Kiakaha post.

Mate, two white tatooed, probably brits drinking beer from the bottle under a bridge in the middle of Bangkok wearing wife beaters sounds quite washed up to me.

What's a wife beater?

A vest, Rab C Nesbitt style. The OP said Singlet but I think he means a wife beater/tank top/vest

I've never heard of a tank top called "A wife beater"? They are very common in Queensland Australia,because of the severe heat experienced there.Well,there you go i learnt something new.

It's also slang for Stella Artois, cause (apparently) all the lads that get lashed on it tend to go nuts and fill in there wives!

My first day back into BKK and I saw some washed up farang with another washed up farang friend of his. They are sitting at a dark and gloomy overhead bridge, wearing singlets, and drinking beer. They are unshaven, have a few tattoos on them and speaking loudly. What do they do here?

They usually are in first bar that opens and from there it's beer o'clock time

Yep, 9 o'clock in the morning and there they are, last of the great boozers

But they tend to be the characters that colour the countrys expat scene in some ways. Which is more than I can say for the squares and whiners that seem to be more common these days

Is it Mensa??

I'd go for the sonic.

I`m scared riding big sport bikes in pattaya now......Of course i give abit of throttle here and there but never around the city roads only highways...

i got pulled over 3 times in one day.....one for breakfast on south pattaya tai, had lunch on Phratamnak and dinner was on beach road....just unlucky i guess.......

Stick to the scooter now

What were they pulling you over for? Speeding? Or 'big-bike tax'?

I know farang who don't have the ownership papers might be suspect but if you're legit then they've nowt on you.

I ride a big (ish) sportsbike and have yet to be fined for the privilege of ownership.

I had an accident on a busy street and a few people ran out with medicine (iodine) to help with the cuts/wounds me and my wife had. The man who caused the accident offered to take us to the hospital too.

I had the nightingale treatment also, it was very humbling to be patched up by near-strangers in a pharmacy.

I've been helped by thais in getting my bike picked up. It really does depends on the people and the area you're in I think.

Hope the bikes not to messed up and you get better mate.

Watch for infections if you've got grazes, I got a 3 day fever after a minor collision after my grazes were infected.

This is hardly a 'sickening topic'. Who really cares if a guy send money to his thai sweetheart, thats his problem & her good luck if it happens. From what I see no one is forcing anyone to do anything. Personally I would chose not to do it, but others would, up to them, its their money.

Not a black and white subject but I'll give my thoughts.

I ticked 'yes' but only because the OP stated 'large sums', which encourage lazyness and greed.

If it's a relatively ordinary amount in the eyes of the thais and something she's happy with then I don't have a problem and it would be 'no'.

For me while I'm 'in-country' I take care of the girl in this way unless she's working.

If I'm out-country then she's on her own and needs to fend for herself. It's the law of the jungle here, and you'd better believe it.

The trouble is I've seen the effects of a 'two-week hero's' come here, do their thing, go home and then send thai girls 50k baht a month off the bat.

Good for them in one sense for generosity but then the word gets around to all her mates that all farangs are loaded and ought to do the same. 'You want me then pay up 50k or you kee-niow' comes the cry!

An extreme example but not one that's unheard of.

I was telling a chinese/thai buddy of mine this and he was flabberglasted, 15k upwards is the 'going rate' according to him and would price the locals out of the market so to speak.

I once had the experience of staying in the 'bungalow' at an earls Court Hotel.So I said I'd take a look...went through the hotel..... out the back.....down a fire escape....there it was a wooden garden shed...'The bungalow' had a single bed a mirror a table wardrobe and an electric one bar wall heater.....stayed about 6 months.....great when the weather is good. Course being in Earls Court no worries about cooking.

I wish you well

I stayed at the cheapest rooms in the Colwyn Hotel in Aberdeen a few years back. They were about £20 a night and were 'shed-like' chalets with an army bed and matress. No TV, communal toilet/bathroom, a sink and one of them didn't have any electric bar the light-switch! Adventurous for a week or so, soon got tired of them though

I always imagine there to be some 'Dr No' type out there with a bottomless money pit shovelling money into these projects.

If it makes money, great. If it doesn't make money, it'll look great

They most certainly do.

5 years is a long time, even for klingons

IN this weeks Feb 7 Phuket Gazette, though it is not online , Issues and Answers; Police are saying ANY weapon is illegal, pepper spray included and to just trust the police to do their job

:D

You DID get robbed, not almost - they stole 40Baht from you.

I always carry a throw away wallet (and I don't wear a watch). If they want my wallet, they get the throw away one. Fake or out of date/cancelled cards and a few small notes. I never had caried a wallet, so keep money either in a money belt (for real money) or squashed down in my jeans pocket. Wife told me a long time ago, never to wear your gold or carry anything that is not needed - then if you get robbed you losse very little. I have a cheap Buddha pendant that I wear day to day, the gold is for special occasions only.

Having said that I have never been mugged - have been pick-pocketed a few times (though in the UK and Phillipines, never in Thailand!). I rarely go placed on my own either - I don't ride a push bike - I am usually goin to 7-11 if I am, and only take enough to buy what I'm after.

Anything you want to take against someone is likely to cause you to get shot - either by the muggers or the police - so don't. Only thing that you can take to help with safety is some other people, friends or family.

If you have to ride a bike, is there not a club you can join to ride in groups?

Wolf is right, carry a decoy wallet. They really do allow you the element of surprise and the retaking of the initiative.

Carry pepper spray or a baton too if you really want to be armed.

We expect this safe haven

buying to decline in 2010 and forecast gold will average US$900/oz that year.

The biggest

question facing the gold market, and one that has been the subject of passionate

internal debate at UBS, is: how long will this extraordinary period of safe-haven

demand last?

These poor chaps are at odds with themselves First they know then they dont.

Everyone knows how long this period of safe-haven demand will last. It will last until it is safe to go elsewhere We need some jaws music about now

Well I think given the crazy state of the world gold will be a safe-haven for a lot longer than 2010. I can't see interest rates shooting up to the dizzy heights of yesteryear for a while and the chaos in the US financial sector isn't helping. When the US fixes it's house is probably going to be the starting point of gold being the stronghold.

All the jazz about thai gold being 96.5% is no big deal for the casual dudes who buy and sell. In fact having a slightly inferior quality is wisdom if you're always handling it, according to some website thai gold has a tiny bit of silver and bronze in it, giving it strength. As I'm sure all you gold bugs know if the gold is at near 100% purity it'll wear away at a faster rate if being touched etc.

Which you don't want as you'll start to 'wear away' your gold.

I've got some gold (thai). Before that I owned a kuggerand, that was considered 96.5% purity (copper being the strengthening alloy). Outside BKK no gold trader would touch it. I moseyed on down to a place in Silom. The quirky Chinese dude there knew foreign gold coinage well and he did his assaying and peering and weighing etc. He reduced the value by 3.5%. The gold-trader told me that he'd have to send the coin away to get be melted down and the copper seperated. I still got a fairly good price though. I think (if memory serves me) he quoted me 22k baht for the 1oz coin. This was back in October 2008.

It was there that I saw another gold coin (a chinese one with a panda). I might get that when I go back to Bangers.

In Thailand that's the only place I've seen gold coin on sale.

Nowadays I just buy the 1 baht rings as you can buy and sell them anywhere in the kingdom no problem.

Oh Yes there are female riders in Thailand, meet some of them at the clubhouse of Rayong Riders, nice change and cool to be chatting bikes with'em and ehh well you get the idea...

Will defo take you up on the offer Pikey. Can't wait it will be a blast, just located some secret soi's along the road worthwhile a visit.

Are you game GizmoBKK? To bad you're tied up LivinLOS. So far we're now 5 with Jim included keep rollin in positive fun people.

Cheers Bard

Balance is the key, we don't want too many so it becomes a snakin' convoy, do we?

Heh, the helmet cams side-mounted, which has taken me a while to align correctly. The mounting kits you get with helmet cams are usually a hunk of sht. Good for if you're sat in somchais pick-up. Crap if you're exposing it to high-speed buffeting etc.

right now it's got gaffer tape (under tension) pulling it in alignment with the 'vanishing-point'

How much to park your bike?

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A glass craftsman works his art.

Although it's rough footage, it's impressive how he keeps focused with the racket going on around him...

...

Please join up for a blast of a trip guys and girls

Well, apart from the trip (which sounds great!), that reminds me that I have never ever seen a woman riding a big bike in Thailand.

Are they hiding or do they simply not exist?

You'd be surprised mate!

The Dealers missus (who I bought mr CBR 400 off) used to ride my bike all over, including from Bangkok to Chiang Mai! And she weighs about 105 pounds!

Compared to back home the food out in Thailand is nectar.

Fresh food and home grown. You can't beat it

I will say that outside bangkok things change quite a bit. But even in the UK you get the 'outside-the-capital-city' effect.

I might dust down the CBR 400 for that one Bardster

Is there a bar load of dancing girls laid-on and waiting for us when we finish in Rayong ?

The gauntlet is cast down! LOL!

From me, I'm not really doing back-flips but I expected something like this.

I looked into a web-project like this myself about 2 years ago.

The reasons I didn't go through with it is that I operate out of Thailand and decided to concentrate myself here and leave it at Thailand. That way all the stuff I get is my own and not someone elses (relying on others is chancy business out in Asia). The fact I'm building a diving site too doesn't leave me much time either but there you go, busy is best I always say

The trouble is there isn't a country in SE Asia that is as developed for bike touring as Thailand is. If you include all of Asia then you've got half the world (roughly to go on)

The material for road-tours and ease of travel, big bike availability etc are a lot more dense in LOS and Japan compared to Cambo, Vietnam and a lot of the other places in SE Asia etc.

HOWEVER if you're going to concentrate on off-roading then you are onto something there.

You'll be breaking into new territory if you get routes in Vietnam, Cambo and Laos revealed, so the kudos is there for the grabber on that one.

If more farang bikers out here can focus to gathering on a major forum and filtering down then the benefits will be for the good of all

Right now there is a dearth of biker sites and forums on the net.

A buddy of mine has just bought the domain rights to www.ontheroadasia.com and I know he won't be too impressed at another shark in the sea.

May the best site win / dominate on that one

But apart from mine, GT Rider and Superbike-forums there's no Thaivisa encompassing one, much less for Asia at this time.

Richards plan may galvanise anyone else into this maelstrom!

Do you plan to include existing urls like GT Rider etc on an inclusive basis or charging for space?

I look forward to seeing this website Richard!

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Not my finest vid, but worth showing you folks what Highway 4 is like between Prachuap Kiri Khan and Pranburi.

If you are travelling north BEWARE the road conditions are fcking atrocious! Every lane is crp but the 'fast' lane ironically is in even worse condition.

Only southbound between Khampaeng Pet and Tak have I seen it worse.

The only times I've paid fines to the police were when it was my fault. The rest of the times I just make small talk and asking him daft questions in Thai and generally pretend to be an annoying farang-in-thailand and lovin' it kind of deal.

They just shout 'go go go!' at which point I oblige whole-heartedly

Or just do what a biker buddy of mine does...don't bother stopping

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Some rough footage of the pothole hazards in Thailand.

Note to all riders, between Pranburi and Pracuap Kiri Khan on Highway 4 going north it's pothole city! Keep off the outside lane and you'll miss most of the nightmare ones.