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gobbledonk

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Everything posted by gobbledonk

  1. 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 !
  2. 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.
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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 ....
  6. 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.
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. Feel free to disappear as quickly as you've appeared.
  13. 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
  14. 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 .....
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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
  18. 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 !'
  19. 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
  20. 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.
  21. Remind me never to visit said place
  22. 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.
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