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Yep. I like eating at Maxis to watch the boys across the soi at Bangkok Massage and the gogo next door. Also eating or having a drink at Dick's is good for flirting with the boys next door at Bonny Massage and the boys across the street at the massage place/pool hall.

I honestly don't remember. It was a few years ago.

I think it very difficult to judge just by looking at a guy who will give a good massage. One of the first massages I had in Thailand was at Adonis several years ago. Skinny young guy who damn near killed me because his pressure was soooo hard. My calves were sore for days. One of the best massages I ever had was an older guy at Fan Club. Handsome enough. Looked mid 30s so he was probably 50. (Just kidding) Very strong arms but lean waist. Fantastic technique. Not my usual type at all but tons of fun. I even tipped him extra because I enjoyed it so much.

Yeah, Canada has given me a hard time over the years as well. It's like they don't believe anyone would want to visit their country on holiday.

I read some analysis in either the Bangkok Post or The Nation the other day that indicated the banking expert interviewed suggested 33 or 34 were likely to be hit within the next few months.

A lot of Thai music videos come with a karaoke track that is Romanized. Some of them also have an annoying melody track added in though too. You might want to just poke around YouTube searching for Thai MV. I noticed a link to a playlist some one set up called country MV 2013 that you might want to take a look through. My own taste runs more to Thai indie/rock bands (moderndog, etc) so most likely not what you are looking for. I spend a couple of hours when I am at work each day listening to Thai radio online. I use an app called TuneIn radio but there are many others out there. You can search for stations in a number of ways including by country. I usually listen to Fat Radio (104.5) but there are others when their stream is not working well.

Actually US economic growth has been revised upward for much of the year, meaning stronger growth than originally thought. Now that people are finally starting to focus on the gigantic gap between the top and everyone else it will be interesting to see if anything gets done about it. But apparently the Fed's announcement during the week that they would consider slowing down QE helped boost the USD. All of the emerging market currencies took a hit. I have a fair bit invested in SE Asian market indexes (and some other emereging market funds) and they have all really been slumping. But they are long-term investments so hopefully 20 years from now they will be booming.

Get Global Entry and you don't have to deal with any of the officers at arrival. You do have to go through a background check and perfunctory interview to get the status. It also gets you a "trusted traveler" number which should get you Precheck through security at U.S. airports. I returned through JFK (terminal 4) last month and there were plenty of Global Entry kiosks open. Was through to baggage claim in about a minute. (But there were also no lines at the regular immigration either so I am sure most of those folks got through fast). You get a little receipt from the kiosk that you hand to the customs officer and they basically wave you through.

Minimum Connect Time at NRT is actually only 45 minutes for this connection. But that assumes everything is on time. I flew via NRT a couple of years ago in F. It was a TG to UA connection. I was met at the end of the jetway by an ANA rep who walked me through security to my gate. Boarding was already nearly complete by the time I got there. I think it was supposed to be about 50 or 55 minutes connection time but we were late departing BKK and I was freaking out a little bit. It certainly helped that I was flying up front and the agent could radio ahead to let them know we were on our way. My bag made it no problem. Since you're flying in economy I would try to get a seat as close to the front as you can and let the crew know you have a short connection. They may let you get off right after business class. I would maybe also check TG's schedule and see if they have any flights that have a bit better connection. Since it's all Star Alliance they should be able to book you with them instead.

I always try to arrive in Asia in the late evening so that I can just go to the hotel and go to bed. That way I get onto the new time pretty quickly without much jetlag. For me the problem is that once you've flown "up front" it's nearly impossible to go to the back of the bus again. I've been using miles to get to Asia for the last several years. I just booked next year's trip using the rest of my UA miles and a big chunk of AA miles. I've still got enough US miles in the bank that I should be able to book one more F class trip for 2015 once the merger is finalized as long as the new AA doesn't really devalue their miles. After that I'll be at near zero unless some mileage windfall comes along in the meantime. It was all a fun game while it lasted. I'll probably end up going to Europe more instead of Asia since the flights are so much shorter that even if I have to fly in the back I will be able to survive it.

Theoretically they could also book you on TG from NRT instead of NH for people flying on the BKK. With all of their unfriendly changes I am glad I spent all of my miles. Now I need to figure out what my strategy will be going forward as far as picking a plan to collect miles in. None of them is probably all that great these days.

Maybe they will finally get their act together eventually. But I never use MRT. The only time I ever did was when I stayed at the Sukhothai Hotel. I just use BTS. But I agree the card would be more useful if you could use it for more things. The one in Taiwan is good for all transport in Taipei, 7-Eleven, Family Mart, and I think even things like McDonald's. I used it on the local trains in Tainan. It was great and should be a model for everyone else.

I got a Rabbit card last year. I prefer a stored value card so that I don't have to fool around with getting change or standing in line at the ticket machine. You don't need to attach it to a day pass type of thing. It just deducts each trip's cost as you go. Topping up is easy but I think the minimum amount to add is 100 baht. I'm just used to using that sort of thing here at home. I also have one from Taipei. Picked one up in HK last year for their system too even though I don't really intend to return. They don't cost much money. I suppose if you are pinching every penny you might not want to get one. But I like them.

That does seem like a lot of miles. I just booked a saver award to SE Asia for 70K miles in F ... DPS-SIN-NRT-IAD. Looks like MrBill booked a business class standard award which is 150k one way! AA awards are even cheaper 67,500 miles one way in F to SE Asia but they have more restrictive routing rules (you can only go trans pacific for example while UA/Star Alliance allows routing via Europe).

Great report. I've always been intrigued by Banana Club but have never stopped inside. You're almost the second coming of ShamelessMack ... I still really miss his blog.

So, I was looking through the few old threads here. I am trying to figure out my plans for next year. With all of the airlines devaluing their miles I am thinking I need to plan something soon for autumn next year. I haven't done too much research yet, but it sounds like there are some pretty gay places in Seminyak...including a number of "clothing optional" resorts which always scare me a bit. I stayed at a clothing optional place in Key West many years ago which was a little scary. I'm not much of a beach person so I will be looking for historic and cultural type of activities during the day. I know Pong made some interesting posts in the other threads that took a bit of deciphering. :-) But anyone been over to Bali or other parts of the country lately?

It's funny you should mention this. One extraordinarily odd trend I noticed was the number of boys wearing comically oversized eyeglass frames with no lenses. Some strange fashion thing that made no sense to me. But they sure are cute!

It's been my experience that any time you change currency with one of the banks before you leave you get a terrible rate. I have gotten baht from BoA in the past, but the rate is not very good. You can always check on their website to see what kind of rate they are offering before you complete a transaction. It's much better to just wait and get some money from an ATM once you arrive. The airport has many ATMs.

Be prepared for some headaches on your return through PEK. Of course all flights to the USA are a total PITA these days with all of the extra security theater hoops you have to jump through. My PEK-IAD flight last year was a mess. They required you to get another boarding pass at the gate even if you already had one (something I didn't find out until I got to the head of the boarding line). And then they search everyone another time on the jetway before you get on the plane. Lots of people had their water confiscated at that point leading to plenty of very unhappy people. Transfer security at PEK on that transit also required that everyone remove every single electronic device/item from their carry on bag. So the line took forever. And since I was traveling with a lot of photography equipment, laptop, etc I had to essentially empty my bag. It was even worse than TSA madness in the US. I will avoid PEK in the future as a result of that unpleasant experience. I never had a major issue going through NRT though.

For sure UA's rise in partner award mileage requirements is a big blow. It was fun while it lasted has been my general attitude. Not sure what I will do from now on either. Once the AA/US merger happens I will have a boatload of AA miles so I will be able to squeeze some Oneworld flights out...until AA devalues their chart too.

Not necessarily. Depending on your origin you could fly UA to PEK for example. Plenty of Star Alliance options though so you can avoid UA altogether (which I recommend) unless you've got status on UA for upgrades. Don't they also fly to PVG? You can fly EVA to Taipei and connect there to either EVA or THAI. UA will also start flying to TPE from SFO on April 1, so maybe that's the switch. You can go via Seoul with a variety of options. SIN as well. Or you can go via Europe.

It's messed up for me too

And here are the rest. Some better setting sun lighting...

OK. Here are a few pictures. I will work on the rest tomorrow.

The drumming seemed to have little rhyme or reason to it. Lots of variation. But the paddling didn't appear to have much to do with the drumming. Maybe to the trained ear it makes a difference.