macaroni21

Regarding USD and Riels, that's what I've been saying since the beginning of this year. There's no need to bring any USD when travelling to Cambodia; it's more hassle than it's worth. Just bring credit/debit cards and if you're travelling from Thailand, whatever baht you have (they will exchange baht at money changers). I can't recall if @jimmie50 explained what's needed to open a local bank account in Cambodia (one has to have residency status, like the rules in Thailand?) but for the occasional short-tripper to Cambodia is this not practical. Just withdraw Riels from ATMs. I'm surprised too that @vinapu seemed to be fretting about spending his last Riel before he leaves Cambodia. This may be important for someone who has no plans to return in the near future, but for someone like him who is likely to return by 2032 at the latest, what does it matter if you have unspent 400,000 or 600,000 Riels at the end of a trip? That's 100 USD/150 USD. Just keep the Riels till the next trip. It's not that big a sum of money to leave unused even if for whatever reason one is unable to make a new trip to Cambodia -- not when compared to the total spend for a trip across the Pacific.

@vinapu Wait... let me be sure I understand this: you carried your "lost" wallet in your trousers all the way to Thailand and Cambodia without knowing it? Only to discover it after returning home? This has to be a story for the grandchildren! But thanks for the trip reports; always enjoyable. Your exploration of new hotels is especially useful.

Lovely pics.

Before the Koreans switched their writing system to Hangeul, that liquor we're talking about was also written as 燒酒 @daydreamer I'm not saying that they are identical; I'm saying they appear to have similar roots. No doubt over the centuries, the product and processes would have evolved differently and multiple variations may have arisen. Like so many foods and drinks, there can be endless debate about whether two items are in the same category or belong in different categories. e.g. debating whether goulash as commonly served in the US is the same as goulash served in Hungary, or whether the suki we see in Thai restuarants are equivalent to hotpot in Taiwan and China.

17 visits to late-night/early-morning venues! @colmx are you trying to dethrone @floridarob from his vampire crown? 😆

I think you're reading too much significance into how the names Soju and Shochu are spelt in the English transliterations. Remember, these are Korean/Japanese words, properly written in Korean and Japanese script, not English alphabet. From the information presented by members above, it seems to me to be a group of liquors with a similar origin, but many variations. Some variations developed only in one country, other variations are common to both. As for the difference in how they are consumed or mixed, this is a cultural thing; like how @jimmie50 observed that Cam and his local friends put ice in their beer. That practice doesn't change the product, it is still beer. (I have also seen Chinese put ice in Cognac.) The same discussion could be had, for example, about whether Scottish whisky, Tenessee whiskey (note spelling) and Japanese whisky are the same product or different products. Even if one argues that they are different products, it remains true that they have common origins. It would seem strange to us if people debated whether ウィスキー and 위스키 are the same product simply because they are written differently.

This was how Patpong Night Market looked at 20:10h (peak dinner time?) on a Sunday evening (18 October). Although the canopy had been put up, it wasn't raining. By the way, I was unable to upload the pic when it was a jpg. Then I wondered whether it would make any difference if I changed the file format, so I changed it to .png. Uploaded like a breeze.

Ah! I stand corrected.

Thus plummets gin & tonic sales.

Might be worth a try next time. The reception guy, accompanying the Grindr date up to the room, might get the message and be persuaded to make it a threesome.

Women in a men's brothel and working security? That would be a huge turn-off for many customers, especially of an older generation. What is the management thinking?

Oh my, there's so much to catch up on in the above posts. A small thought occurred to me as I read one of the earlier posts (now quite far back). When Cam speaks of his dream of having a barber shop, does he mean a men's barber shop or a ladies' hair salon? I had a flashback from many years back when I was, one late afternoon, going with a new acquaintance back to my hotel from Dongtan Beach. A farang stopped me and showed me on a piece of paper a name in Thai and English of a laundry shop and said his wife (?) asked him to go there to pick up their laundry. Did I know where the shop was? Of course I didn't; I was a tourist too. But new acquaintance, a resident of Pattaya, recognised the name and, pointing to a soi not too far away, said it would be there and next to a "cut hair shop" which I translated to the farang as a barbershop. Five minutes later, we were still on Thappraya Road waiting for a songtaew and we saw him again, or rather he saw us again. He said he still couldn't find the laundry shop because there was no barbershop in that soi. New friend and I decided to help him out. New friend was sure he was right. We walked with hen-packed farang back into the soi, and sure enough we found the laundry shop. It had a Thai name but no English name on its front. And right next door to it was a ladies hair salon.

Just a word of thanks to @bkkmfj2648 for these updates. Very useful for planning ahead.

Do you see a lot of Russians on the apps while in Goa? I heard this from a friend who was there a few years ago. Apparently Russians like to spend winter in Goa, the same way they go to Pattaya. Speaking of which... we haven't heard from @Moses for some time. Hope he hasn't been drafted 😮 (sorry Moses, just a joke I couldn't resist)

Is the total distance of 1 + 2 + 3 in the upper picture shorter compared to the lower picture?

It depends on the airport, and my one experience hailing a Grab from Suvarnabhumi has led me to place BKK's in the lower (not good) tier. The experience was as you described -- crowds, confusion, poor visibility of car plate numbers... It's a common problem in many airports. My guess is that the local taxi mafia are doing their best to block ride-hailing and as a result airport operators dare not improve provision for kerb-side pickup. @captainmick 's description of the taxi service is accurate. Bangkok has improved it by leaps and bounds from the old days when it was prone to scams. That said, I am mostly in the @vinapu league, usually taking the pauper Airport Railway (ARL) train (that one time when I hailed a Grab was because I was travelling with someone to a conference). State Railway of Thailand has taken over the operations of the ARL, and on my most recent trip, the train carriage I was travelling on looked like it had been refurbished. The ride was also quieter than before (maybe the clankering wheels had been replaced). Now one can even tap a chip-enabled credit/debit card at the turnstyle; no need to queue up to buy 45-baht tokens.

So... taking off from your last mention of Indian guys.... are these guys smooth? 😅

Outcall was exactly what I suggested to my friend. However, I also understand that he's had a bad experience before (not in Bali) when things were stolen from his room. What about Teman? I went there before and my recollection (which could be wrong) was that the room was behind the reception on the same ground floor. My photo of Teman Spa (https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2023/02/28/temans-pricing-got-me-scratching-my-head/) shows a one-storey building. Were you at the same location, or have they moved?

@daydreamer Thanks for that link to the Dept of Transportation. That's progress! Other sectors of commerce could do well to replicate that. I recall that 2 years ago when I was last in the US, I was shocked that the sticker price on retail items (I think Walgreens was where I first noticed it) did not include tax. It was only when my items were toted up at the cash register did tax get added and I was presented with a total bill noticeably higher than a simple aggregate of the prices I had seen on the stickers. As a foreigner, I was taken aback and had to ask why I was being charged differently. The sales clerk did not take well to my innocent question -- but that's a separate issue. Not displaying a full price would be illegal in my country, and I think most other countries in Asia. Certainly we don't see this in Thai and Japanese stores. My point is this: Because of this commercial practice, Americans are more tolerant of what I call unstated itsy-bitsy pricing than other nationalities. Tip expectations is one of those itsy-bitsy things. So in this thread, when people express a certain resistance to tipping for big cock groping or tipping in general, we have to understand the cultural-commercial background they're coming from.

@jason1975 Aren't you the kind who prefers to open a bottle of whiskey? I'm surprised you're not recommending such a strategy 🙃in order to invite (well, maybe not as many as 10) four or five guys over for a mass job interview....

No one should be yelling you out. No one has any right to. The best part of this forum is the diversity in tastes and experiences; we get to see the same scene, whether Thailand, Japan, India or the Philippines, through different eyes.

Don't read too much into the use of the word "massage". In most shops, especially those in Saphan Khwai, the word means little more than foreplay. You can at any time indicate to the service provider that you want to skip the pretence and move on to romping. The reason the word "massage" is so much used, unlike Japan, is because of the regulatory climate. Business that are in the business of selling sex cannot say so openly (unlike Japan), so they use "massage" as euphemism.

Just a word of thanks to @Travelingguy for these useful reports. By chance, they're timely too. Last weekend, an old friend of mine was musing about making a visit to Bali and was asking me for updated information, which I don't have. Unfortunately, he's now also slightly mobility-impaired (we're all getting on in years); he can walk but more than a few steps (especially without handrails) and stairs will be a challenge. Do you recall which of the places you've mentioned required customers to go up a set of stairs?

What do FK and FS stand for?

Sorry for the long post. But I realise that @Primeone385 was making assumptions -- understandble since he has not been in Thailand before -- about equivalency between what he's familiar with and what we're talking about here. And these assumptions about equivalency may not be valid, as @a-447 and @spoon have also pointed out. So I had to first explain the many ways in which "gogo bars" in Thailand are different before going on, and on and on (haha).