General Reports

[QUOTE=PaulKausch;1679327]Isn't Maeng Da "pimp" in Thai?[/QUOTE]Paul often the literal translations from two language end up coming out different on the other end. In this example the English translation is pimp. This is a man who is generally not in a relationship with his girls. He sexually abuses them a few times and takes a huge cut of their money for so called protection or the right to work in a certain area. The Thai word describes a man simply with no job who is supported by his girlfriend or wife. Whatever she gives him is drank, snorted or injected into his body as well as cheating with other girls. I once new a bar girl working at Mandarin from Surin. She was doing just this with her boyfriend. They have 1 baby together. He is a Thai boxer. Him being an up and comer, she had to go earn a living for the two of them. Would she do the same for her farang boyfriend? Sell her body to help a farang up and coming boxer or support his schooling? I think not. I asked why she was with him? She said " I love him" Of course he was out at the same time as her whoring around with the groupie Thai girls who follow the boxers. This is my point guys. In my recent example the girl has a pilot boyfriend but he couldn't pay the 7,000 but I was classified as the bad guy and he is the good one. Who cares about them. Don't defend their honour, especially here on ISG. If you don't want to see a photo of a Thai girl with her face uncovered, don't look. This is my opinion and please don't get offended by it, anyone. They give two shits about us so we should be the same. However when you are with them acting as a complete gentlemen, buying drinks, paying her for her time, even overpaying if the sex is great is completely understandable in my books. I give my girl at the Madame massage a 1000 THB tip every time. But if she ever asks me for 10,000 Baht I will say no because I defiantly know she is supporting a dead beat Thai guy.

[QUOTE=PaulKausch;1679327]Isn't Maeng Da "pimp" in Thai?[/QUOTE]Yes, the word แมงดา maaeng- daa- is Thai slang for "pimp," however it's literal meaning is giant water bug. You can find them cooked and available for sale on Thai street food carts catering to bug eaters from Isaan.

Laundry: Highway Robbery.

The hotels and even some to the laundry shops charge a lot of money to do laundry per piece. I bought new shirts at one third over the amount they wanted to charge me instead of getting my laundry done through them.

What do you do for laundry in farangland?

[QUOTE=TwoTimeTed;1679893]Laundry: Highway Robbery.

The hotels and even some to the laundry shops charge a lot of money to do laundry per piece. I bought new shirts at one third over the amount they wanted to charge me instead of getting my laundry done through them.

What do you do for laundry in farangland?[/QUOTE]Simple solution: Don't have the hotel (or any laundry located on an extremely heavily touristed street like Soi Nana) do you laundry.

A brief inspection of almost any soi in BKK will reveal at least one, and usually several, laundries. Yes, it's slightly more effort. And you'll need to bag your laundry yourself, and schlep it to and from the laundry. But you'll save a ton, because laundry in Thailand is very cheap. And they will iron damn near everything, including your underwear. I love Thai laundry services.

[QUOTE=Phordphan;1680074]Simple solution: Don't have the hotel (or any laundry located on an extremely heavily touristed street like Soi Nana) do you laundry.

A brief inspection of almost any soi in BKK will reveal at least one, and usually several, laundries. Yes, it's slightly more effort. And you'll need to bag your laundry yourself, and schlep it to and from the laundry. But you'll save a ton, because laundry in Thailand is very cheap. And they will iron damn near everything, including your underwear. I love Thai laundry services.[/QUOTE]Yes, it is so convenient and cheap. They even ironed the bag in which I put the dirty laundry.

[QUOTE=TwoTimeTed;1679893]Laundry: Highway Robbery.

The hotels and even some to the laundry shops charge a lot of money to do laundry per piece. I bought new shirts at one third over the amount they wanted to charge me instead of getting my laundry done through them.

What do you do for laundry in farangland?[/QUOTE]I find that there are much fewer laundries on the odd numbered sois of Sukhumvit than on the even-numbered (low numbers). My favourite is a place on Soi 13 called Hispeed. See their website.

[URL]http://www.hispeedlaundry.com[/URL]

When I got on the plane going to Thailand, I knew it was going to be bad. I was wrong, sort of. The total time was 23 hours from Las Vegas to Bangkok including changing planes and layover. Economy seating.

The flight from Vegas to SFO was easy and not bad its a short distance time wise about 1 and a half hours.

Then got on the plane from SFO to Haneda (Tokyo). Wow there was extra room, I had nobody sitting next to me, so I laid down to sleep / rest, grueling 10 hour flight I think it was. Then the layover in Tokyo of about 3-4 hours, again, not too bad of a wait, time to stretch the legs.

Then got on board to Bangkok and happened to get the seats right where economy starts, so had good leg room, wow, great luck, so then the 7 hour flight, a lot of Entourage catch up! Finally get to Bangkok at 5:30 am Bangkok time. Overall, I must have lucked out on the flights, I thought this was standard, I haven't been on a plane in years.

The way back to Vegas was the nightmare!

Each of the legs of the journey was packed to the gills with people, flights were full!

From Bangkok to Japan, I got stuck in the absolute middle of the plane, cramped, I had several beers on board (Japanese flights, drink all you want complimentary). 3 hour layover in Japan. Had more beers at the airport.

Then got on the plane from Japan to Los Angeles and the nightmare continued. United computers went down, so held over for 1 hour on the tarmac. I got the window seat its 3 seats to the row, so after having many beers, I had to go to the bathroom several times, bothering the big fat couples that were next to me to get up and move out to the isle so I could go to the bathroom. My fluids were finally out and then decided I would only go to the bathroom when they got up to go. This is the 9 hour flight. Then the guy next to me is playing the arm chair game, hogging up my side of the arm rest, so I had to put my arm down and on the inside for most of the journey cause this guy would not budge. The guy then starts sleeping and snoring, his mouth is wide open and had a severe case of halitosis, I mean bad and was pointed my direction, smelt worse then some of the sewers in Bangkok. I never went to sleep, I put on the air vent above to clear the air but was cold for a long portion of time. The meals were something else as far as trying to eat while this guy was elbowing me.

Finally landed in L. A. But the 1 hour late caused me to miss my connecting flight to Vegas. 11 am. They tried to re-book me at 7:45 pm with United, WTF? So then they tried to book me with American at no charge. I went to American and they wanted an extra $25 baggage fee, I told them NO, I;m not paying that, I already paid my ticket in full and included the baggage. I go back to United they explained the baggage fee. I ended up not going with American and waited for the 7:45 pm flight, 8 HR layover. Got on board to Vegas, again packed, make it to Vegas at 9 pm, I miss the last free shuttle to my area of town and ended up taking a taxi to my house at the cost of $55 USD including the tip. Maybe I should have paid the American Airlines baggage fee of $25 USD after all.

I'm lucky just a shot to the California west coast. I use to go through Japan using Northwest which is now Delta. The thing that bother me about Japan was the headache or long lines going through security. You practically have to be stripped naked to get through. Before and after wall to wall people. Then once you get on another as you mentioned 6-7 more hours.

Eva Air runs out of SFO / LAX, it is longer to Taipei like 14:00 hours but once you are on to me at less who cares. Once in Taipei, the layover is like 2/3 hours and going through security it is a breeze and once in the Eva terminal there is free Internet. Not wall to wall people. And when on to BKK, 3 hours.

Rules might have changed but when a airline is delayed not for natural causes (weather) they foot the bill like hotels and meals and should have footed the bill for the baggage. This is their problem, it has been a while since I work but the only time I remember access baggage becoming a problem and one should take note is when a customer using a Airline and the connection is made on a Code share or alliance as they call it. Your case does not seem to be the case. I was always instructed to not offer a thing unless the customer make a big issue of it. But I had a hearing problem and to process the customer I gave the store away before I left.

I have just finished reading the Bangkok reports thread but have only read a hanful of reports regarding just that. Instead I have read about fake boobs, the best malls in Bangkok, and the best food courts. I really like the general thread for it was designed just for that purpose, discussions about non mongering topics. For those who complain about the newbies posting questions instead of reading through the site, consider this. A newbie goes to the Bangkok reports thread to look for information on go go bars in Bangkok but has to read about fake boobs and the best shopping malls. Of course he will just post a question. Who wants to read through all the crap. The search function may yield one or two results but you still need to read through a bunch of crap to see the real posts with all their replies and comments. How to solve this problem?

[QUOTE=Bkkdog;1682903]I have just finished reading the Bangkok reports thread but have only read a hanful of reports regarding just that. Instead I have read about fake boobs, the best malls in Bangkok, and the best food courts. I really like the general thread for it was designed just for that purpose, discussions about non mongering topics. For those who complain about the newbies posting questions instead of reading through the site, consider this. A newbie goes to the Bangkok reports thread to look for information on go go bars in Bangkok but has to read about fake boobs and the best shopping malls. Of course he will just post a question. Who wants to read through all the crap. The search function may yield one or two results but you still need to read through a bunch of crap to see the real posts with all their replies and comments. How to solve this problem?[/QUOTE]You are very right man! Being an occasional follower of this thread for more than four years, while the thread has always been an updated source of valuable information, off-topic posts / discussions with so many replies has always been there and it kinda makes it a lot harder / more time-consuming to find what you are really looking for. And the fact that these off-topic discussions are often started and are usually answered / continued by senior members made me think that this is kinda tradition in this thread to talk about anything which might happened in Bangkok not only the mongering stuff.

[QUOTE=TwoTimeTed;1682330]When I got on the plane going to Thailand, I knew it was going to be bad. I was wrong, sort of. The total time was 23 hours from Las Vegas to Bangkok including changing planes and layover. Economy seating.

The flight from Vegas to SFO was easy and not bad its a short distance time wise about 1 and a half hours.

Then got on the plane from SFO to Haneda (Tokyo). Wow there was extra room, I had nobody sitting next to me, so I laid down to sleep / rest, grueling 10 hour flight I think it was. Then the layover in Tokyo of about 3-4 hours, again, not too bad of a wait, time to stretch the legs.

Then got on board to Bangkok and happened to get the seats right where economy starts, so had good leg room, wow, great luck, so then the 7 hour flight, a lot of Entourage catch up! Finally get to Bangkok at 5:30 am Bangkok time. Overall, I must have lucked out on the flights, I thought this was standard, I haven't been on a plane in years.

The way back to Vegas was the nightmare!.[/QUOTE]Maybe next time you can try this strategy. Just aim his air nozzle directly into his mouth. He will eventually wake up and probably close his mouth.

[QUOTE=TwoTimeTed;1682330]When I got on the plane going to Thailand, I knew it was going to be bad. I was wrong, sort of. The total time was 23 hours from Las Vegas to Bangkok including changing planes and layover. Economy seating.

The flight from Vegas to SFO was easy and not bad its a short distance time wise about 1 and a half hours.

Then got on the plane from SFO to Haneda (Tokyo). Wow there was extra room, I had nobody sitting next to me, so I laid down to sleep / rest, grueling 10 hour flight I think it was. Then the layover in Tokyo of about 3-4 hours, again, not too bad of a wait, time to stretch the legs.

Then got on board to Bangkok and happened to get the seats right where economy starts, so had good leg room, wow, great luck, so then the 7 hour flight, a lot of Entourage catch up! Finally get to Bangkok at 5:30 am Bangkok time. Overall, I must have lucked out on the flights, I thought this was standard, I haven't been on a plane in years.

The way back to Vegas was the nightmare!

Each of the legs of the journey was packed to the gills with people, flights were full!

From Bangkok to Japan, I got stuck in the absolute middle of the plane, cramped, I had several beers on board (Japanese flights, drink all you want complimentary). 3 hour layover in Japan. Had more beers at the airport.

Then got on the plane from Japan to Los Angeles and the nightmare continued. United computers went down, so held over for 1 hour on the tarmac. I got the window seat its 3 seats to the row, so after having many beers, I had to go to the bathroom several times, bothering the big fat couples that were next to me to get up and move out to the isle so I could go to the bathroom. My fluids were finally out and then decided I would only go to the bathroom when they got up to go. This is the 9 hour flight. Then the guy next to me is playing the arm chair game, hogging up my side of the arm rest, so I had to put my arm down and on the inside for most of the journey cause this guy would not budge. The guy then starts sleeping and snoring, his mouth is wide open and had a severe case of halitosis, I mean bad and was pointed my direction, smelt worse then some of the sewers in Bangkok. I never went to sleep, I put on the air vent above to clear the air but was cold for a long portion of time. The meals were something else as far as trying to eat while this guy was elbowing me.

Finally landed in L. A. But the 1 hour late caused me to miss my connecting flight to Vegas. 11 am. They tried to re-book me at 7:45 pm with United, WTF? So then they tried to book me with American at no charge. I went to American and they wanted an extra $25 baggage fee, I told them NO, I;m not paying that, I already paid my ticket in full and included the baggage. I go back to United they explained the baggage fee. I ended up not going with American and waited for the 7:45 pm flight, 8 HR layover. Got on board to Vegas, again packed, make it to Vegas at 9 pm, I miss the last free shuttle to my area of town and ended up taking a taxi to my house at the cost of $55 USD including the tip. Maybe I should have paid the American Airlines baggage fee of $25 USD after all.[/QUOTE]I feel your pain! When I used to go to Hawaii frequently it was the exact same thing. Moderately full flights outbound, but packed to the fucking rafters coming back. WTF? Don't they have the same number of flights in both directions?

You've succinctly described why I will no longer fly any domestic airline, except Southwest. Between the American Airlines prison matrons, err, flight attendants, the insane baggage fees, and sardine-like seating, flying has simply become a misery. Oh, and, like you, don't get me started on being wedged next to some lard-ass who should have been charged for two seats. Flying for 14 hours with a horde of Chinese has its drawbacks, but at least they tend to fit into the seats.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy Thailand?

[QUOTE=Phordphan;1682978]I feel your pain! When I used to go to Hawaii frequently it was the exact same thing. Moderately full flights outbound, but packed to the fucking rafters coming back. WTF? Don't they have the same number of flights in both directions?

You've succinctly described why I will no longer fly any domestic airline, except Southwest. Between the American Airlines prison matrons, err, flight attendants, the insane baggage fees, and sardine-like seating, flying has simply become a misery. Oh, and, like you, don't get me started on being wedged next to some lard-ass who should have been charged for two seats. Flying for 14 hours with a horde of Chinese has its drawbacks, but at least they tend to fit into the seats.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy Thailand?[/QUOTE]I spared you the real Gettysburg Address, but that's neither here nor there. I was not accustomed to so many women throwing themselves at me and getting catcalls from them instead of me to them. I was taken aback at the amount of women available, literally!

I do the mongering in Las Vegas but this was quite something else, as a famous Russian once said. "wadd'a country"!

I believe it's just way too hot, which makes it miserable. Bangkok is huge. Pattaya seems more my style. I don't know if I will come back, the weather sucks and that's the drawback for me. Maybe in my blue hair days should I live so long would I come back for a long extended stay.

But I have to admit, I'm in Las Vegas and kind of miss the women of Thailand and the good times I had there, a good reflection mixed with the heat.

One town's very like another.

When your head's down over your pieces, brother.

It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity.

To be looking at the board, not looking at the city.

[QUOTE=TwoTimeTed;1682330]
SNIP

Then got on board to Bangkok and happened to get the seats right where economy starts, so had good leg room, wow, great luck, so then the 7 hour flight, a lot of Entourage catch up! Finally get to Bangkok at 5:30 am Bangkok time. Overall, I must have lucked out on the flights, I thought this was standard, I haven't been on a plane in years.

SNIP

From Bangkok to Japan, I got stuck in the absolute middle of the plane, cramped, I had several beers on board (Japanese flights, drink all you want complimentary). 3 hour layover in Japan. Had more beers at the airport.

Then got on the plane from Japan to Los Angeles and the nightmare continued. United computers went down, so held over for 1 hour on the tarmac. I got the window seat its 3 seats to the row, so after having many beers, I had to go to the bathroom several times, bothering the big fat couples that were next to me to get up and move out to the isle so I could go to the bathroom.

SNIP
[/QUOTE]Didn't you select your seats on line before flying? Maybe you're not aware of web check-in including the possiblilty to select your seat since you haven't been on a plane in years.

And drinking a lot of alcohol is never a good idea on planes. The air in planes is very dry and drinking alcohol dehydrates you even more. But the choice is yours of course.

Has anyone had any experience or recommendations on fishing tours / guides for barramundi near Bangkok? I found several sites advertising tours, even Angel Massage on Soi 26.