TheExpat

I am told they are going to be opening a new Fitness First in Korat soon. They have a yoga stule class called gentle flow. It s a top notch fitness center as well!

Sorry to hear this. If you are up to it, try their branch in Rangsit. it is spot on and imho the best steak in Thailand.

We made the mistake of following a relative's recommendation and stopping at Chok Chai Farm steakhouse on highway 2 between Korat and Bangkok... I wish I would have seen the negative reference buried in another thread here, so I thought I'd make it a top-level topic of its own!

While the cut of meat they gave me did not look like what I expect of a prime rib, it did appear to have started as a pretty decent grade of fatty meat. However, they have a serving gimmick of plating it on a sizzling cast iron platter (like steak fajitas or something), so in the few minutes it took me to cut into it, my rare steak actually fried in its own juices until a chewy well done. I did eat one bite of tender, rare meat (the first bite) but the rest was over-cooked and you could quite clearly see that it was cooking all the way through, bottom to top, when you cut into it... it was also over-salted but that complaint is far secondary to the way it was served/cooked.

It made me wonder, are they just a tourist trap or do Thais actually come away satisfied with these shoe-leather steaks?

In any event, if you actually feel the need to stop there, steer clear of the steakhouse and just try one of the burgers from the adjacent lunch-counter area. The burger my wife bought was not so bad, but they are not on the menu in the steakhouse...

ChokChai for 295 baht for the best steak in Thailand. Get the prime rib steak. Get the medium, not dry aged. None of the placed above compare to ChokChai.

I go there at leat once a week. Do not waste you money on an 800 baht piece of leather!

http://www.farmchokchai.com/en/steakhouse/default.asp

We would love to have you, we play all types of RPGS, D&D, Living Greyhawk, World of Darkness ect, we have all the books, minis, and more dice than you will ever need in your life. Come on down and join us around the Emporium Area, register here http://dnd.meetup.com/96/

Thanks for the info!!!!!!

Start with this thread? Long Burinam thread

How about answer the guys question. That link does nothing in the 1st page for the guy. Every time some asks a qusetion, he is either told to search or given a link. There are new people every day to the forum and new threads can be started.......

Buriam - can find a nice house to rent for 3,000 to 5,000 baht a month. Electric will depend on your usage of air con and lights. It can be 1000 baht a month to 5000 baht a month. UBC is about 1500 a month for the medium package and internet is about 700 for the lowest high speed package.

Thai made to order meals are 20 to 25 baht in non-aircon restaurants and a bit hire when there is aircon.

I keep hearing that there are 3000 farangs in the Surin / Buriam area. I have never seent hat many at one time of course. I always used to see many at Big C and Macro in Surin. Every time I went there I saw faces I never saw before.

Most farangs either have married VISA or a retired VISA. Not much in the way of work in Isaan unless you want to teach for pennies and often times you will get no VISA with that. You could open a bar or cafe, but you will live day to day becaus there are not enough farangs to support the business and most Thais are not open minded enough to eat at a farang's place or willing to try new Western food. Also you have to bring in enough money to qualify for a work permit. If you do not, you are out of luck.

Your best bet is to get a VISA another way and do some work via the web in the comfort of your own home.

CM is lovely and I have thought nto live there myself. They have everything a farang could ever want. Rent in Isaan, don't buy. It will be easier when you move back to CM!

I think that there are several things that you will find up country in a village.

Thais that stare at you like you are from outer space. They will want to talk to you and may come up up and paw you. They will yell to you from a 100 yards away in a drunken state. Drunk Thai people that have no social skills or thoughts about the world beyond the moo bahn they live in. Thais that are not open minded and think they know better than you about anything and everything. Thais that should never have been issued a drivers license.

Expats that will try not to look at you and will avoid you at all costs. Drunk expats with no social skills or thoughts beyond the moo bahn they live in. Arrogant expats that are not open minded and think they know better than you about anything and everything. They have become Issan Thais in their own minds.

There are a few Thais that I met there that impressed me, but for the most part I mostly felt that they were not ready for the white man to be around. Just this week I was talking to a friend of mine that has a German restaurant there and he said that he thinks it will take about 5 to 10 years more for the Thais to be able to accept farangs living among them.

The truth is that I met a lot of awesome expats in my up country stay. I enjoyed talking with them and heard some great stories and had some great times going out with them. I formed some friendhsips that have stood the test of time. Even though I have left Isaan, I still get phone calls and emails everyday from many farang friends that I met there. When I visit, we all get together for lunch and a chat.

On the other hand, there was always a group of expats that were buttholes. The ones that would not speak to me or look at me even if I was in the same checkout line as them at Macro. Ones that would not even respond back when I greeted them. I found that to be strange. I think it was because they could not fit in in their homeland and can't even handle the interaction with a farang here.

The other thing that I missed was the availability of Western food, ingredients for making Western food, and Western entertainment such as English TV, radio and English movie in the theatres.

The internet service was always <deleted>. They could never get it right and I always felt that dial up would have run quicker than the over priced broad band that I had. Martin from the FC could agree with that. I remember him being frustrated with his maxnet and even posting about it here. I think he told me he was paying 5000 baht a month for the service.......if you can call internet service upcountry service in the first place.

The other complaint I had was that the Thais had a great sales talk about EVERYTHING, but the follow up service was down the toilet. They never lived up to their word on ANYTHING. Once I had to show up at the UBC office with a sign in Thai and English that said their service sucked. They had not come out for 3 weeks to fix a problem and once I showed up with the sign, they arrived in 10 minutes!!!

For those that I have offended, remember that I am stating what I observed. it is my expoerience and may not have been yours!!

I have books, some figures and all the dice needed. I am going to order more figures soon.

Anyone play that lives in the Rangsit / Prathumthani area? If you still play or have not played in a long time and are looking to get back into gaming then PM me or respond here.

Looking for gamers close to my home

[. I would rather run a cafe on some back street in Yala

I heard that's where you'd gone anyway

I have not been down that far yet. I have been all over the place enjoying life - Phuket, Krabi, Hua Hin, Surat Thani, Koh Samui, Cha am, etc, etc........but I hang my hat in Bangkok.

Surin is okay, but most of the rest of Thailand is a paradise.

And there was me going to make you an offer for the place when I got back.

Oh well not to worry, see ya in a couple of weeks.

John.....

what 5,000 baht for his stock and 2,000 for the rest?

Well you was asking 500,000 for your place. In relative terms that makes the FC worth 456,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, baht Although I only bought it for 285,000

Oh, I misunderstood, so you have relocated from the bus terminal!!

For that price you must have hired a chef from Paris and stopped serving the macfatbastid and replaced it with a three course French dinner consisting of hors d'oeuvers, plat principal and a cheese course accompanied with bread, wine and mineral water. Have you relocated to Silom, Koh Samui or Phuket and own the land and a lovely building???

Well, you know where the British Embassy was.............................................................................

Well in that case, the price should be reduced to 450 baht. Imagine how many Brits I would have to deal with every day. I would rather run a cafe on some back street in Yala

And there was me going to make you an offer for the place when I got back.

Oh well not to worry, see ya in a couple of weeks.

John.....

what 5,000 baht for his stock and 2,000 for the rest?

Well you was asking 500,000 for your place. In relative terms that makes the FC worth 456,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, baht Although I only bought it for 285,000

Oh, I misunderstood, so you have relocated from the bus terminal!!

For that price you must have hired a chef from Paris and stopped serving the macfatbastid and replaced it with a three course French dinner consisting of hors d'oeuvers, plat principal and a cheese course accompanied with bread, wine and mineral water. Have you relocated to Silom, Koh Samui or Phuket and own the land and a lovely building???

And there was me going to make you an offer for the place when I got back.

Oh well not to worry, see ya in a couple of weeks.

John.....

what 5,000 baht for his stock and 2,000 for the rest?

Problem resolved. Business as usual.

So does this mean you aren't closing now?

John.....

Closing never even entered our minds. Moving, maybe. Stopping alkihole maybe, but closing never.

You bloody attention whore you!!!!!

XXl in Surin is hit or miss. I heard tales from a guy of XXl and XXXl shirts at a second hand shop. The guy that was telling me abou them was bigger than me and whenever I saw him he always had a huge tank top on. They looked terrible. He looked like soup sandwich! I went to the 2nd hand shop and they had plenty of mediums and a few larges, but zero XXL.

Bring enough with and if you can't find any, you can always pick some up in Patters or BKK. You won't stay in Surin the whole time will you? You will go stir crazy!

Worse case scenario is to get a tailor to make you shirts. I did it and it was not that expensive. I wear XXl as well. I was able to find some XXL shirts at Pekasem Plaza (not sure if that is spelled right)

Good luck!!

Please. They should head to the Chicago and find out what cold really is........

Have all of you vacated Isaan and moved to bangkok?

Maybe some of you are taking a break. but, it seems that no one is posting much anymore.

Post here and let us know you are ok!!!

Unless its me, then by all means ring me up

Stay out of it. I helped a guy that I think might have ended up dead. His GF ripped him off, beat him up and her brothers had him locked up in a room and threatened to kill him if he did not go the ATM for them. I got him out with the help of the local coppers. He fled to Bangkok and then to his home country and I was left looking over my shoulder for the brothers.

Guess what - he is still emailing her and talking to her on the phone - about marriage

All that to say. It wil be turned around you. She will say that you hit on her or something. He will take her side and that will be the end of your friendship.

Stay away from Surin. I almost coded there from a bad mix of drugs they gave me. they never fixed a problem, but almost cost me my life. I went from a private room to ICU because of the drugs they injected me with. Had to go to Bangkok to be fixed up.

However, i am very impressed with Aek Udon International Hospital in Udonthani. Very professional and they speak English. It is a bit far, so Bumrungrad in Bangkok is your next choice.

^ Well he has done it before, for less!!!!!

But the situation can't get any worse for him so who cares!

^You can fight it for sure.

Leave when you are ready to, not when you have to!

Goodluck FC!

The place accross the street is awesome and will suit your needs. The only problem is the parking

It has a nice clean toilet and even has a urinal. The kitchen is proper as well!

But if you want to stay, I would put up a fuss. Is the bar next door to you closing as well? (the one with the karate school above it)

It seems if you really want to stay there, then you can do something about it. Goodnight, you have put millions into remodeling your place and is just not fair! Mr. Srisurin (owner of the buildings) is the richest man in town and he is a friend of your missus, so I am sure he can pull some strings for you.

In any other country, you would be grandfathered and allowed to stay. I think you can fight this just by talking to the government.

Do you feel that this is because you are a farang or maybe they are being hard on you because of your incident the other night???

You have been through a series of bad luck this year.

All the best Martin.

The Expat

I did not read throught this whole thread, but I have to say no. Do not be paranoid when you hear the "whispers" of farng farang. ususally they want hteir friend to look. Somethimes they are trying to guess if you are from the UK, Norway or America. Often it is an excitement. So do not hate it, just feel like a movie star.

The whispers that should offend you are the ones that are about your lady......

Is she a prostitute?

Is she an Isaan girl?

Did she meet him in Pattaya, Patpong or Nana.

That is where the negative talk comes in.

In my opinion, less than 2% of farangs speak enough Thai to respond accurately to this topic.

Is there any chance that a mod can go through this thread and delete the posts from the numerous assoles that find a keyboard in front of them and type whatever comes into their empty heads first. This is a post about the sadness and frustrtration of , now three lads, who find them selves in a situation that none of them ever dreamed about. IT IS NOT A THREAD ABOUT 'I CAN SLAG OFF THAI WOMEN BETTER THAN YOU CAN'

So please <deleted>, can you take you tiny little peckers ( which you probably havn't seen since childhood 50 or 60 years ago) and insert it in one of our rivals forum, where they would probably find you very amusing. WE DON'T.

FC,

I feel for anyone one that is going through a break up, but if you post it on the web, you might not always like what you hear. Do not ask mods to clean up what was brought out into public light.

I really can't see posting so God and everyone can know your business. Things like: "as all of you know, me and the misses had a fist-a-cuff last night" or "my wife is upset because I shag other Thai ladies" or "My wife is now shacking up with a Thai man", should be left for at the bar, the lawyers office or a shrinks office. Not the internet. Have some dignity.......Unbelievable..........

For Mach, I am sorry to hear that you are having to go through all of this. Sometimes a door closes and we are hurt by that. But then another door opens and things are better than before! I see the future being better for you and your daughter. Time will mend the heart, the soul and any other bumps and bruises that this has caused