dageshi

I always thought the place over from mikes the beef sub place makes a decent range of burgers, some of the best I've had in Chiang Mai.

To the OP there is the old adage about the boardroom discussion, the first item is about a ten million dollar purchase of incredibly complicated machinery from two manufacturers, the only two people on the board who have a clue argue it out while the other nod their heads sagely. The next item is about what coffee to serve at the next boardmeeting, everyone chimes up because everyone has opinion.

Everyone. Likes cheeseburgers. (except vegetarians who don't count for reasons of temporary insanity)

Did this a few weeks back, a friend booked a vip bus to Udon Thani and it was pretty good, not the best I've been on but ok main complaint was being stuck above what I guess was the toilet meaning I couldn't stretch my legs out. But other than that driver was nice and smooth. When you get to udon thani be careful where you ask for, if you ask for vientienne the tuk tuk drivers will take you to another bus station which has a straight through bus to vientienne but you have to have the visa for laos already! you can;t get a bus to the border from here. So ask for the border town which I think is called Nong Khai but check that. You'll get ripped off for about 500 baht at the border by the laos visa people, price should be 33 dollars for me, I ended up paying 1500baht, not much you can do about this unless you take dollars and if you do take dollars they have to be 100% pristine, look completely new, no marks or tears anything else and they'll probably refuse them and try and scam you on the baht, they might well do this anyway.

Other tips are, make sure you take some passport photo's with you, you need two, on the way back when your in between borders, checkout the duty free, you can buy 24 bottles of beer lao dark (best beer in asia in my opinion) for 30 baht a bottle, costs 90 here in Chiang mai that's if you can get it, bars been having problems recently. Reasonable selection of whisky at half decent prices as well, worth a look.

And your right about the bus back, we asked a tuktuk for the bus to chiang mai, ended up on a not so nice bus, air con worked but they really overcrowded it, crammed as many people on including those sitting in the aisle worse than that the driver was a lunatic, couldn't drive steady to save his life and pretty burnt the brakes through, constant smell of burning rubber.

Coup is the last - and worst - option. I will not support it.

After a possible coup - so what? The army has shown before they cannot run the country, and it is not supposed to be their job either. So use the army only to maintain law and order together with the police. And let the elected govt run the country.

This implies to kick out PAD from the airport and parliament house.

It's clear the PAD will not leave the airports unless Somchai is history or the army forcibly removes them. One of these solutions has a violent outcome, the other does not. Which do you think is better for tourism, a protest ending in bloodshed and resentment or a military coup.

Honestly I imagine most people think Thailand is a joke at the moment, what first world country lets a ragtag bunch of protestors take over the nations main airport and close it down. What first world police force sits on it's hands and does nothing while this takes place? And what first world country suggests a coup as the easy way out?

The answer unfortunately is Thailand is patently not a first world country and is no danger of becoming one any time soon, when your answer to a difficult polticial question is to have a coup the whole system is a failure. I'm sorry to those who rely on tourism but on top of the financial crisis this year and next Thailand couldn't do anything more stupid than this, it's frankly laughable and I'm seriously regretting that 2 month tourist visa I just got from Laos since at the rate we're going I might as well head off to Vietnam before there are soldiers on the street. Because coup or not that seems to be where we're heading.

Personal favourite from China was wandering around in Kunming a chinese man walking the other way with a t-shirt saying "Commies arn't cool"

I thought that was a classic.

Thank you for your prompt answer, anothertorres.

However, I am still not entirely sure to understand...

* Did you get a multiple entry visa valid for 30 days or for 12 months ?

* for each entry, how long are you allowed to stay in China ?

Thank you !

He probably got a visa that's valid for 12 months with multile entries but you must only stay in country for 30 days each trip.

Standard procedure would be something like this, driver drives like a maniac for two or three hours in the early morning, keeps everyone rattling around so they can't sleep properly, the moment they pull over for a break, which happens fairly regularly on these buses everyone falls alseep like a log since it's the first time they've been still in 3 hours.

The crew then raid the luggage hold.

On the otherhand anyone with any sense whatsoever should know to carry all their remotely stealable stuff in a seperate bag which they keep with them, for the massively paranoid they should bike lock it to their chair e.t.c

I can only image though that as the tourism economy gets worse stuff like this will increase, unfortunate but true.

While I havn't tried this personally I have heard on the grapevine you may be able to apply for a 1 year multi entry tourist visa for pretty much the same price as a 30 day. If your planning on visiting china more than once in a year it's probably worth it, uses the same amount of space in your passport either way.

With the pound at 12 year lows I figure there are going to be alot less holiday makers from the UK next year unless the thai baht begins to slip a bit. I also think there will be less backpackers for similar reasons. I will however say that I wouldn't call soi 2 the center of the backpacker activity area around here, as a backpacker you can get cheap rooms up and down every soi along Moon Muang and on either side of Loi kroh all the way to the night bazaar, I've never been anywhere with the sheer number of guesthouses as Chiang Mai.

So yes there are going to be a reduction in numbers but in my opinion there have been too many travellers in recent years, it's pushed up prices from what should have been 2-3 dollar rooms to 6-7. Most of the guesthouses seem to be "me too" places who just happened to be in the right area and converted part of the property.

Time for a shakeout.

Noticed I started to get some red spots on my forearms which started to spread to to my chest and torso, think they are probably Cherry Angioma which are benign but I think I'm best off checking that with a doctor. Can anyone recommend a doctor in cm suited to the task?

Gents, filthy stealing backpacker here, not actually ever stolen anything but you know I want to fit in with the stereotype Was here a year ago for Songkran back here for a few weeks at the mo. Was a bit amazed by the sheer number of what I suspect were new businesses open in that time. With the dollar strengthening all those euro/gbp lot who've been used to cheap prices around asia are going to feel alot poorer and Thailand is busy kicking the last leg away with the political problems in bkk. Doesn't bother me, kinda hope it forces prices lower but I genuinely and really can't see how the current level of tourism based businesses can be sustained in Chiang Mai, simply too many. That being said looks like CM has alot of retirees setting up shop here, a good fifty percent of those I see out and about seem to fall into that category maybe if the trend continues it will make up the difference but who knows?