ChristianPFC

The only problem I had was bad breath (of my Thai friends) from smoking, but the number is small. But I wish orthodontics (medical, not fashion) were more wide-spread, as I find it a turn-off when teeth are not in a row. Oh yeah, they go through a lot of mouthwash! Unfortunately, neither mouthwash nor chewing gum can hide the smell of a cigarette, and I am very sensitive to it! In Germany, health insurance requires you see a dentist once per year (otherwise, they don't refund dental treatment), which I do, even when abroad (England, France).

I have to confess, I am a bit curious about grindr. If given the chance, I would take a look on someone else's phone to see how it works. My current phone is about 7 years old and will last at least another 7 years (unless it breaks earlier). I am well served with gayromeo and camfrog.

There is some irony in the situation: people in poor countries live in poverty, but are dept-free. We live in wealth, but national dept per person is in the range of ten thousands of Euro / Dollar / Pound. Technically, we are the poor! (Assuming that the average European or US-American would have to sell all his possessions and work hard for years to pay his part of national dept.) Even stranger: I don't feel responsible at all for Germany's national dept. It has nothing to do with me. I never took any credit and my bank balance has always been positive. So count me out of paying Germany's national dept.

I just read last week's "Der Spiegel" (most popular German weekly magazine), and they don't ask if Greece has to leave the Euro zone, neithern when they have to leave the Euro zone, they have an article why Greece will have to leave the Euro zone! http://www.spiegel.d...ex-2012-20.html

I was aware of the two colors (silver and copper) and noticed markings on some coins, now I know the reason. I have to problem to distinguish 1, 2 and 5 baht coins. The only occasion where I got in contact with 25 and 50 Satang coins are a few bus lines that cost 6.75 Baht. There are too few 50 Baht notes around. I keep mine mainly for tipping boys and paying taxi from Sathorn to Silom, where the meter shows about 45 Baht.

For flights in Europe (England-Berlin in the past, Paris-Berlin now) I mostly use low-cost airlines and they are cheaper than standard airlines. Of course, you have to know what you are doing. I don't have check-in baggage and I check size and weight of my cabin baggage. I got away a few times with oversized and overweight cabin bagge, but recently I saw them checking size and weight and collecting money and issuing receipts. I don't add any insurance, no priority check in, and finally I try to find a website where I can pay by direct debit or other methods of payment other than credit card for free. Combining all this, I really get the price that is quoted at the very beginning, but it involves some experience and work!

Should I ever go to Burma, I will read your report carefully. Fountainhall mentioned a few points I thougth about before, but never expressed my thoughts. I have full page Thai tourist (from UK), Lao and Thai tourist (from Vientiane) visa, which are nice souvenirs, but cost a full page in my passport! There are six stamps per page (visa-exemption entry and departure) in my passport, eight would fit. In my passport, page 8 is still empty, whereas 9-13 have stamps or full-page visa. And one last thought: you are required to have your passport with you all the time in Thailand (ask two people and you get three opinions about that), and keeping it in your room might be ok, but can you tell a Thai police officer that your passport is in the Burma embassy and you will get it back in three days? What will they do with you? I was in a remotely similar situation in Lao, my passport was at the Thai embassy overnight and hotel required my passport, I didn't even have a copy, fortunately I checked in with a Farang aquaintance into a double room and shared the cost of the room, so he signed for the room with his name for both of us.

"(30 member(s) have cast votes)" but only 23 ticked the vote counter? I would classify the Korean pop star as twink, the first boy is rather femme. There were two similar polls on gaybuttonthai a while ago: http://gaybuttonthai....php?f=7&t=3997 http://gaybuttonthai....php?f=7&t=3470 but due to different options it's difficult to compare.

Not at all! In fact, I come to Thailand for holiday because it has a gay scene. But I do not really enjoy bars (gogo or host) and discos (music too loud, lighting is bad), I go there to hook up, so once I found someone, I leave these areas as quickly as possible. When I meet friends, I don't take them to gay areas, we go elsewhere (cinema, shopping, dining, sightseeing). I come for holiday, so I have to make the most of my time. I roughly manage (in Bangkok as well as Pattaya) an equilibrium between spending one night in gay bars/discos and meeting old friends the other night.

I don't like any tattoo. The kind in fountainhall's post is called "Arschgeweih" in German, "arse-antlers" in English.

Rhodochrosite managed to blow life into dying gaytingtong (I'm not sure if this is good or bad). I get headache after reading too many of his posts, but nobody is forced to do so. I like some of his pictures and the links to youtube he posts. I think he holds the record (by far) for the longes series of posts by one member.

I was quite surprised when I was in Laos in February 2011, I found out that trees (teak trees more precisely) shed their leaves during the dry season to reduce evaporation. The dry leaves are left on the ground and finally burned by the natives to give ashes used as fertilizer. For more information about flowers in Thailand, with botanical background, look here: http://www.orchids-flowers.com/ (As far as I know, they are based in Chiang Mai.)

It is much easier to access from the back entrance of the hotel, where "exit to soi" is written on the map. For a report from my visit there see http://gaybuttonthai.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4268&p=42452

I don't pay much attention to airports, I wouldn't know how to rate them. The only thing I can add that it's quite far from Charles de Gaulle railway station to terminal (the one the railway station is for), it takes more than 15 minutes.

The avatars should be kept for banned posters. It is much faster for me to connect a post to an avatar than having to read the user name.

I never encountered 3Q anywhere, but I will keep it in mind. As pong posted on another board, 888888 is a based on the similarity of the Thai words pet (spicy/hot food) and bped (eight), so 888 means something is hot-hot-hot.

They are rising their left arm instead of the right arm, so technically this is no proper Hitler salute! (Rising the left arm was only acceptable if your right arm was wounded.)

After reading your post, the comments and then your post again I got it. I had several expamples, but can't think of any at the moment. In Thai, the number 8 is used to express appreciation. In camfrog, if someone likes the song that is currently playing, he writes 88888888888888. (I asked several people why it is 8, nobody could explain. Whereas 555 hahaha is well known.)

You will be even more shocked to learn that concentration camps were invented by the British during the Second Boer War 1899-1902. The British Empire led a war of conquest against the Boer republics (descendents of Dutch settlers in South Africa) to gain access to the gold and diamond under their (the Boer's) soil and to get a colonial empire from Kap to Kairo. It didn't run well for the British, so they decided to put all the civilians, women, children, old into concentration camps and let them starve or die of diseases. It worked well, the Boers finally gave up fighting. http://en.wikipedia....Second_Boer_War But back to the subject. In an opening scene in the movie "300" (about the fight between Spartans and Persians) they show how new born Spartan babies are examined and thrown down a cliff if they appear weak or ill. I don't know if this has any historical background. There is Thallasemia, a hereditary disease that is/was spread around the mediterranean sea, in areas where Malaria was rife. Those who carry it are partially protected from Malaria, but suffer from other ailments. http://en.wikipedia....iki/Thallasemia says: Read between the lines: they aborted children if they detected the disease in the foetus and got close to eradicating thallasemia! I'm in favor of this policy: abort children if you can detect a disease in the foetus and make a new one (and hope it's healthy)! Eradicating a disease has never been so easy. (Disclaimer: I'm not a specialist on any of the subjects I wrote about. Please allow minor inaccuracies.)

ChristianPFC likes kokopelli's post. (Continued in "Brainteazer".) I have no sexual interest in White men, so I wouldn't visit any gogo bar that's not in Far-East Asia.

Why can't they get over it? Nowadays, children disguise for carnival as pirates or cowboys and Indians (native north americans). Nobody complains, but at their time pirates were the scourge of mankind and during the colonization of north America, the Indians were partially eradicated (oxymoron?). Now the situation is the following: the second world war and the holocaust is a good subject for movies; German civilans, refugees and prisoners of war who died during allied bombings is not. On the other hand, nobody would wear a KZ-uniform for fun because it doesn't look fashionable. However, Nazi uniforms and flags seem to have an aesthetic appeal for many people. Just admit it: the Nazis had a sense for design!

Some months ago, I found this text somewhere on the internet and kept it because I found it interesting how you can substitute Latin letters for similar looking Greek or Cyrillic letters: And then there is this picture: And let's not forget some of LMTU's and pong's posts. There is a lot of CHitchat on this forum that is a bit sense-less to me also. Often I cannot fig what posters are say-ing; some spk and wrt in cryptic terms. Urbandictionary says: http://www.urbandict...term=txt+talker

Poly means many, so a polyglott is someone who speaks more than two languages (someone who speaks two languages would be biglott). If you attend a grammar school in Germany, two foreign languages are compulsory: English and French/Russian/Spanish/Latin/others. After leaving school, however, most people quickly forget the second foreign language and maintain only a basic level of English. From my own observations, I estimate it took me between 10,000 and 20,000 hours to reach my current level of fluency in English (this time includes watching TV and reading books in English).

5 Baht money (i.e. 500 Satang) or 5 Baht gold (One baht = 15.244 grams)? There are collections of translated Thai idioms no the web, e.g. here: http://rhtaller.pagesperso-orange.fr/abcSpruecheThai.doc (in Thai - English - German), and as my Thai progresses I will sometime take a closer look at these.

Thai boys and money (I was looking for a post by fountainhall about a Thai friend who disappeared after borrowing a negligable (by European standards) amount of money. Where is that post? Here a similar story.) In December 2011, I met a student a few times and he asked for reasonable amounts of money (e.g. 500 THB for taxi, 500 THB for registering at the university) most times. There were problems with setting up a date (it always took several calls and confusion with time of departure and time of arrival), but he is cute and the sex was good. His English is limited, so we have to speak (and write) in Thai which is an added bonus. We met a few times in December, he assured me that he does not intend to borrow a total of more than 2,000 Baht and that he would pay back in January, after receiving payment for December for his part-time job. I know that borrowed money is highly unlikely to be returned, so I consider it a gift and don’t talk about it. Over New Year’s Eve, I stay in Pattaya and in January, back in Bangkok, I call him to meet again. He does not come and two hours after our appointment I can finally reach him on the phone: he cannot come. I know that such behaviour is absolutely acceptable by Thai standards, that’s why I always have an alternative plan for the evening. Before leaving Thailand, I try to call him again to say goodbye: no connection under this number. The same from Europe, so I assume he changed his phone number. All information I have is his nickname, home province, age, student at Ramkhamhaeng, camfrog profile (which doesn’t exist as I found out now), email (for facebook and MSN, but the email doesn’t work). Do you think he changed phone number because he doesn’t want me to contact him any more because he cannot pay the money back? This would be especially sad as the amount is negligible, even by my standards, and I never mentioned paying back. Why do boys change their phone numbers? Happens from time to time. What other information do you collect from boys for contacting them? Any similar stories about boys who interrupt contact in order to escape dept? Two more stories that fit the subject. In 2010, I was staying with a Thai friend (waiter in gay bar in Silom area) for a week while I was looking for accomodation for 3 months in Bangkok. Valuable insight into the lifestyle. As he works at night, he gets up about 4 pm and to bed starting from 2 am. I cannot sleep if a fan or a TV or anything else that makes noise, light or wind is on. I still fail to see the purpose of checking facebook on the mobile phone in the early morning. But back to the subject. It was the begin of the month, and a few days after I moved in the electricity was cut because he didn’t pay the rent. As the bathroom had no window, we used it with candles, but for shaving I went to the elevator, because the elevator has a mirror and light. With hindsight, I think he wanted me to pay the rent. But at that time, I didn’t see any connection between my presence and the rent. Anyway, he has a Farang boyfriend who sends money, which allows him to rent a room he couldn’t afford from his job. To tell the truth, it was nicer without electricity: no TV, no fan, no aircon. After a few days, he payed the rent and asked me for 500 Baht (that’s the fee for late payment), which I gave him. Then I moved into my own room in the same building. And nother story from January 2012: Some boys rent rooms by the day, which is more expensive than renting by the month. Last month, I had the chance to investigate this further. On the way to my hotel, I was approached by a gay Thai who had an interest in me. He invited me to his room, which was very close to my hotel. I had no sexual interest in him, but I never miss chance to see how people live. The room was pretty small, let’s say 15 sqm, no aircon, bathroom on the floor shared with others. For this he paid 200 Baht per day, which makes about 6,000 Baht per month. On leaving, my was crossed with a Farang aquaintance who lives there under the same conditions! For just 1000 Baht more he can get a serviced apartment with full furniture just around the corner! A year ago, I had a room 200 meters away. My room was about 30 sqm, had aircon and a bathroom and I paid 4,000 Baht per month. So my room was larger, nicer and cheaper. But there is a hook: a deposit of 8,000 Baht was required. So in conclusion, some of these boys manage to pay 200 Baht per day, but are unable to cough up a monthly rent of 4,000 Baht, leave alone a deposit of 8,000 Baht!