Bars Outside/inside Chiang Mai

[sansaisam]

Because of my wifes job, we live 35-40 minutes outside of Chiang mai.

Now I am one of a very few farangs in the area, so when i fancy a drink i go to the local places.

and i think tourists in Chiang mai should do the same thing, not go 40 minutes outside of town but to local places away from the tourists spots.

the drawback is you wont find vodka, gin, just thai whiskey beer and sangsom-thai rum and its not bad. you also pay 1/3 the prices.

now even in town the prices for drinks are cheap, but only if you compare them to prices back home. better compare bhat to bhat than bhat to dollar pound etc.

also get expierence real thai bars and hang out with the locals, most are very friendly at least at those places that dont get many farangs. The language difference may put off some. but for a night or two i think its well worth your while.

bars in town you can drink with tourists expat who are just like you ...ok maybe you might be from scotland and the guy next to you from the usa..but its not the same.

that said now and then i travel into chiang mai to get a dose of english conversation.

and this is what seems to happen more and more.

owner finding out your a expat and he then complains on and on about the thai.

they are lazy

they are stupid

you cant trust them

they speak terrible english

they stink.

oh they are not mature enough to run the country.

all this in front of his employees. my fellow north americans are known to make those remarks.

i figure if you hate them so much...leave really the stress living in thailand is getting to you

pluse when other customers find out i am american...

i get.

i hate american movies,

i hate american music

your sports suck should be real sports like cricket and rugby.

but of course as the conversation progresses you hear man i loved the film ''as good as it gets''. etc

knock the chip off your shoulder makes it better for all of us

[gotlost]

knock the chip off your shoulder makes it better for all of us .

Go back an re read your own post.

[IanForbes]

Depends on whether you want to drink or talk. If I want to drink I'll buy my own bottle and drink at home or with friends. It's much cheaper. If I want to go to a bar I'll arrange a quiet place where I'll meet a friend or two and we can ignore the boors.

There are a whole string of Thai karaoke bars near where I live, but I never go there. I don't know the locals, I don't like to get drunk and I don't speak Thai well enough to converse with anyone. And, I don't want to get into trouble flirting with the girls who might belong to some Thai guy.

[mamborobert]

Please forgive me.....

But the quoted comments that Thai's speak terrible English (quoted by an American no less), and then the reference to playing rugby (over gridiron), and the overall general comments on pariochialism per se reminded me of the old John Cleese (attributed) letter to America.

I am not a pom myself, but there is no humour as good as English humour, spans every taste.

Its off topic, and dare I say a leap from the OP (but tragically not in my mind)

John Cleese Letter to USA

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as Men Behaving Badly or Red Dwarf will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders,your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time,you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Knat's Urine,with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen,Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.

John Cleese

[sarahsbloke]

Completely off topic ...

And, I don't want to get into trouble flirting with the girls who might belong to some Thai guy.

I went to the "Miss Country Home Beauty Contest" (out at Carrefour Hang Dong) last year, a completely Thai event (but all John Denver music).

My mate hit on a Thai girl when she was with her Thai boyfriend, I distracted the guy while he hit on the girl. So anyway we were all getting on well when I said, "doesn't my friend feeling your girl upset you?", he replied, "as long as he keeps filling up that Chang tower, I don't care what he does with her, if it's empty then we have a problem"

I thought that was a pretty good answer!

On second thoughts this post wasn't off topic as the Country Home bar/restaurant is almost completely Thai, out-of-town, has cheap beer and really good Pla Tab Tim Tort. The ladyboy waitperson is also very pretty.

Edited April 18, 2010 by sarahsbloke

[Paagai]

There are a whole string of Thai karaoke bars near where I live, but I never go there. I don't know the locals, I don't like to get drunk and I don't speak Thai well enough to converse with anyone. And, I don't want to get into trouble flirting with the girls who might belong to some Thai guy.

There are a whole string of Thai karaoke bars near where I live, and I often go there. I know the locals, I love to get drunk and I speak Thai well enough to have drunken conversations with almost anyone . And, I often get into trouble flirting with the boys who belong to some Thai girl (or worse still to a Katoey ). Sweet! Different strokes for different folks I guess.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I'm all for frequenting the local out of town places more! I do it only on occasion, and then only when with friends. (Which means very rarely indeed as I don't have too many friends. )

[ilovemangos]

I tend to agree with the op.

I find many bar owners complain about thai employees. and do so in the open in front of the employees

I guess its the brown skin?

OH and getting bitched at because your american, just ignore them those who do that live terrible lives and only makes them feel better to attack somebody else.