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StoneSoup

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Posts posted by StoneSoup

  1. I've heard a lot of stories about Police stopping folks for "shakedowns," looking for drugs. And - if you are carrying viagra, or Valium, or whatever - they might offer to not arrest you for a few thousand baht. But - I have never heard of Police in the Asoke area stealing money from a foreigner. I have read of several cases where the Police wanted to inpsect the contents of a wallet - and a "victim" removed 10,000 or 12,000 baht from the wallet before handing it to the Policeman - and the Police made no comment - inspected the wallet, found no drugs, returned the wallet - and let the victim proceed on his way.

     

    So - it iS not at all "normal" for Police to rob passers-by of their cash in hand. I walked from BTS Asoke to my office near GMM Grammy Building - and back - at least three timse per week for eleven years now - and very frequently walk past the Interchange Tower corner in erakly evening - headed up to Soli 33/1 - and I have NEVER been stopped or searched. And - 90% of the time, I am carrying a black zipprered folio a bit larger than an A4 sheet of paper.

     

    In 14 years, the only time I was ever stopped on foot was once, on the Sukhumvit Sidewalk, between Sois 24 and 26, by two young policemen on one motorcycle - around 7:00 pm. They checked my folio, asked me to empty my pockets, patted me down, inspected the contents of my wallet - which had maybe 1,200 baht in it - found nothing - returned everything to me - nodded, smiled and sent mre on my way - maybe 150 seconds total. That was about ten years ago.

     

    Late at night, I think encounters with Police are likely to be more problematic - but while the sun is up, they seem to behave reasonably straight.

     

    Cheers!

    SS

     

    Cheers!

    SS

  2. Just do your shopping early in the day. The coppers who do the shakedowns don't even wake up until 2:00 pm. Based on the flow of traffic, you can do a circle from Exchange Tower, to Soi 16, to Soi 22, back to Sukhumvit, and then back to Exchange Tower. Where Soi 16 intersects Soi 22, you can also divert to Soi 24, or down to Rama IV Road.

     

    Cheers!

    SS

    • Like 1
  3. While doing some business research involving GMM Grammy Group, I stumbled across the story of this guy, of whom I had never before heard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewat_Buddhinan Then I found one of his songs on-line - evidently performed and filmed in 1986:

     

    http://youtu.be/XsPNP18Gu_Q

     

    Not half-bad at all.

     

    Flash - you must have heard of this guy - he must have effectively been the first real rock star of Thailand. He evidently died in 1996, at just 48 years of age. 'Founder of GMM Grammy in Thailand - which is now a quite substantial empire.

     

    Cheers!

    SS

  4. I think that the relatively small number of frequent posters who still populate this board are mostly people who have lived in Thailand longer than ten years - and once you've been here that long, most of the "in your face" sex trade is no longer of much interest. Plus - the costs are WAY up, and the attitudes/attractiveness of the girls substantially down - to the point where it isn't worth the effort in most cases.

     

    I haven't barfined a girl in probably six or seven years - and probably never will again. But - I'm still glad that Cowboy and Nana exist - and i do occasionally stop in - mostly to reminisce about days gone by.

     

    In "the good old days" most go-go bars were stand-alone operations, who succeeded or failed based on their merits - and where managers and mamasans had almost total leeway to do whatever they thought was best. Think - a small, custom sandwich deli or pizza parlor that would make individual creations to the customer's order. But - nowadays - the go-gos are mostly "franchises" owned by a few big players - who standardize everything according to some plan - and it is boring and repetitive - as per McDonalds or Pizza Hut. What;'s to write about?

     

    "Yeah, I went into the McD's at Ploenchit Center. I had my 600th Big Mac. It was pretty much like the last 300 that I had - and indistinguishable from the one I had last week at Onnut McDonalds"

     

    Who's going to bother writing - or reading - that report?

     

    'Sorry.

     

    Cheers!

    SS

    • Like 1
  5. OK, I feel a bit hesitant to cast dispersions upon a recently departed gent who can't defend himself - but ..... I'm not so sure that Nelson Mandela's saintliness was not substantially fabricated by a white western media that felt guilty. To whit:

     

    “I salute the South African Communist Party for its sterling contribution to the struggle for democracy.â€

     

    nmandela-2.jpg?w=500&h=740

  6. I heard the same report, and since I live directly opposite Sukhumvit Soi 50 (on Soi 79), I went to take a look.

     

    From a point 1.8 km southwest of Sukhumvit, I took the photo shown at: http://twitter.com/#!/StoneSoupBKK/status/129822334596038657/photo/1 This was looking southwest.

     

    500 meters to the west, Khlong Prakhanong water level was absolutely normal - see http://twitter.com/#!/StoneSoupBKK/status/129831847847931904/photo/1

    and http://twitter.com/#!/StoneSoupBKK/status/129831048124178432/photo/1

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