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Landed last night from India. I’ll do an India post when I get home, covering the 4 cities there. Flew via Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways, both in business class. Could’ve stayed all SQ and arrived 2.5 hours earlier, but I’m leaning more toward Thai these days. The staff just feel warmer, more natural, and the catering actually has flavor. SQ has gotten Meh. Not bad, just boring. Thai’s seats and interiors are definitely showing their age (aren't we all)  but I’ll take better service, better food, and Thai culture any day👍 Arrived BKK 5 minutes early, Gate C8… and yeah, the walk. Just kept going. And going. And going. By the time I got to immigration, I was bracing for the usual mess, especially with  the changes to priority lanes, no Business class… and then: Empty. Not “a few people.” Empty.😳 In 27 years of coming here, I have never seen that. I had the immigration lady laughing so hard because neither of us could believe it. Wanted to take a photo just to prove it existed, but yeah… those “no photos” signs are everywhere, didn't want to ruin a good thing 😉 Hit the ATM, asked the guy to break some 1000 notes into smaller bills, he says he can only do one. I said, no no, it’s fine… you can do two. He did two.... Jedi mind tricks 😝 Luggage was out in about 30 minutes from door open to belt, thought it would be faster. The driver from Mike Taxi was waiting at Door 3 with my name. The walk from Exit B to Door 3 was another weird one… barely anyone around. Everything just felt weird/different. About 1.5 hours later, pulled into Pattaya and you could already see it: slow. Really slow. This was midnight on a Saturday and it looked like a Tuesday afternoon during low season. Checked into the Venue Hotel, unpacked, got myself together, and headed to Cocka 2. Opened a bottle, had a few drinks… but Bars closing early, low energy, barely any customers. Definitely quiet season right now. One of my regular “backup” guys hit me up on Grindr almost immediately. Said he’d be up until 4am, had zero customers all day, and hadn’t cum either… so he was motivated and horny, a good combination 🍆 (that means he was horny, not he has a big one, lol) And really, sometimes Plan B is the better plan anyway. There’s something to be said for familiarity. No explaining, no training session, he already knows what buttons to push...👉 Then I get a message from a guy I know from Soi 4 in BKK. Lost his job, needed help moving rooms. I told him, I don’t move furniture, not even for my best friends 😝. I knew what he was looking for $$$ But here’s the thing… I’ve known him for years. Never once asked me for anything. Actually he's gone out of his way for me plenty of times. We follow each other on social media, keep in touch. I was the one who reached out first to check on him after I saw his post about losing his job... He asked for 2000 baht. I told him the real proof I like him isn’t the money… it’s me going out in daylight, at the ungodly hour of 12pm, to a 7/11 to deposit it 🥺 Yes, I went outside at noon... I'll have to document this somewhere.... While I was out in that unnatural daylight, figured I’d try Sophia’s across from Dick’s. 100 baht for chicken basil with two fried eggs. Really good, and way better than Dick’s, by a mile.... And yes, that’s about 1.6 km for the non-Americans. Day 1. Slow city, empty airport, Plan B still reliable, and apparently I’m now the guy giving money and flying people between countries. Getting older… and clearly not getting smarter.... can't even follow my own advice, maybe I'll become a Top again 😳 Anyone in Pattaya who wants to meet me or avoid me , I’m heading to Bangkok Thursday. Bringing someone I met in Bali for a few days, WTF?  What could possibly go wrong.... 🤷‍♂️ I’ll get to that Bali post eventually  🤞

Flying Air France, Birmingham UK to BKK in June on a ticket bought in January, so covered by EU/UK compensation rules.  From what I have read this means that they can not add a fuel surcharge and if they cancel the flight with less than 14 days notice from the departure date they have to pay compensation of £520 plus I have the option to request a reroute rather than a refund.   Also Air France seem to have increased capacity on routes to Bangkok so I take that as a positive sign my flights should be ok, but as said above if they can not guarantee the return flight they will cancel due to the high costs of having to pay for hotels, food, compensation etc.   So if you fly from Europe / UK you seem to have reasonible protections and rights compared to other parts of the world.

Not odd at all. In Japan people believe that you get what you pay for. The thinking is, if it's cheap the quality is poor. It's why brands like Louis Vuitton and Gucci sell so well in Japan. Alcohol is ridiculously cheap in Japan. Suntory Old (daruma) whisky costs 1900 yen (A$16.50) in Japan. In Australia the same whisky is A$109.

It may well be. I did include links which I think mentioned this fact and presumably some reasoning. It's just that I know little about the luxury market. I have foreign friends who bought an apartment in the tall Sukhothai Residences (across from the now dead Babylon) about a dozen years ago when real estate in that particular property was the most expensive in the city. Much more recently the far smaller building on the left at the top of Witthayu One 89 Wireless was regarded as the most expensive with prices for ultra luxury apartments selling at around Bt. 500,000 per sq.m. This now appears to have been equalled and in some units overtaken by Scope Langsuan. Look at any site dealing with Bangkok luxury apartments and you see that many have been and are still being contructed and sold with prices in the Bt. 250,000 - 300,000 per sq.m. range. I suspect many are snapped up by Chinese, Russian and other mega rich in countries where they might wish to hide their wealth. Some of these will no doubt be the people targetted by the ultra-expensive Thailand Privilege Visas. https://bangkokresidential.com/bangkoks-12-best-luxury-condo-developments-in-2025