gobbledonk

Cheer up, lads - I get to spend the most boring day on the Australian calendar (no mean feat ..) cleaning my digs and punching the air at the prospect of never having to endure the tedium of Good Friday again. Loathed it as a child and loathe it as an adult - easily the worst day of the year. Roll on Easter Monday !

True, but sex toys are considerably more harmless than the material I've been offered at MBK. If only someone had clued me up to Fortune Town IT Mall a few years back I could have avoided that overcrowded cesspit entirely Cant wait to get to FT in early May: Hi-Fi Retailers For people looking for decent second hand hi-fi separates such as amplifiers, CD players, speakers and even turn tables. There are no shops selling new Hi-Fi units but the second hand goods they sell seems to be in good condition and they present everything well and keep it looking good so it's well worth a look.

Wait - I need to smuggle dildos *out* of Malaysia ?

OK - ta.

Just looking at my options - I've done the BKK to Chumphon train trip and its as boring as hell : would be great if the destination was better than the redneck capital of southern Thailand

stickman bangkok - just google for his weekly column. Reports re searches were a regular addition up until the start of 2014 - seems to have dropped off since then. Allegedly designed to intercept Farang couriers ferrying pharmaceuticals from the Klong Toey slums to the more upmarket side of Suk, presumably for sale to well-heeled club patrons at significant markup. Gotta love the entrepreneurial spirit in Thailand

No idea why this editor is doing this to me .... http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/water-buffaloes-on-the-loose-in-sydneys-inner-west-after-breaking-free-from-filming-korean-samsung-commercial/story-fnki1jcy-1226864134558

CITY slickers, Sydney style. A pair of adventurous water buffaloes broke free of their shackles this morning after the filming of a Korean Samsung commercial went wrong in Sydney’s inner west. The “angry†couple travelled for more than 2 kilomtres until they were caught by authorities.

Sure, Cav - just put one aside for me and I'll pick it up in May. Hell, you might have a whole new batch by then - I can wear one on each wrist ....

Who said anything about '300K on new speakers' ? That's my anticipated total spend - I'd be pretty keen to spend 300K on a pair of speakers only to have to lug them back to Penang ... I put the 9K in the same category as I put a lot of discretionary spending - if it can be avoided, as yourself 'How ?'. I dont pretend that spending money on gear that is subject to a 50%+ markup on the manufacturers price is in any way 'smart money', but I dont own any Rolex watches either - horses for courses.

Thanks coss, but you'd only be disappointed - all of my ex's and most of my former employers have been FWIW, I did drink Beer Lao until getting absolutely legless on the stuff and making a fool of myself in VT - now, like Steinlager and VB before it, even the smell of an opened bottle conjures some unhappy memories. As bland as many here would consider it, I found salvation in Beer Leo, but I've also been known to drink Tiger, Carlsberg and Heineken. I draw the line at some of the formaldehyde-based brands, but I dont know that anyone who can drink Mehkong neat is really in a position to cast aspersions on Singha drinkers. When it's late enough, and we're drunk enough, I've found you can foist pretty much anything on people and they'll give it a shot - hope to catch up with you on Soi 4 at 3am later in the year and we'll put that to the test

That's 9K baht I could be spending on beer - why give it to Visa ? To many of us, 9K baht isnt a big deal, but I was roundly castigated on this board back in 2008 for admitting that I'd blown 20K on little more than a killer hangover and the undying (!) gratitude of several women who ended up with bottles of overpriced spirits when I allegedly left to return to my apartment. To this day, I have little recollection of the later parts of the evening and absolutely zero recollection of getting in a cab or staggering into the elevator at the apartment block on Soi 22. If I'm saddened by anything in the interim, its that I suspect I would struggle to recreate that sort of excess with 20K in BKK in 2014, as the town appears to be infected with the 'Jakarta Syndrome'. Still not sure how students can afford to hang out in bars where a drink costs ~300 baht, but it's the mentality that 'if its expensive, it must be good !' which wears me out. In any case, one of the big pluses with cash is that it gives me a lot more bargaining power than a card - YMMV. Munchy, your suggestion mirrors what I typed earlier re getting a second cab back from Soi 22 to enable me to get straight out at the entrance to the building. Until I read about the guy being harrassed in front of the would-be hi-so at Emporium I would have seen that as a flawless plan - now, I'm not so confident. StoneSoup's post is heartening, but the great thing about paranoia is that it doesnt mean the world is not out to get me

Thanks for the tips, guys. - ds, you know we are accustomed to a bank transfer taking anywhere up to two days in Oz - I'll look into this further. - dean, that's how I travel on the plane, but I figured they would frisk me. Like i said - paranoid .... Cheers.

Thanks SS - I guess I'm so paranoid at this point that I remember that Police Box at the intersection and picture a cop standing there as I get out of the cab. Wont hurt to make my first trip without the cash on me and take it from there.

KS, you know where I got the info re stop-and-search, and its not a source that you place a lot of faith in based on his last effort on this board. Politics aside, I've realised that I'm now paranoid about carrying cash anywhere along Suk - the report of a Farang being searched in front of shoppers on the footbridge between the BTS and the upstairs entrance to Emporium was particularly disturbing. I expect that there is a solution here, and it involves getting an all-up price for the audio gear, going back to my hotel, taking the money to a bank and getting whatever the equivalent of a cashiers check is in LOS. Compared to the way I would be prepared to conduct business in almost any other city in the world, this seems farcical, but so does the prospect of having 3 or 4 cops demanding that I give them a 'valid' reason for having the much money on me. Totally pissed off at the prospect of having to deal with one of the most corrupt Police forces on the planet, particularly when I've looked forward to this shopping spree for - literally - years. Its the other reason I dont take kindly to the earlier attempt at humour from a (recycled ?) newbie re my predicament. For those who feel I need to grow a set, feel free to expand on how you'd deal with Thai cops when they find themselves looking at roughly a year's pay for one of Thailand's finest and they've been told to search anyone they suspect of buying drugs on one side of Suk to sell on the other. If that isnt a dream gig for a (beat) cop, I dont know what is.

Nothing, KS - I guess I'm done here.

Feel free to disappear as quickly as you've appeared.

No, I'm not heading to Cowboy for 'the week to end all weeks' As many of you know, I'm a hi-fi nut, and there is a store in Exchange Tower - near the monster 4-way intersection - that has many of the goodies I want. The issue, and I know some will find this funny, is that I dont want to cop the 3% Visa charge for ~300K worth of toys, even if it means catching a cab into Soi 22 and then getting a second cab going back down Suk. Under no circumstances do I want to have to explain to the BiB what I'm doing in that part of the world with that much cash - it's exactly what they are hoping to find and I have little doubt that they would want a donation - that isnt going to happen. While google maps makes doesnt particularly like '210 Sukhumvit Road', it knows where Exchange Tower is - from memory, that may have been a massive construction site the last time I was in BKK over 2 years ago. I remember the luxury car dealership on the Emporium side of Asoke, but I cant say I recall a giant gold building on the Nana side of the intersection. Even if I make my way there via side sois, the front of the building will almost certainly put me in the zone where the stop-and-search antics seem to be most common. Any advice greatly welcomed. Jet Live Audio Co., Ltd. 388 Exchange Tower 2nd fl unit 210 Sukhumvit Rd. Klongtoey Klongtoey, Bangkok 10110

It's one of the more bizarre aspects of Patts for me - even with the insane traffic and tourist hordes, after a week or so on lower Suk it actually does seem like a 'holiday retreat' ! If anything sums up BKK for me, its the fact that you can have a traffic jam on lower Suk at midnight that is comprised almost entirely of taxis - cabs streaming down Suk Soi 3 and tryng to get into Soi 4 against the 'tide' of cabs coming the other way. Insane.

Again, I see the wave of 'Should I move to Cambo if my priorities are pussy and alcohol ?' threads elsewhere and I just throw my hands in the air. I like those things too, but ruining another country simply because some of us are ruled by our dicks is pretty pathetic. Throw in massive domestic demand for (even cheaper) sex and it's hardly an advertisement for the male of the species.

I felt that way in Sydney in 1985, but it's the exact opposite out here in the bush. If anything, its a little *too* Anglo-Celtic for my liking

No argument from me, but then I couldnt live in Sydney or Melbourne either - even Brissie is a lot worse than it used to be back in the 90s. Oz is a victim of it's own success, and like all such victims we eventually kill what we came to enjoy - that goes for Patts and Hua Hin too.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/property/locals-priced-out-by-24b-chinese-property-splurge-20140305-346hd.html (Cant paste the story - dont know if its this version of IE but have had massive problems with the T360 text editor and none with the Thaivisa editor.) Long story short, the Chinese are flocking to Oz - particularly Sydney - both for investment and to live here. I dont know how 26bn AUD compares to the money they spend in Thailand, but Chinese developers are making a killing in Sydney selling off the plan. Many of the sales displays appear to have signage that is almost entirely in Chinese and the apartments are being pitched exclusively to Chinese. Overseas investors are guaranteed a visa if they are willing to invest 5 million AUD in the country - if they maintain that investment over 4 years, they get residency. http://www.brw.com.au/p/business/australia_first_visa_investor_gets_h4yBaQxYLSb1unHXPFxVBP Personally, I think it's inevitable given our geography that more Aussie kids will have Asian faces - Pauline Hanson's worst nightmare realised. Now if we can just find an island for the white trash that are holding the rest of us back http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/gina-rinehart-hits-out-at-welfare-recipients-and-the-left-for-dragging-australia-into-debt/story-fni0cx12-1226847448435 Gina, I couldn't get drunk enough and - even then - you couldn't pay me enough. Your dad wasnt far off when he christened you his 'little elephant'.

This. I'm stuffed if I know how anyone - Thai or Farang - could live in Bangkok 365 days a year and not go completely loopy. Even with the obligatory trip home for Songkran and other festivals, I'm guessing that many Thais cant afford to leave town - little wonder that those who spend the bulk of their lives in the tourist areas develop some very unfortunate attitudes to Farang As for cities like Jakarta and Manila - words fail me when I contemplate life in either of those nightmarish conurbations. Even KL would grind on me.