OldAsiaHand

I have been looking for a great vodka martini for years now....like the type you would get at a great steakhouse in the USA. I work near Patpong.

-Tim

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Good luck. I've been trying to teach Thai bartenders to make martinis for nearly fifteen years and they seem to be utterly immune from grasping any part of the concept.

I think the heart of it is that the essence of the great American martini is generosity and you can never break a Thai bartender of measuring everything out carefully with a jigger. You've got to order a triple to even have a shot of getting a decent drink.

As long as you're in Thailand you'll have to make your own martinis.

I would have put Jim Thompson at the top of the list. Although it's majority owned by white folks, they're second and third generation Thai-born and the company is Thai through and through. They have both retailing and wholesaling operations worldwide. They're quite significant in Japan and the US.

Jim Thompson is one of the few Thai success stories overseas. Companies that are actually owned by ethnic Thias have an almost comically unfortunate history of failure and blundering when they venture outside of the protective walls of Mother Siam. So they very seldom do.

Not in Bangkok. There are a couple of places that have been around a while (Senior Pico's et al), but they are awful beyond my power to put their awfulness into words. At Bourbon Street, Doug has a Mexican buffet on Tuesday nights that'a about your best bet. To be honest, it's pretty bad too, sort of El Patio frozen entree quality, but in Bangkok it's the only real option.

Down in Pattaya, Tequilla Reef used to have the best Mexican food I've ever tasted outside of the continental USA. But that was when Rob was in the kitchen every night. I think he sold his interest and is mostly in Bangkok these days running a blues bar. The last time I was in Tequilla Reef it, too, was pretty bad. There are a couple of other places in Pattaya, but they've always been terrible. Nobody but a Brit would eat in any of them.

However, its their mistake to make. Let them make it. They'll learn the hard way.

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I doubt it, and that's really the heart of the matter.

Learning implies admitting that one may have once chose something less than the best course. That's something Thais, on the whole, will never do. Thais truly believe they are an exception to the law of gravity and they are too insignificant to the rest of the world for that belief to have any currency. Outside the borders of this quaint and irrelevant little country Thais are mostly shrugged off as a joke. And, mostly, they are.

developer ask for loan for about 500mil build a few dozen home cost about 100mil he pocket the rest of the money, he wouldn't careless what happen to the project, old practice before the crash

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Almost right. Don't forget that he also gives the banker who loaned him the money another 100 million or so, and he probably bought the land in the first place from the banker's sister, and the contractor he hired at twice the value of the contract was the banker's brother, and....

Has anyone got any advice on where to go for a slap-up Christmas lunch. Presumably some of the fnacy hotels will put something on? I will be spending the festive season in Bangkok as no chance to get away so any advice appreciated.

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Forget the hotels. Expensive and very, very average on the whole. Mostly Thais go to the overpriced buffets those places organize for the holidays in order to show their friends how international (and rich) they are.

At least for Americans looking for traditional fare, the best Christmas (and Thanksgiving) dinners in town by far for over a decade come from Doug's buffet at Bourbon Street. Very reasonably priced and very traditional without a lot of fancifying. The only probelm is that Bourbon Street is always so crowded that you have to go very early or wait a long time. Do one or the other. It's well worth it.

The C in BigC stands for Casino, the name of the French supermarket chain who set up BigC.

Not exactly. The chain was first established by the Central Department Store group as an experiment in big box retailing. Hence, 'Big C.'

Oddly, I happen to know that the members of the Central family who named the new business knew at the time that Big C was a common American slang expression for cancer, but it didn't seem to bother them.

A French group does indeed own Big C now. Like all other experiments by the Central group in international retailing, Big C quickly became a complete mess and Central sold out. These are not real smart folks, people.

Agreed. The residential property market here isn't at all like in the UK or the US. It's largely illiquid since Thais, on the whole, aren't willing to buy what they insist on calling 'used property.' When you buy a flat in Thailand, you have to be prepared to own it for a long, long time. Maybe forever.

Thanks for the help guys.  I had a look in RGP - very limited selection.  Looks like a trip to BKK for me - anyone know a good classical CD outlet there?

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There's a Tower on the top floor of Siam Centre that's okay, but I'd suggest you look first around World Trade Centre (or whatever they're calling it this week). There are several smaller shops among the specialist audio dealers on the 3rd floor that have better stock of the less high profile stuff. I can't remember the names of any of them, but they're all pretty much interchangable and their names don't mean much. They're all at the end down near Zen.

Why do blockheads like this always think that acting stupid is so damned witty?

On the other hand, come to think of it, he's probably not just acting stupid.

I would be interested in knowing if Ambassador Johnson is a career foreign service officer or a Bush political appointee?

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Daryl Johnson is a career foreign service officer. He's also largely contemptious of President Bush and shows little hesitation in expressing it. On the other hand, he's retiring at the end of the year, so......

Kinokuniya - the best book store in Asia so far.  And the one in the Emporium is incredible - it's like being in a great bookstore in the West.  And it's cool with seats, and the books are not wrapped in cellophane - I love it there.

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I assume you're joking, right? Kino is absolutely nothing like 'a great bookstore in the West.' Jeez, it's not even like being in an average bookstore in Singapore.

Kino's main store in Singapore is, I'd guess, twenty times the size of Kino in the Emporium with twenty times the stock, and then they have three more branches there that are far, far larger than their store in Bangkok. Borders in Singapore is equally large and well stocked, as are at least another dozen bookstores there. Even Hong Kong has finally begun to develope real bookstores.

'The best bookstore in Asia'? Man, you realy don't get out much, do you?

You should be lucky to be accepted in Thailand, every other foreign people either tried to take it over and make it their own. I live in the states and I am half thai and half farang sometimes i think only one side accepts me and sorry to say it is not the place i reside in

What a load of &lt;deleted&gt;. Why does everyone take such pride in being such a whiney victim these days? My kids are half Thai and live in the States and nobody they meet cares sweet FA what nationality their mother is. Get a life.

I have The Big Mango and also Tea Money by Jake Needham, i never read Laundry Man as i was always under the inpresion that this was more or less the same as Tea Money. As for The Big Mango i know that Jake was trying to get this made in to a movie and the rights for this had already been sold to a production company, do you think that it would make a good movie or do you think that this storie would be better off left as a read only? Als i will check out Killing Plato as i have never read this one.

I read in a magazine interview with Needham somewhere that TEA MONEY was published only in Thailand to benefit a local orphanage and that the finished book published internationally as LAUNDRY MAN was actually at least somewhat different and came out a year or two later. I'm not sure myself since I read only LAUNDRY MAN, but I certainly did enjoy its portraits of Bangkok and Phuket.

As for THE BIG MANGO, that's a good question. It is a little hard to see it as a movie, isn't it? What I liked about the book was its sense of humor, which came in part from a little exaggerating of some of Thailand's characteristics with a kind of a nudge and a wink to the knowing. It was a lot like reading Elmore Leonard. What made it fun was the language and the flavor of the place where it was set. A movie would almost certainly trash both of those things that Needham does so well just as the movies made from Elmore Leonard's books usually turn out to be far less fun than the books they were based on.

I seem to recall that Burdett's previous book was actually called 'The Last Six Million Seconds.' It was supposed to have been a story of Hong Kong just before the handover, in 1997, which I suppose is the reason for the rediculously clunky title.

Frankly, I thought it was both a dull and irritatingly earnest book. To tell the truth, however, that's also what I thought about 'Bangkok 8,' too.

Both books took terrific settings with lots of sex appeal and, for my money, did almost nothing with them. I was flabbergasted that Burdett could manage to render both Bangkok and Hong Kong without leaving any real flavor of either place with his readers.

Give me Jake Needham's stuff any day. Both KILLING PLATO and LAUNDRY MAN offer a far better flavor of contemporary expat life in Thailand (and even Hong Kong) than do either of Burdett's books. If you spend much time here, you very probably would smile and nod knowingly as you read them.

For example, check out one of the online reviews of LAUNDRY MAN by a local old hand at Mangosauce.com or maybe even take a look at the official Jake Needham web site

I was told last night that “Naughty Nigel,” infamous local porn star featured on various Asian sex websites, was knifed on Tuesday night—sliced upwards from his groin to his chest—in Klong Toei.

It makes a great rumor, I suppose, but does anyone actually have any first hand information as to whether or not this is true?

Yes, alas, you're not far wrong there.

On the other hand, did you ever notice how many of these 'well-bred' Thais strut around claiming to have an MBA from someplace like Stanford when they get back home, yet hardly speak a single comprehensible word of English? The worst part is they don't even get the joke.

My guess is that what you would miss most of all in a place like Phuket is a reasonable level of intellectual or professional companionship. It may indeed be 'an easy life' there, but it will fall far short of the kind of expat community you probably found in a place like Rio. Thailand, alas, does not attract 'the best and the brightest.'

Any libraries with decent /recent English language periodicals and newspapers?

There is only one English-language library in Thailand, the Neilson Hays Library on Suriwong, and it is a venerable historical institution. You can join for a small fee, but I really wouldn't recommend it. The building is lovely, but the collection is awfully moldy. Mostly the kind of junk you'd find in the library of a small and not very prosperous junior college in the States. many of the books are also in pretty poor condition since the building wasn't air conditioned until fairly recently.

There are plenty of English-language books around in Bangkok (and a few in major resort areas), but they are mostly mass-market paperbacks, so newly published books are hard to find. Kinokuniya at the Emporium does import a limited number of current best-sellers from the US (usually discounted by 20%), but that's about the extent of the supply.

Asia Books imports paperbacks from the UK and Bookazine from the US, and both of them are good sources for paperbacks but carry very, very few current hardbacks. Magazines, on the other hand, are no problem. You can get most US magazines at all three places within a few days of publication, although you'll pay about doube the US cover price to cover the air freight.

I, too, would recommend either Borders of Kinokuniya in Singapore for the experience of hanging around a bookstore that you enjoy. They areally re the only American style bookstores you will find anywhere at all in Asia.

The only thing that's consistently cheaper here is labor, or any physical goods that have a high labor component involved in their production.

Ten years ago it was a lot cheaper to live here than in Europe or the US. Now, I doubt it. My wife and have have the general impression that the overall cost these days is about the same. Some things here cheaper, some things more expensive, but overall, it all works out about the same. Welcome to globalization.

Her education has not been neglected and, frankly, I rather resent your condescending attitude about it.

I didn't say you had neglected your daughter's education. I said that children who are educated in Thailand are less well equipped for life outside of Thailand than are those children who are educated abroad.

If you consider that 'condescending,' you've probably found exactly the right country for you both to live in.

Just wait and see how much respect you will get in Thailand when your money will run out...

Well said. I supposed by now I should be used to it, but the number of foreigners here who think they understand Thailand better than any Thai still leaves me slackjawed. Oh yes, see all the lovely, gentle, smiling, simple people.......

But the assertion that the situation is hopeless and I should give up without trying is just empty cynicism.

You asked a question and several of us who have had an involvement the local film industry took the time and made the effort to tell you what we had learned about it.

And now our joint experience is 'empty cynicism?'

For someone who by his own account knows little or nothing about how things work here, you seem awfully ready to dismiss -- and rather high-handedly, too -- others who have far more experience than you. Come to think of it, you may feel right at home here in Thailand.

There are sacrifices that have to be made by living in Thailand. One of them is you will have to spend much more of your time with your children....but is that really a sacrifice?

You may not like me saying this, Chuckd, but I think in ten or fifteen years you will probably discover that the sacrifice has been made by your daughter, not you.

By growing up here and being educated here, if that word even applies, she will have almost certainly have sacrificed a chance to live a good adult life anywhere else other than in Thailand. It may be very nice for her here today there in that little house outside Pattaya, pleasant and undemanding, but she will almost certainly be poorly equipped for life outside of Thailand when she grows up. Reread all the posts above and hear that theme repeated over and over again by all kinds of parents from all kinds of backgrounds.

Of course if you don't want your daughter to have good chance at a life outside of Thailand, I guess that's a different matter. But as for us, that's a limitation we weren't willing to place on our children.