gobbledonk

I just thought that it was a sign that the real estate in that part of BKK was now worth enough money for them to redevelop it - God knows, there are enough vacant site eyesores all over Bangkok as it is .....

Sad snippet from you-know-where: Since being flattened, nothing much has happened at the area once known as Washington Square. It has sat dormant for what seems like a year or so, with weeds and plants starting to take over as they do in the tropics. A fence has gone up around the area which looks like it is going to be sealed off from Sukhumvit. Whether that means redevelopment of the area will start soon or whether the land owners just want to keep people out, no-one seems to know.

Not so for Citibank Australia customers with the Transaction Plus account, although I expect its only a matter of time. Extensive thread on this on TV, btw.

YimSiam said: Certainly there are areas that are higher risk than others – freelance, latenight, heavy-party scene, you raise your odds. But they are fucking everywhere, these replicas – and I’d be glad to wager that anyone who’s hit 20 or so work-at-night Thai chicks has hit a kathoey and not realized it. I got more to say about this issue, as it’s been eating me up and pissing me off, but that’ll have to follow a bit later, if at all. To me, the interesting questions are: why so many of the ‘replica’ (rather than comic) version of the LB now in the nightlife scene? And: if one wishes to differentiate between the ‘born’ chicks and the LBs, how to do so? YS, I posted here a while back that I strongly suspect I may have found myself in a 'plastic pussy' in KL, of all places. She was Thai, but even through the condom something just wasnt right - after a couple of minutes I gave up, paid her and she left. Absolutely no issues with her appearance - definitely not one of the 6' drag queens outside Nana - but I'm fairly sure it was a LB - whatever it was, there is no way I would have gone back for seconds. Weird is weird - even if she *was* a woman, something wasnt right down there. Personally, I don't have an issue with other folks sexual orientation, but it's interesting that you believe most guys dont want to be seen with their LB GF in broad daylight and I tend to agree with one exception - Pattaya. I dont know if it's just the general 'this is Disneyland and we can do what we want !' vibe of the place, but I've seen quite a few big, strapping younger guys walking hand-in-hand with their LB dates. It's interesting that gay men seem to keep their activities behind closed doors - much more in line with the Thai way - while their 'non-gay' brothers strut around town with a guy or gal from Isaan on their arm. Is it possible that gay men have a better handle on how Patts is supposed to work than the rest of us ? End of the day, I can store enough porn on a laptop to keep me away from LBs regardless of how fat and hideous the bar population becomes over the next few years

Same, although I haven't seen it since early 2010. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I need infrastructure more than I need cheap beer and cheap jiggy-jig, and others have made the point that PP has a very long way to go before its anywhere near BKK in everything else. There are so many things that we take for granted in more developed countries that you really only miss when they are nowhere in evidence - for some, I guess that's part of the attraction ('it's like Thailand 30 years ago !' etc). Also strongly agree that the more Barang rock up expecting 'nirvana' the more likely they are to create another 'paradise lost'. About the only report I've seen on TV recently that made Cambo seem like an attractive option was from the guy who handed his passport and 250USD to a Cambodian official and had a no-questions-asked 12-month business visa in said passport when it was delivered to his hotel the following day. One can only imagine how many retirees in Thailand would have looked at that in dumbstruck awe and thought 'Now that's my kind of country !'

I'm like the Phantom - look for a guy wearing purple underwear, riding a horse and trailed by a wolf. When I think about it, Soi 4 may well be one of the few places in Asia where such a combination wouldnt raise too many eyebrows

Of the carpark freelancers - as opposed to the 6' tall katoeys out front of NEP and prowling the Soi further down - I've only encountered a couple who were Katoeys. Both were petite, not 'the tallest damned Thai gal I ever saw !' types, and both clearly preferred the company of their sisters over the company of the caricatures out on the Soi. I dont think there is any love lost between the two groups.

Remind me never to visit said place

I'd be interested to know if Patts has benefited from the recent madness in BKK. Varying reports elsewhere in the leadup to Dec high season re numbers, and haven't seen anything since.

I'll stick with Golden Bar - no-one hassles me, no distractions from loud sports on the TV or people playing pool, and it has the single best location on the Soi. Throw in cheap(er) beer prices and I'm sold. The clientele might be a bit of a motley crew, but I don't bother them and they ignore me - win-win.

I do know where Thermae is, but given that I'm not Japanese there really isnt much point, is there ? Let me remind my critics - or rather those who still have issues with the idea of life in a predominately Muslim country - that no-one in Malaysia gives a hoot what color t-shirt you wear. OK - fluoro pink with bike shorts may not be the best choice, but even then I doubt that most Chinese-Malaysians would care either way. Roll on April.

No more countdown thread - that thing seemed to mock me, making my departure date seem further away with each week. As for learning Thai, there isnt much call for that on PENANG (Granted, I havent put much time into Bahasa either - realised I need to get the pronunciation right or I'll be like the Poms who cant even pronounce Pattaya properly)

Virtually in lockstep with the (entirely predictable) fall in the value of our own Pacific Peso - the NZD has gone from strength to strength over the last 6 months or so. Converting to kip, I estimate that coss is now a gazillionaire in his adopted country (3.5 months, cossie, and I'll be spending money in LOS like a drunken sailor - I seem to recall you spent a couple of weeks reacqauinting yourself with a few barstools when you got off the plane )

Conventional wisdom seems to be 'fly into Clark and avoid Manila' - I'd imagine a lot more people are thinking along those lines now. http://world.time.com/2013/12/20/manila-airport-shooting-leaves-four-dead-including-a-provincial-mayor/

Cant say I'm surprised by this: http://au.news.yahoo.com/entertainment/a/20214183/susan-boyle-reveals-she-has-aspergers/ Hopefully it will leave some egg on the face of people like Simon Cowell after referring to her as 'retarded'. The woman cant do much about a biological condition, and she's laughing all the way to the bank.