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Surgery Phuket
Will be in SE Asia for 3 months starting some time in November. Will be in Patong for awhile. Does any one know good oral surgeon for Branemark System teeth implants? Also need a basil cancer spot removed from cheek. Any one know a good surgeon. Your assistance and suggestions would be appreciated. PM me if you prefere.
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Bkk option
[QUOTE=RetiredForever]Will be in SE Asia for 3 months starting some time in November. Will be in Patong for awhile. Does any one know good oral surgeon for Branemark System teeth implants? Also need a basil cancer spot removed from cheek. Any one know a good surgeon. Your assistance and suggestions would be appreciated. PM me if you prefere.[/QUOTE]Well, if you will pass Bangkok, I will recommend Bumrungrad Hospital. Fantastic service, high quality staff educated and trained in US; probably the best hospital in SEA. Most expensive, but still way cheaper than Europe/US. I have been there a couple of times for check up, have a few friends who have been there and we all rank it as #1.
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[QUOTE=Phunt]Well, if you will pass Bangkok, I will recommend Bumrungrad Hospital. Fantastic service, high quality staff educated and trained in US; probably the best hospital in SEA. Most expensive, but still way cheaper than Europe/US. I have been there a couple of times for check up, have a few friends who have been there and we all rank it as #1.[/QUOTE]If you want it cheaper, there is a very good German dentist in Payttaya. But he only does implants for non smokers. PM me if interested.
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Pattatong
I was in Patong / Phuket last week, for a few days off at the end of the low season here in Thailand. Business at Livingstones will pick up soon better to relax a bit before things get really busy.
My last visit in Patong was about > 3 years ago. And Patong has changed. It definitely has changed a lot. I remember wide areas behind the Second Road being fields 3 years ago, now buildings, hotels, shops everywhere. I remember that Thai market opposite the end of Bangla Road to the right now a shopping center, the market is gone. Soi Sansabai it was a dead end road, now connecting Second Road with Third Road, guesthouses and shops everywhere, and even behind the third road there are new buildings already, hotels massive construction activities. All built within the last 6 months, as I was told.
Another major change: Soi Bangla is now closed for traffic (at least in the nights), it is a kind of Pattaya Walking Street in Patong. I expected to see a few people walking there in the nights, it should be low season in Phuket, too and it was packed. Masses walking there, up and down the road, I had the impression that there were more tourists in Patong right now than I saw during the high season years ago.
The number of hotel rooms have tripled / quadruplet, depending on the locals you are talking to. Everywhere guesthouses, small hotels, and the major hotels, huge complexes close to Third Road. Unbelievable. Shops, bars, restaurants everywhere. And it is nearly impossible to sit there without being disturbed by those street hawkers, selling souvenirs, maps, watches, all kinds of stuff I thought we are through with all that, but it came back to this city, much worse than ever.
I had heard before that Patong became expensive in the last year. Nonsense, in my POV. The competition is that hard, the prices and the quality is much lower now than it was years ago. Reasonable hotel rooms are available for THB 800,00 up, reasonable guesthouse rooms for around THB 500,00 (with a/c(!)). We were offered an outstanding single villa within a Thai-style hotel compound, close to an awesome swimming pool area, spacious, huge bathroom with double Jacuzzi, plasma TVs, CD/DVD player, wireless internet, ABF THB 2,500.00 .
We then checked out the restaurants I knew from years before and the quality had really gone down the hill. The small Seafood restaurant at the second road, to the left a few hundred meters away from Soi Bangla fish not fresh. Not well cooked, no taste at all. Not even good farang style cooking. Italian restaurant Roma, located in a side road from the Beach Road (First Road), claims to have an Italian chef hmm. It was really good years ago, now they really need an Italian chef, or at least some cooking training from one. Steak House Buffalo in a side road of upper Bangla road food was ok, but far away from the excellent quality from years ago.
The only restaurant I can still recommend is a small seafood restaurant Chiang Rai Seafood. You find it in the food court area behind the Tiger Disco complex. Try the black crabs (usually called / served as Pepper Crabs) with Yellow Curry excellent. Oysters fresh. They kept up their quality levels. And it is still dirt-cheap, we had various dishes, 4 oysters, Yellow Curry with the Black Crab, mussels, vegetables, 2 king prawns, drinks (water) all that for THB 720.00 .
Girls. Many of them. Everywhere.
One hotel owner told me before that Patong only has this small girly bar area in Soi Bangla. That is nonsense, pure. Beer bar areas are everywhere, in the small side roads along Beach Road, even along second road
many Pattaya style beer bars. I have no idea how all of those bars can survive. Most of them have girls working there
but what a quality my god. Of course there are so many that you might find some lookers. I did not see many.
Soi Bangla is THE hunting area for freelancers at night now. They walk up and down the road, sometimes approaching men, sometimes standing at the side just trying to establish eye contact. Many of the dressed in super short skirts, dresses or hot pants. No Thai style visible at all.
And ladyboys. I never saw so many of them in my life. There are ladyboy bars, transvestite shows, not only at that well known lady boy corner in the center of Soi Bangla you find them now basically all over Patong. And there is either demand for them, or the tourists are noy able to identify them I saw so many men walking with a ladyboy hand in hand, and I tried to imagine the surprised faces of those men when they found out later the truth in the night
:)
The discos Banana still does ok starting 11:30 pm, quite packed. Quality and dresses of the girls is higher than the average in Patong. A bit of style there. Some lookers. Later the crowd moves to Tiger disco, but I never saw it really full there. The crowd mixes up with those people coming from the beer bars so it is not as classy as Banana. Very late then Tai Pan fills up, there is a band playing earlier in the night quite crowded very late. The quality of the ladies the late night phenomenon, the best picks are done already, and the left-overs are still looking for customers. So the quality is average, at best. I did not check out how long they open there
but it seamed to be quite long.
Gogo bars. I was in two of them. Suzi Wong, somewhere at the end of a side road to the left of Soi Bangla. I saw about 10 girls dancing there, topless. Quality so-so. The special of the bar: Strips of foam plastic material, that kind of isolation material used for a/c pipe installations. Customers beat girls with that strips, girls beat the customers. Is that expected to be funny? And it is not the kind of soft beating the girls really hammer the customers
I was out there after 10 min.
Rock-Hard a GoGo now only at the upper level, the lower level is a open bar now. May be 20 30 girls dancing in bikinis, unmotivated
boring. Quality low, in my POV.
The Beach Road and yes, street walkers there at the Beach Road late at night. I do not remember whether that existed years ago already, but there was a considerable number of girls walking / sitting there close to the beach waiting for customers. I walked 20 meters through the zombie show, turned around and saved my life.
Patong, always a target of mass tourism, always tried to keep the girly bar areas limited and develop itself to a tourist destination for families. I saw some families but not too many. There were more group travellers, mostly Australians, younger couples and single travelling men. I dont see that the city developers took their chance after the Tsunami reconstruction to come closer to their targets of attracting families the bar areas are spread all over the city, and mongerism has increased massively. A second Pattaya is developing in my POV. Decreasing room rates, a huge quantity of available accommodation, and loss of quality in the food / restaurant business all that indicates this development. Whoever likes Pattaya go to Patong. It is a bit smaller than Pattaya and has all the features already: The Walking Street Soi Bangla, the Beach Road, beer bars en masse, GoGo bars
streetwalkers and ladyboys. Everything you know from Pattaya.
For those who fall in love with one of those girls and consider to start up a business for her there: Be careful! Be very very careful! I spoke to some business owners, the competition is huge, and the winners are basically the land owners, renting properties to farang for huge leases. For a standard shop house with a business area for a shop or restaurant on the base level and 3 or 4 more levels for offices / rooms etc. the asked yearly lease is in the range of THB 1 to 3 Mio. (depending on the location, how close to the beach etc. ), for a relatively small business operation size. Many guesthouses are built into this shop houses, and the struggle to survive. During the high season the room rates are considerably higher, but the problem is to survive the 6 months low season. One business owner told me that the room rates are starting to fall already end of January, normally high season, but some guest houses are then already not completely booked any more. The huge numbers of those guesthouses tear down the room rates of the major hotels either. There are many guesthouses for sale, from farang, who have invested a lot money in there and trying to get at least a part of it back. Furthermore there are many infrastructural problems in Patong, instable electricity- and water supply etc. etc. . Sometimes one side of a road is ok, and the other side has really problems.
For me this was most likely my last visit in Patong. I dont like it any more, there are much nicer places in Thailand.
Will post some pictures later.
Giotto
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Nice report Giotto. So, if Phuket is a "will not repeat", where would you go next, if the wife is going with you?
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We were offered an outstanding single villa within a Thai-style hotel compound, close to an awesome swimming pool area, spacious, huge bathroom with double Jacuzzi, plasma TVs, CD/DVD player, wireless internet, ABF THB 2,500.00 .
HI Giotto,
Can you please tell me what the name of that place is as i heading upto Phuket very soon.
Kind regards
Q
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Rhode 1
[QUOTE=Rhode1]Willing to stay also a few days in big resort like, blue canyon lodge ,mission hills resort or laguna resort hotels ,which they all have spa-massage , i would like to know if is possible to get a HJ during the massage session in those hotels with a good tip.
I don't want to be expulsed from the hotel asking this kind of service.
Same question for the massage-spa that could be situated in some golf club- houses.
Thanks in advance[/QUOTE]
I have played at Blue Canyon and Mission Hills before, but never stayed there. Mission Hills is so-so as a golf course and if you are going at this time, you may wish to know that it's the rainy season and a total washout for golf.
Just 3 weeks ago, I was just about to leave my hotel to play at Blue Canyon, we had actually woken up to sunny skies, when it suddenly started to pour ... really pour! We checked with the hotel and was told that it would continue the entire day, and we also confirmed this by calling Blue Canyon. So, decided to head straight for the airport back to Bangkok, and played there on arrival instead!
Mission Hills is a gorgeous establishment -- oozes pure luxury, and the female staff are all at least 8/10 in looks ... I felt like marrying all of them! On another rainy season trip, the course condition was very bad due to the continuous rain, and the manager apologized and expressed that he was hapless to do anything about it.
I have stayed at the Sheraton Laguna and Dusit Laguna before, and can tell you that they are all very, very good. Did not try the spas, but imho HJ is not a problem. I don't think it's kosher to expect HJs at massage spas located at the golf clubs,though.
As for having a trio or foursome MASSAGE ONLY with wife/gf, never tried it in Phuket, but I did try it in Bangkok at the Novotel Lotus. Called the in-house spa and asked for room massage, explained to them that I was with my gf and required 2 masseusse. Not a problem at all -- I even asked that they stimulate my gf by playing with her, but her masseusse refrained from direct stimulation, and it was limited to just gentle strokes around the groin area (my gf told me this after the session). We were both naked, occupying the twin beds in our hotel room, and my masseuse was giving me a HJ. We asked them to leave at the end so that my gf and I could get it on.
So, I think that you should have no problem asking for a 2-some in-room massage, if you explain that it's with your wife/gf -- somehow, they kinda 'understand' the wife/gf scene for simultaneous massage. Who knows, you may establish some new record, and I would love to hear about it.
Best,
Panya
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[QUOTE=1Ball]Nice report Giotto. So, if Phuket is a "will not repeat", where would you go next, if the wife is going with you?[/QUOTE]Mr. Vice President,
With wife: Krabi, Koh Samet.
Giotto
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[QUOTE=Giotto]Mr. Vice President,
With wife: Krabi, Koh Samet.
Giotto[/QUOTE]
Which one? :D
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9 photos
Pattatong Pictures
As promised some pictures:
[b]Pat_001:[/b] Chiang Rai Seafood, and Foodcourt around
[b]Pat_002:[/b] Second Road
[b]Pat_003:[/b] Tai Pan on Second Road
[b]Pat_004:[/b] Tiger Disco Entertainment Complex
[b]Pat_005:[/b] Rock Hard a GoGo, Tai Pan in the Background
[b]Pat_006:[/b] Beer Bars somewhere
[b]Pat_007:[/b] Beer Bars at Walking Street (Soi Bangla)
[b]Pat_008:[/b] Ladyboy Corner at Soi Bangla
[b]Pat_009:[/b] Walking Street
New camera, a bit dark, those pictures.
Giotto
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Where's da Beach?
[QUOTE=Giotto]As promised some pictures: ... [/QUOTE]
Hey, Giotto,
You mean to say you went all the way to Phuket, stayed several days, but took no photos of the beach? WTF? I want to see the good stuff. :)
Regards,
Daddy
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[QUOTE=Daddy07]...
You mean to say you went all the way to Phuket, stayed several days, but took no photos of the beach?
...[/QUOTE]Daddy07,
Beach, huh - where, did I miss something :) ?
Giotto
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[QUOTE=Giotto]We were offered an outstanding single villa within a Thai-style hotel compound, close to an awesome swimming pool area, spacious, huge bathroom with double Jacuzzi, plasma TVs, CD/DVD player, wireless internet, ABF THB 2,500.00 .
[/QUOTE]Hi Giotto!
At first thanks a lot for your report!
Please, could you give me all the details and contact for the villa?
Thanks
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Hotel with fishbowl
Regret not posting a report here at this stage, however hope someone can assist.
Recall having found some homepage with a Phuket (Patong) hotel which has a rather big soapy/oil massage place at street level - and actually believe it was a place with a "fishbowl". Cannot recall the hotel/massage palour name.
Can anyone assist?
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[QUOTE=Dom Perignon]Please, could you give me all the details and contact for the villa?
...
[/QUOTE]Dom Perignon,
Can!
Name of the hotel: Royal Phawadee Village (to be honest, I don't know whether they offer Dom Perignon :) )
Giotto