on-on

There is a booze shop almost opposite Saladaeng station(Patpong side). You can also try Foodlands in Pat Pong.

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Thanks! Gonna buy something interesting for my Thai friends for new years, heh.

Hi all - I am looking for a reliable and relatively cheap source for American liquor (by which I mean liquor popular in America, not necessarily American made) in Silom. Things like Jim Beam, Jack Daniels and maybe Mount Gay Rum. I could've sworn I saw something either in Patpong or under Sala Daeng station on the South side of Silom, but I can't recall for sure. Any recommendations other than the gift shop at the Conrad Hilton (pricy)?

Any help is very much appreciated!

Does anybody do a worst airline award? I'd like to nominate Lufthansa...

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Being from America I have so many choices, but for international I'd like to nominate Northworst Airlines. I've never seen a saltier, more unfriendly cabin crew combined with worse general service and horrible seating. Just a &lt;deleted&gt; airline all around.

@ Asoke - California Wow Sukhumvit 23 (Jasmine Tower). Lots of classes (2 group excercise rooms with full schedules. Steam & sauna, no pool. Packed with people during peak hours. No pay-per-visit. (oh, and careful, they force you to sign a year's contract )

www.californiawowx.com

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Interesting side note on California OMG WOW Fitness. I'm a member and I have the contract and monthly CC ding and what not. I asked first and they said that it is transferrable in the event that you leave, so I can resell it. More importantly though, some Thais I know belong and they told me that if you tell them that you can't pay with credit card that they'll charge you only 10,000 baht for a full year instead of the 1599 baht a month (the current monthly rate w/contract). So make sure you beat all the options out of the salesman or saleswoman. Having invented the mass market gym system in the US we've also been through the stage where everyone found out it's a giant scam. Then we had the class action lawsuits over their unscrupulous penchant for not letting people out of contracts. So they're pretty well known as shysters back home (CWF is owned by 24 hour fitness from America IIRC), but in case that hasn't made it out everywhere I figured I'd give a warning. Also, if you don't want them calling you every day for the rest of your life soliciting for training sessions, just make very clear at sign up that you don't want your three free training sessions and you don't want anyone to call you about it. They'll make you initial a form, but it's easy as pie. The gym and the equipment itself (at least at Silom) is impeccable, though apparently in Thailand putting the freeweights back on the rack isn't considered part of your responsibility after using them - but that's another rant.

It's not exactly fair to compare EVA's Evergreen Deluxe class with THAI economy, of course it's better.

However comparing EVA economy with THAI, the latter is better all around. I agree THAI has gone downhill over the last 10 years but I'd still rather fly coach on THAI than on EVA.

THAI does have a new premium economy class on its two nonstop flights to the US (LAX and JFK). I've taken the flight to New York and found premium economy (I think it's called Premiere Class, or maybe just Premium) on that particular flight to be superb, edging out EVA's Evergreen.

I can't comment on EVA, but this is true about THAI's direct to NY and LA. I'm 6'3" so leg room is a huge issue for me on any flight over 2 hours. They fly new A340-500s on these routes and provide 37" in economy with 46" in premium economy - they allow upgrades to PE for $199 last I checked. I found the service to be impeccable aside from the typically mai pen rai THAI departure time, but I have no basis for comparison to EVA, so I can't comment on any discrepancies. If EVA is Star Alliance I'll try them or Malaysia next - MA is running a $699 R/T special to NY or LA. I keep hearing that Cathay is the best for BKK to USA routes in terms of comfort and service, but again I don't know yet.

If you want something a little quieter, I really enjoy both Ayuttayah and Hua Hin - I think both are within a couple hours' drive from Bangkok. Hua Hin doesn't have the most beautiful beaches, but it's a very relaxing and lazy seaside resort town with some great food. One of my favorite restaurants in the world to spend an evening at is there, the Seaside Restaurant. It's not particularly fancy, but it's nice and quiet and has a Thai guitar player who gently mangles American folk music (Paul Simon, Jim Croce, etc) in the evenings as you sit out over the surf washing in and out. There are also day trips to the mountain temples, the waterfall and other things. As for accomodation, there's everything from the historic Thai Railway Hotel - now the Sofitel Hua Hin (it was the old hotel when people visited the royals here and many scenes from The Killing Fields were shot here as well) ($100ish a night) down to smaller guest houses like Memory Guest House ($5ish a night) or Goanna's Guest House ($20ish a night).

Ayuttayah, the city, isn't particularly special, but the historic parts of town are amazing - the ruins and temples of the old capital constitute a UNESCO world heritage site. You can grab a beer and dinner on the riverside in the evenings for something relaxing. When I went, I stayed in a newer, well appointed and well run little guest house called (hilariously) the P.U. Guest House for around $5 a night, but there are also larger hotel options. Tours of the ruins can be arranged for very little money.

I liked the suggestions above mine a lot, they're no doubt more informed than mine as I haven't spent too much time here yet, but I thought I'd throw some other suggestions into the mix.

Haha.  There's a Lacoste sale because you can buy replicas anywhere for pennies.

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Yeah, that LaCoste line may be the funniest thing I've read on here in weeks. I told everyone over beers at the biergarten at WTC last night and they thought it was great. This just in, I found American movies on sale at Pantip.

I searched through all the tailor threads previously and ended up going to a place called GMC Style based on several recommendations in one thread. It's at the Chit Lom BTS station, second exit on the left (north side, from the elevated skytrain platform) into the Amarin Plaza. The guy's from Hong Kong so he's not pushy at all and all 5 of the shirts that he's done for me are top notch. I usually see a lot of self-important looking businessmen in there too, so that's probably a good sign. He's a bit pricy, but the work is good. Website is http://www.gmcstyle.com and the phone is 026845911. He doesn't do a lot of wheeling and dealing. If you buy a couple of things at once, or you're a repeat customer, he'll make a deal with you - but once he quotes the price, in my experience, it's final.

The poster above sounds like he probably has better advice, frankly, but this is my advice based on the advice of several other forum members I read in the other thread(s).

Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas From the Family" which was sadly butchered by some pop country chick band. Still my favorite Christmas song ever. Lyrics here:

Lyrics - Merry Christmas From the Family

Wanted to echo the criticisms. They have a completely opaque dispute resolution process and are well known for seizing accounts with no warning and often even without a dispute. If you're going to use PayPal here and you're American, get a proxy service in the US that masks your IP and set your browser to tunnel through that connection. That should take care of the problems unless they discover some other way to figure out what you're doing (which seems nigh impossible unless you had a lot of overseas transactions). On a side note, a lot of financially related firms are super sketchy on Thailand - not just PayPal. Neteller, who handles the majority of online casino traffic, will automatically suspend your account if you log in from a Thai IP. Others do as well. Best for Americans to just pretend you're in the US which, frankly, isn't all that hard these days with a proxy and a Vonage account, heh. Can't speak for other countries as policies/services vary by country and I have no experience with either outside of Thailand and the US.

The local GQ range is available in what they call "big & tall" sizes in places like Robinsons Suk 15, Emporium and Central Rama III. Trousers available up to 42" (maybe larger - I didn't have to ask  ), I got some 18" neck office shirts that are great quality, and some allegedly 3XL polo shirts that are also holding up well.

The places mentioned in MBK are also good for more casual stuff, jeans, shorts etc

Other option is to get some made to measure gear if you really can't find anything to fit. Plenty of tailors around but choose carefully. My very rough rule of thumb - if they're stood outside touting for business, there's a reason for it - avoid!

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I get most stuff tailored because it's so cheap here and so little actually fits well when it comes to nicer clothing, but for typical slacking around t-shirts (and this sounds odd maybe) I've found this vendor lady on the opposite (northeast) corner of Silom from the Holiday Inn Silom (a few blocks east of Charoen Krung I think). She always has 2-3 piles of honest-to-God XXL shirts when I can't find them anywhere else.

On a side note, XXL tshirts are always $2 more expensive even back in Texas. Does anyone have any idea what I should be reasonably paying for 3-4 XXL shirts at a street vendor on the far end of Silom?

The last review I read on Egypt Air before this thread had the line "Best part of flight was two stewardesses reminding everyone about the no-smoking policy as they lit their cigarettes." I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it is generally regarded as one of the few major international carriers less desirable to fly on even than the average major American carrier (Air Canada for some reason generally receives worse marks than US majors, but haven't flown it so I can't say).

Great, thanks guys. I always have a spare onward just in case, though it has yet to come up in three incoming flights (yeah, not exactly a large sample).

Or maybe drop an email to the sports editor there to ask about the game being viewable here? (The email address is listed in each days sports section.)

Capital idea. I have done just that and will list any answer I receive here.

Thanks to all the other helpful replies in this thread - I'm sure even the dirty Californians are grateful (in spite of themselves ;P ).

Yeah this could turn into a giant thread where I point out that Texas has a better defense than USC (and better than USC has seen) and that Texas has the highest scoring offense in the country and that it may be hard for Matt Leinart to get up for the game if he stays out late nights groping teens across Southern California like usual; HOWEVER I really just want to watch the game, heh, so if anyone knows anything about a locale that'd be great. Like I said, the only local tip I've gotten here in Bangers so far is Bourbon Street.

When we crush the USC Rubbers I will be thrilled to come back and gloat accordingly at the failure of feng shui-inspired stadium design on the West Coast to influence the outcome, but for now I'm willing to wait for the no-doubt exciting game.

Thes chesse is imported and the best I have had in thailand.

Ah, I have to try this. They can imitate a lot of things over here pretty easily, from pico de gallo to guacamole, but for some reason the right kind of beef and cheese like we use in Texas for Tex-Mex are simply inimitable. Thanks for the review, I'm on this like stink on a monkey.

Yeah, yeah I know. American football isn't the preferred world sport. However, getting past the obligatory jokes about fat men in armor taking breaks every ten seconds, my Texas Longhorns are playing against the USC Trojans in the Rose Bowl on Jan 4th at 8pm, which is Jan 5th at 8am here obviously. I've heard that Bourbon St might be showing the game, but email inquiries through their site were unsuccessful. I wasn't able to find anything on the Rose Bowl searching this site, so has anyone any idea of a place that might be showing it? Or maybe a place that normally shows major American sporting events?

I'd be truly appreciative of any help

They will take your old TM-card on departure and give you a new card to fill in on arrival.

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I'm sure this has been asked and answered, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Is there any detriment to doing your 30 day visa runs by air and going through airport immigration vs. border immigration? Are they any stricter for 30 day stamps at Don Muang than at the border control points?

I understand why the current government here is still taking a more Keynesian approach to its economic policy - the memories of what happened when foreign investment fled after the Asian financial crisis are still pretty fresh and regardless of whose fault it was (Thai Central Banking for pegging a currency, largely) there's no doubt that the currency traders and foreign investors multiplied the effect. Couple this with the nationalistic bent of the recent political rhetoric and it makes a lot of sense, whether or not it's moral.

Politics are largley pragmatic. The argument here has been way too focused on personal ownership of land and business really, which is a red herring - Mobius is asking for large scale foreign investment: factories, tourist development, infrastructure, telecom - anything industrial. Surely any legislation passed to accomodate large scale industrial foreign investment could be tooled to protect Thai ownership of personal property if they so desire while not stifling the ability of multinationals and investment groups to flow capital into Thailand. Mobius' point is well taken really, it's a question of pragmatics. Whether or not the Thais want foreign investment or the expats want it, the lack thereof will stifle growth. That's a given. There should be no reason that the Thai government couldn't carefully open the doors to investors and cap total investment levels while still allowing lovely, greedy foreign dollars to flow in and improve the situation for everyone. For tender developing economies like Thailand's, a healthy mix of protectionism and open markets is key. Niether a fully protectionist nor fully open market is advisable. The former will kill growth and the latter will allow Thailand to be picked apart like fish meat from the bone.

The fee from US should be bank charge of $25-50, $5 charge at BBL New York(in the case of Bangkok Bank), and .25% fee at Bangkok (in range of 200-500 baht).  The exchange rate would be the full TT rate at the time of transfer if USD sent.

With the WU you were charged $20 and what exchange rate was used?  I suspect a very poor one.  Although I do not doubt that for a small exchange it may have been cheaper than SWIFT - which really needs larger transfers to offset the large bank fee for foreign wire transfers.

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The fee was $35, flat, for a SWIFT transfer from Wells Fargo plus an exchange fee of, I think, 3%. The transaction was relatively small. Given Wells Fargo's fee, SWIFT or wire tranfer was in no way a superior option (the math is pretty simple) for this transaction. It may be for larger transactions, but not mine.

If you used a credit card for the Western Union transfer you will likely get dinged for another $5 from Western Union. Check your credit card statement (on-line) in a few days. And you will get a relatively poor exchange rate. My bank, Bank of America, charges $15 for an international wire transfer.

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No, the charges cleared around 0400 CST and there was no extraneous fee. WU wouldn't get away with slapping on an unannounced $5 and I'm sure I would've caught any reference to such a fee in the transaction process. I'm not surprised WF is higher than BofA for fees, WF is a pretty big ripoff on a number of their fees. We could then discuss why I use Wells Fargo, but since the reality is that I do I think the conversation would be fruitless, heh. You're correct that I did lose about a baht and a half on the exchange, however the exchange fee from WF along with the wire fee negated any potential downside in opportunity cost.

Whatever the case, it very well could be that for this man the optimal choice would be a wire transfer - which is why I pointed out that his wire fee may be cheaper. I was simply relating my experience. However, having not just fallen off the turnip truck yesterday I can assure both of you that for me WU was the lesser of two evils. Therefore I simply suggested he look into it. Now, the real coup would be getting online payment services like PayPal and XOOM to recognize Thailand as a legitimate market for full service. I'm still not clear on why they have limited access for Thai bank accounts, but I assume it has something to do with limited consumer market size coupled with, I assume, the reputation for fraud and/or instability.

I had to transfer a small amount of money today from the US and the international wire fee/SWIFT fee was $35 + exchange surcharge, whie Western Union was $20. I used WU's online service and it was available immediately. Your wire fee may vary by bank, I use Wells Fargo.

In Australia it's usually done from GPO (General Post Office) to GPO.

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Same in the US, though it's done from the central post office (we don't use "GPO" AFAIK).

Cheers all. Anyone know anything about flats in the Villa Maria apts at over on Suan Plu Soi 8? Just off Sathorn near the Oz Embassy and immigration? I heard it has a proper fitness center in the building if that helps. Ta.