London Lowf

Yeh, the freelancers seem to be fully employed!

Left the most important piece until last! Yes, we can all have a day off the beer or raid the fridge, but what must the casual tourists (who may only be visiting for a few days) think of this. Reminds me of the CoViD lockdowns - I've been here for a few election days and Buddha days and the tourist areas become ghost towns and that cannot be good for Thailands reputation or the local businesses income.

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True. There's also the accessibilty - when I lived in South Africa I smoked every single day for four years and it is the same when I am in Thailand six months a year. When I go home to the UK I wouldn't even know where to start looking for it and I would imagine that it is rather expensive and so I simply don't bother. It's not addictive - well, certainly not the weed that I have bought!

Yes, the recovery from Covid has been dramatic although, sadly, many businesses did not survive or recover. I started visiting Patong in 2014 and so I'm a newbie compared to many on here, and I was a Sandboxer in 2021 - a surreal experience with no alcohol officially allowed on Bangla for the first week or so and then a 10pm curfew with an armada of about 30 police scooters doing a sweep of Bangla at closing time - very odd, but certainly an experience with the usual Thai creative circumvention of the emergency regulations. And now? I don't entertain at my place and so last week I was searching for an hotel room on booking.com - the cheapest in Patong was B2,800 and there were quite a few "two beds in a dormitory" at close to that price. I made alternative arrangements. For last nights fun and games I ended up in a lovely resort in............ Kathu! So, still peak season in Patong! I am based in Kamala these days but, until last December, I used to enjoy the ride into Patong and a few beers on Bangla six nights a week - there's a great band in Kamala on a Thursday! However, the drive into Patong has now got to be such a pain, even on two wheels, that I'm now down to four days a week. Oddly, the parking is fine and Bangla itself doesn't seem too crazy (I went home for Xmas/NY), although I get there after 11pm and so many of the annoying waste-of-space (and oxygen) sightseers have gone home. So, in my (limited) experience, the days of a wake for Patong are long gone. As far as I can see the island as a whole is thriving with prestige developments popping up all over the island - of course, many will never be finished but that seems to be perfectly acceptable to the authorities. Patong itself is obviously at full capacity, whuich is all that the TAT are interested in and sod the infrastructure.

I'm reasonably handy but I'm stuck! I'm replacing the exhaust on my ADV with a Vamos full system but I cannot figure out how to disconnect the sensor - usually you have to squeeze the plug and then pull to seperate, but access is very tricky and I cannot see how to do it. I've done the usual search on YouTube but no luck - can anyone help? Cheers.

Phuket is littered with developments that have never been finished, and never will be. My cynical side would guess that stage one is completed and then used as bait for investment in stage 2 - which is then abandoned. I ride past this project several times a week and it was a hive of activity a year ago, but has gone relatively quiet since stage one has been completed and inhabited.

In my home country 99% of people slow down purely to rubber-neck and/or pull out their phones. Last week I was caught in a two-mile tailback on the M3, a major UK motorway - there was no incident on our carriageway but everyone was slowing to gawp at the carnage on the opposite side. If the fact that I take no interest in things that do not directly effect me means that I am a bad person and lack humanity in your opinion then that's fair enough - I have enough of my own problems.

What should they have done? Clearly, the guy had just sped by them and they had seen that he was a helmetless fool (they were both wearing helmets!) and decided that their existing plans were not worth changing for his sake. I have witnessed numerous road accidents but I'm not a rubber-necker or a paramedic and I don't speak Thai and so I continue with my journey.

I hate body hair - either on a girl or on myself - and manscape on a regular basis. It feels cleaner and more civilised. I have never been with a Thai girl who had hairy legs and very rarely do they have a bush - but I've never been with a "civilian" so that may explain why. My six months in Poland was a nightmare, but it does get rather cold there so maybe it's insulation?

Where would we be without plastic? Am I poisoning myself by tapping on the plastic keys on my keyboard whilst my polyester clothes rub against my skin? Quite frankly, the least of my worries. Disclaimer: I have no kids and so I don't worry that the human race will destroy itself one way or another - the planet will survive and recover without us, as it has done after the mass extinctions of the past.

Going out on NYE in Patong? You really should know better Xylo'.

I have been to Phuket 13 times in the last 10years - I learnt very quickly to only fly home on a Sunday evening. Two weeks ago I flew HKT-DBX at 23:45 on Sunday evening - the journey from Kamala to the airport was 45 minutes with my painfully slow but safe regular driver.

I reckon that 80 years will be more than enough for me, and I hope that I have the balls to jump the gun and avoid an empty and painful finish. My father is 95 and in rapid decline - I do not want to end up like him. I'm in my early seventies and there are increasingly activities that I can no longer do - I used to enjoy playing squash, mountain biking and going to the gym - I used to do one every day. I still enjoy riding my scooter but realise that I'm not as sharp as I used to be. I have occasional sex but, when that becomes too much hassle, then there's not much left - beer, food, weed?

The prices charged in the tourist weed shops are ludicrous, so they probably cover their costs with a couple of customers a day. I only buy online and am aware that I am paying well over the odds, but it's convenient.

Yet another poster who didn't venture out of the main tourist hotspots and assumes, totally wrongly, that all of Phuket is the same as Patong and to a lesser extent Karon/Kata/Kamala/Surin. Phuket is a big island - you need to explore!

Thanks for the warning, "buddy" - I've been around a while and I spent four years in South Arica and six months in Cameroon and never realised that! (Sarcasm, as posters that come on here and try to lecture as if we are children really grind my gears!)

There's also been quite an influx of Africans in Patong and some trawl the main walking street (Bangla) in full view of the local freelancers and police. Most are the typical big mommas but I've met two very attractive and slim girls off TF - a Ugandan (asked B3,000) and a Kenyan (asked B4,000) who became my regular - they are "built" differently to Asian women!

Same here. I dread my twice yearly extensions more than going to the dentist, although they are both invariably quite painless and only take a couple of hours out of my life at most. I look around me when I am in the UK and most people seem to get “meaning” from work, personal relationships and raising a family – I’m now retired and have never had the personality to make personal sacrifices and therefore I have no family and no circle of friends. Up until a few years ago, I used to get “meaning” from competitive sport and exercise but am no longer fit or strong enough for that, although I do try to avoid a sedentary lifestyle – I am at am age where my main priority is keeping on top of my numerous minor ailments – quote: “Wake up every day, that would be a start!” I am financially secure for the rest of my life and my overwhelming goal these days is avoiding the cold – I despise it and it screws up my body! I still get immense enjoyment from casual sex with much younger women, albeit only once a week these days, and am more than happy to pay for it – spending six months each year in Thailand during the UK cold seasons is the perfect for me! I’m hoping to come back as a cat!

I was a victim of this trick when I was a newbie to Patong - luckily only B1,000 or so in my back pocket. I learnt my lesson cheaply and am now more careful about where I carry my cash and am suspicious of anyone that gets unnecessarily close to me.

Patong Beach in the area around Bangla on NYE was the most dangerous thing that I've ever done in Thailand - and I ride 25,000km/year on my little scooter.

Surely these highly desirable places would have been booked for NYE months ago!

But still reading and responding to the posts and identifying with it with your user name - strange!

A key deposit is refundable, cash in advance or credit card details are not - okay? Or do you want to argue further in keeping with your reputaion on here?

We clearly live in different universes - mine is called booking.com 😉