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Anyone think I will run into problems applying for a Vietnamese visa in Japan? As a U.S. passport holder? I'm in St. Petersburg right now and waiting until I get to Japan to apply for a Chinese visa because its too difficult here for a U.S. passport holder and I don't want to run into any same problems.
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Jun 11, 2012 20:37
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Oracle posted:That's just it: we never ate at any food stalls, mostly it was four star hotels and resorts that had that 'healthy food -- good taste' seal of approval. Btw, those good taste signs are everywhere even in the most sketchy roach infested moo-ka-ta grill joints. The Thai government started that campaign and basically every other place started throwing those signs up.
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Jun 11, 2012 21:05
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FWIW the stall food in Thailand never made me sick in the two years I lived there that I remember, but I did get sick once or twice eating probably old food from sit down chain type places.
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Jun 11, 2012 21:39
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Only time I've gotten sick in SE Asia in the ~10 months I've been here was when I ate some fish in the middle of nowhere Cambodia. We were many, many kilometers (on dirt roads) away from any body of water - that should've been a clue.
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Jun 11, 2012 21:59
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lol internet. posted:For the shits, would imodium be fine to bring alone? I know one time when I went my mom got some prescription from the doctor for shits. Not sure what exactly it was. Immodium just acts as a cork - and prevents the body from getting rid of the things it's trying to get rid of. It's great for short term use (there's nothing worse than boarding a bus or plane with a case of the squirts and not knowing when they'll call) but if it can be avoided, avoid it. Try charcoal tablets instead, or antibiotics for really severe cases. I travel with both Fasigyn and Noroxin, and they're fairly serious antibiotics that are not for a case of one or two emergency shits but for use after several days of emergency shits. How widely available are probiotics in Thailand? After destroying your gut flora with antibiotics it wouldn't hurt to put some of the good guys back in there. Edit: I've been sick twice, both in KL. The first time I flew from Koh Samui to Kuala Lumpur with friends, and we ate the same food at the same KL restaurant. The only thing I did differently was to drink some fruit juice from the lounge place at the airport. 4 days in bed and on the can. The second time I went out with a friend and some of his friends (all Malaysian) and we all got sick. The terrible doctor I saw diagnosed me with acute pharyngitis (no poo poo my throat was irritated, I'd been throwing up for three hours) and gave me some drugs but I have no idea if they helped. I'm not sure what I actually had, and I'm not sure if it was caused by dinner (we all ate different things at a food centre) or the beer we had afterwards. Maybe the beer lines were dirty, who knows. Kuala Lumpur 
Finch! fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Jun 12, 2012 |
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Jun 12, 2012 01:10
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Just got into bangkok early this morning. If anyone would like to get together for a beer or something holler at me.
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Jun 12, 2012 10:37
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I'll be flying into Vietnam so I know the visa wont be a problem there but I'll either be getting the bus or boat from HCM to Cambodia, would I run into any problems trying to get it at the border or should I just get the E-Visa? Wikitravel says it's only accepted at one crossing though so do any of the buses or boats take a different route or all go through there?
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Jun 13, 2012 05:32
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We went to Cambodia by bus (from HCMC to PP) and had E-Visas, did not run into any problems. One American girl had printed a color version of the visa, cut it and glued it on a page of her passport and she got refused entry until she could print a new copy and just hand them the sheet of paper. SE Asia bureaucracy!  So just do the Visas online and print them (B&W) and everything will be fine.
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Jun 13, 2012 06:07
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The eVisa site maintains a list of where it's accepted - it's most places these days, thought not all: http://www.mfaic.gov.kh/evisa/ The crossing at Chau Doc is the only one on there I think might affect you. I crossed there once about nine years ago (it's the boat trip) and it is pretty much a hut in the middle of nowhere, heh, so I can believe it. Well, it was a hut in the middle of nowhere then, can't say anymore I guess. (  eviljelly)
ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Jun 13, 2012 |
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Jun 13, 2012 07:14
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There are some South Asian folks living on the coast of Burma. They're also Muslim. A Burmese official famously referred to them as "a dark brown tribe that are as ugly as ogers." Maybe they've been burning villages of the more typically Burmese people around where they live. How is it that we're hearing about this? loving Twitter. http://www.salon.com/2012/06/11/twitter_rage_from_myanmar/ Edit: ~~««^^°° Mah Burmese tweets °°^^»»~~ raton fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Jun 13, 2012 |
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Jun 13, 2012 12:08
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Been in SE Asia and China for 4.5 months now and one of the key drugs to have (other than immodium) is Ciproflaxin. It treats travellers diarrhea and in my case I've gotten it many times in my opinion due to dehydration. So pick some up there at the pharmacy (it's dirt cheap) and take it every 12 hrs until you start pumping out solid shits again  PS I'll be finally wrapping up my trip from Jun 26-29 in BKK before Tokyo then back to van. If anyone there wants to grab a beer and swap stories let me know.
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Jun 13, 2012 13:14
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Sheep-Goats posted:There are some South Asian folks living on the coast of Burma. They're also Muslim. A Burmese official famously referred to them as "a dark brown tribe that are as ugly as ogers." Maybe they've been burning villages of the more typically Burmese people around where they live. How is it that we're hearing about this? That said, the Rohingya are loathed by everyone here and treated like dirt. That incident a few years ago where the Thai navy was caught by a tourist beating (killing?) a bunch of people on an island - that was Rohingya. They're sort of like the local Sea Roma. It's a pretty sad situation overall, though I honestly don't know if there's any valid historical reason for their treatment or if they're just poor victims of some kind of cultural hatred (e.g. they're so DARK and not our religion!!!).
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Jun 13, 2012 13:33
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It's already startin'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Rohingya_riots
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Jun 13, 2012 15:09
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Aliquid posted:It's already startin'. Yeah, it's gotten bad already. Still, right now the Rohingya are kind of a special case. If you see something like this happens with the Shan, Karen, Hmong, Chin or any of the more populous, native ethnic groups of Burma then that's when the poo poo's really hitting the fan. Those groups are large in number and, more importantly, they're local and they control important resources. The Rohingya are more like Gypsies that get kicked around between countries and who have no particular wealth or power or claim to any land, so while this sectarian violence is definitely troubling, it doesn't yet constitute a problem for Burma's sovereignty. In fact, when I think about it, it could serve to unite the usually fractious elements in Burma the way that most Thais of all persuasions - even Thai Muslims - tend to rally together against the Muslim separatists in the four Southern provinces here (of course many Thais do not rally around the egregious abuses of the Thai military that have occurred in combating the separatists - Tak Bai, for example). You've basically got these roving people from a different religion that everyone in the country (and the region) looks down on and now they're running around killing your Buddhist countrymen. That's the kind of thing that a country of fractious Buddhist ethnic groups can get together to agree on. It'd be a great pretext for some ethnic cleansing. The thing I can't figure out - and it appears no one can, yet - is why now? EDIT: Other than the obvious "because of the arrest" incident, which could have been a trigger, but must have ignited existing tensions. EDIT EDIT: Note that the ethnic cleansing comment was intended to be darkly sarcastic, not enthusiastic. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Jun 14, 2012 |
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Jun 14, 2012 00:30
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I totally agree, if the Shan in particular (who are already fairly autonomous) flex some muscle and get pushback, things could get bad in a hurry. They have standing militias and huuuuge amounts of very rugged local land they control.
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Jun 14, 2012 04:45
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Aliquid posted:I totally agree, if the Shan in particular (who are already fairly autonomous) flex some muscle and get pushback, things could get bad in a hurry. They have standing militias and huuuuge amounts of very rugged local land they control.
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Jun 14, 2012 06:58
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I heard Myanmar is a strong, harmonious union of happy, divese peoples who fervently wish to unite under the dedicated leadership of the army, c/d?
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Jun 14, 2012 07:06
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eviljelly posted:I heard Myanmar is a strong, harmonious union of happy, divese peoples who fervently wish to unite under the dedicated leadership of the army, c/d?
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Jun 14, 2012 07:15
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So any good drinking in Burma? Primarily looking for a hostel with young scandinavian chicks and something todo nearby, maybe something destructive like blowing up a cow for a 100 bucks. Any ideas?
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Jun 14, 2012 08:50
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Looks like you can blow up a Rohingya for free right now. A friend of mine just went on a trip and he said that the place is so packed with speculators that hotels are running $150 a night. I'm curious if there are any guesthouses or hostels that even have space, let alone charge backpacker rates, at the moment. This is in Yangon, I've no idea about the Chinese city of Mandalay or other environs.
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Jun 14, 2012 09:01
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I think I may be back in SEA for a few months towards the end of next year. I'm planning to finish up my contract in Japan then (if not then, the year afterwards), and have basically 6 months to kill before grad school starts. It'll probably boil down to 3-4 months in SEA between doing a last hurrah trip here, going home for a bit, and being responsible enough to establish a beachhead before the term starts. I'm really tempted to do my dream trip of buying a Minsk in Hanoi and riding it southwest until it either blows up or I run out of islands in Indonesia (or I get hit by a bus or something). Oracle posted:Thankfully SE Asian hospitals are amazingly cheap; the most expensive trip was 120US for an after hours emergency room visit and included IVs, medication and a trio of Thai nurses cooing over my oldest (lukkreung still wildly popular for those still on the fence about having kids. He couldn't walk down the loving street without people stopping us for pictures, no joke. Especially at the resort in Koh Chang, there was some high school trip there or something. Thai high school girls LOVED him. Grandpa started joking about charging them money for photos. I about had to drug the kid to get him on the plane back home, he wants to go back and live summers with agong and amah). FWIW I had a pretty negative experience at BKK International Hospital when I had dengue; ~$2300 for a week of what amounted to IV drips, terrible food, and a doctor who did his damndest to avoid answering any questions. They made a show of calling my insurance provider back in the States to see if I was in-network, said I wasn't, and to pay them on the spot and get reimbursed later. Turned out they were wrong and Blue Cross/Blue Shield fought me tooth and nail over the reimbursement, took months of arm-twisting to get my money (this happened when I was a junior in college, so I was hardly rolling in it). So yeah, gently caress Bangkok International. I've mentioned this once or twice before, but it bears repeating: if you want to cross your t's and dot your i's before you go, call up your health insurance provider and find out what, if any, medical centers in the countries you're going to be visiting are in-network.
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Jun 14, 2012 10:21
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Yeah we went to St. Louis hospital and uh... the one up in the northwestish area on the friendship highway whose name utterly escapes me. Still, 2300 dollars for a week long hospital stay? Dude. Still mind-bogglingly cheap compared to here and now.
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Jun 14, 2012 17:15
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I think I may be back in SEA for a few months towards the end of next year. I'm planning to finish up my contract in Japan then (if not then, the year afterwards), and have basically 6 months to kill before grad school starts. It'll probably boil down to 3-4 months in SEA between doing a last hurrah trip here, going home for a bit, and being responsible enough to establish a beachhead before the term starts. I'm really tempted to do my dream trip of buying a Minsk in Hanoi and riding it southwest until it either blows up or I run out of islands in Indonesia (or I get hit by a bus or something). MR RHOMBUS MINGSK MAN. BKK in 2013 April\May.
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Jun 14, 2012 17:25
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ReindeerF posted:That said, the Rohingya are loathed by everyone here and treated like dirt. That incident a few years ago where the Thai navy was caught by a tourist beating (killing?) a bunch of people on an island - that was Rohingya. They're sort of like the local Sea Roma. It's a pretty sad situation overall, though I honestly don't know if there's any valid historical reason for their treatment or if they're just poor victims of some kind of cultural hatred (e.g. they're so DARK and not our religion!!!). I think I saw a negrito once years ago on a longtail but before I could take a pic they motored off into the sunset or it could have just been a really dark skinned sea Thai person. Dude had kinky hair and everything. Modus Operandi fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Jun 15, 2012 |
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Jun 15, 2012 05:38
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHkwKHM9mCo He got 2.5 years. 
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Jun 15, 2012 05:57
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ReindeerF posted:You and I and Modus and Pompous should start a SE Asia Megathread in D&D. Granted, we'd be the only people posting, but it'd be interesting. If you made a SEA thread that'd be great. Also, i've flirted with the idea of a SE Asia political podcast covering the regional events concerning Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The problem is how to structure such a thing where you can have panel like discussions with knowledgeable guests similar to Sinica without getting put on a blacklist or going to jail. On the other hand if it's watered down it'll end up being typical drunken expat ramblings. I think Thailand is even touchier than China concerning certain things.
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Jun 15, 2012 06:53
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Modus Operandi posted:I asked some Thai people about this before and they consider them squatters. Thais often have the same view of various hill tribes. It's kind of sad because people with the dark skinned mixed australoid ancestry have probably been around in "Thailand" much longer than even what we know as "Thai" people which are really just an ancient mix of the O.G. Khmer and Southern chinese. With the people of Rohingya the history is unclear though because they are supposedly descendants of arabs but yet they are extremely dark like other australoids. I think they are most likely a long standing ancient ethnic mix and I really doubt a bunch of shipwrecked merchant arabs would have sat around forming their own subsistence level sea community apart from the regional kingdoms. So a lot of that part of their history is probably myth. Speaking of which have you ever seen a bonafide SEA negrito person before? It's a little like spotting a unicorn. Modus Operandi posted:If you made a SEA thread that'd be great. I agree with you about China. Thailand's still feudal from soup to nuts while China's a technocratic kleptocracy, which probably accounts for a lot of the difference. I can't talk much more without sounding to non-residents like an insane bigot, but let's say that there's been a very successful pecking order in place here for hundreds of years and then over the last fifty years a group of immigrants, kicked out of, or marginalized in almost every other country in the region, were left unfettered here and have figured out how to glom on to that pecking order to extract an increasing amount of wealth. You live up where I do, so you're seeing this in action still at its most obvious level. All those new mu baans and condos between the river and Ratchapruek, you go talk to the owners who still live next to them and they have pretty much the same story. "Yeah, our family used to own the land from here to [points to very distant point], but after the parents died the brothers and sisters sold some of it and now the kids are selling the rest. They live in condos in the city." Several of my wealthier, educated friends here have told me that's common and rampant everywhere, that their classmates are basically selling off their inheritance (land, properties, etc) to buy fancy cars and condos and iPhones. Meanwhile, there are two groups buying all that stuff and the Indians are the smaller of the two, heh. You almost can't write about any of that without sounding like Mahathir, but that's pretty much what's happening and it's exactly what's behind all of this color war succession controversy. Of course without the group that's taken over the country, and without American money from the Vietnam era, this place would be like a high functioning Laos at the moment, so it's not like I'm making the Bumiputra argument that Mahathir makes. I'm intertwined with a Thai-Chinese family, I know the debate from both sides, I just worry about what will happen in any society when a minority group gains all the wealth AND all the power and doesn't carry it with a massive amount of humility and noblesse oblige (which is the opposite of how the upper class acts in this country). There's pretty much only one way that ends up and it's not with everyone hugging and singing kum bah yah. See, that right there is something we couldn't discuss on a podcast, even if it were you disagreeing with me. Hell, they were ready to club Lady Gaga for pointing out that Patpong sells fake watches, heh. EDIT: It's probably worth pointing out that generations of intermarriage have muddied all this quite a bit and it's not like things shake out along such clear lines as they have in places like Malaysia and Indonesia, but while people get up in arms about being pointed out as part of a specific group when it's controversial, they're sure very loud about their background socially and when it's not controversial - always sure to let you know that they're part of a hyphenated group, heh. It's like being around a bunch of wealthy socialites back home in Red America. Publicly: I'm not rich! Privately: Well, honey, my mother was in the Junior League, her mother was in the Junior League and so on - let me tell you about the recipe she put in the 1943 cookbook... ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Jun 15, 2012 |
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Jun 15, 2012 07:37
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On a separate note, I can't figure out how to structure a SE Asia Megathread. I don't have the time, education or inclination to write an OP matching that in the China thread. Probably just start with a few regional articles and let discussion ensue (largely about Burma and Thailand, I assume). Any thoughts?
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Jun 15, 2012 08:06
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ReindeerF posted:Ditto, yeah, I thought about it too, but the list of poo poo you'd have to avoid is massive and I don't want any local attention for anything related to airing my opinions publicly. "So, let's discuss what's going on this week with the reconciliation bill. BLEEEEP BLEEEEEEP BEEEEEP and then his majesty BLEEEP BLEEEP." It would make for some truly hilarious interviews though. quote:EDIT: It's probably worth pointing out that generations of intermarriage have muddied all this quite a bit and it's not like things shake out along such clear lines as they have in places like Malaysia and Indonesia, but while people get up in arms about being pointed out as part of a specific group when it's controversial, they're sure very loud about their background socially and when it's not controversial - always sure to let you know that they're part of a hyphenated group, heh.
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Jun 15, 2012 08:11
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ReindeerF posted:On a separate note, I can't figure out how to structure a SE Asia Megathread. I don't have the time, education or inclination to write an OP matching that in the China thread. Probably just start with a few regional articles and let discussion ensue (largely about Burma and Thailand, I assume). Any thoughts?
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Jun 15, 2012 08:16
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Modus Operandi posted:It would make for some truly hilarious interviews though. Modus Operandi posted:I've always wondered why Chinese malaysians never intermarried more with the muslim malays. I'd assume there had to have been a modest number who did convert to islam after awhile. I don't see Malay society as being more or less resistant to the SEA feudal color caste either. So why didn't a lighter skinned ethnic Chinese "Hui" looking islamic population come into positions of power and economic influence? EDIT: Of course the Chinoys are effectively kept down a bit too, but I think that's more to do with the cartel of powerful Spanish families that run the place preserving their monopoly than it is to do with any ethnic movement (though Pinoys don't seem to make any distinction, largely favoring Spanish appearance the way Thais fawn over North Asian physical qualities). ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Jun 15, 2012 |
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Jun 15, 2012 08:17
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ReindeerF posted:Heh. Imagine what the interview with Andrew M4rsh411 would sound like. BLEEP BURGER KING BLEEP FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR BLEEP DISNEYLAND BLEEP BLEEP BLEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP quote:I assume that means that the Malay married into the Chinese family and not the other way around. Still, the way that country developed with all the sultanates and then colonialism is so completely different than Buddhist SE Asia that it's difficult to know what the cause was - and I'm certainly not an expert. Even here, though, you hear stories about marriages into Muslim families being difficult (and I don't just mean on ThaiVisa lol). Ethnic Chinese are patriarchal too but tend to be very strategically pragmatic about forming economic and political alliances with marriage. It seems like with the whole sharia and islam honor bound thing that Muslim Malays were less likely to let their daughters integrate in with Chinese Malays. The Chinese son in law would have to convert immediately to even be afforded any half-way amount of respect or be allowed to do that to begin with. So the other option is marrying out ethnic Chinese women from wealthy families into powerful Muslim Malay families and we all know what happens to the women when they get into that environment. The malay son in law would have a tremendous cultural gap with the ethnic Chinese parents and probably wouldn't follow the sino-tribal directives. It just doesn't work out. quote:EDIT: Of course the Chinoys are effectively kept down a bit too, but I think that's more to do with the cartel of powerful Spanish families that run the place preserving their monopoly than it is to do with any ethnic movement (though Pinoys don't seem to make any distinction, largely favoring Spanish appearance the way Thais fawn over North Asian physical qualities).
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Jun 15, 2012 08:37
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Sorry eviljelly, Internet has been a bit unreliable past few days. Still on Tao and up for hanging out if you get bored.
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Jun 15, 2012 10:15
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No worries! Unfortunately, my sched is a bit hectic the next couple day, because I'm trying to find a new place to live and then I'm off on a visa run on Sunday. If you're out watching football tonight, come find the slightly taller Asian dude wearing a button up navy blue shirt cheering for France (and later Sweden) at Choppers. Otherwise, if you're still here when I get back from my visa run (June 28 or so) we can grab a drink! Hope you're having a blast diving - the conditions have been really good, especially compared to the few days before you came. Chumpon Pinnacle today was unbelievable! eviljelly fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jun 15, 2012 |
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Jun 15, 2012 10:38
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Politics and serious people on the internet discussion thread now up: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3490581 We can go back to talking about ping pong shows and where Pompous buys his Minsks in here!
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Jun 15, 2012 10:40
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Thai reality TV is almost at the point as being just as bad as U.S. reality TV. I was watching Thailand's got talent (please don't ask why) and they had this one "performance artist" who was a somewhat sexy 20 something university student on. She comes on and splashes nonsense on canvas then strips naked dousing paint over herself. The audience looked mortified and amused at the same time. The two Thai male judges approved of her performance and passed her through. The female hi-so soap star judge got all indignant huffing and puffing then asked the live audience why they thought this was acceptable. Not surprisingly the males in the thai audience were all  . She stormed off set in what was most likely a scripted event and the other two judges chased her down and convinced her to come back.
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Jun 18, 2012 05:12
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All the consumer culture here, from what I can tell, is just a couple of years behind ours. I know it's all Korea-focused these days, with a healthy dash of Japan obsession, but as far as I can tell it's basically chasing America's consumer trajectory. Academy Fantasia, Thai Big Brother, Thailand's Got Talent, etc. The rash of sex tapes a few years ago at least had some sort of democratic impulse, heh. The only big departure from that which I've noticed has been the successful import of European (mostly EPL) soccer that's happened entirely in the last 4-5 years as ThaiBev and Boonrawd have invested in sponsoring teams there for more exposure. I guess wishing they'd chosen American college football instead is going to go nowhere. So now I have to explain to every taxi driver why I don't have a favorite team and listen to him mutter names of people I don't care about playing a sport I don't care about. I love how every Joe Schmoe cabbie from Surin or Karasin is somehow a diehard Arsenal or Liverpool (just pick any team) supporter now. Probably couldn't find the team's home city on a map! CHAWP LIVUNPOOD NA? ARSUNUN NA? WAN PERTEE KANG LANG. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 05:39
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ReindeerF posted:Politics and serious people on the internet discussion thread now up: How do you post in D&D and live in Thailand. How. Mai seeleeat naja raton fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 05:41
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Sheep-Goats posted:How do you post in D&D and live in Thailand.
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Jun 18, 2012 05:45
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eviljelly, are you the failed bank robber? If you never post again I shall assume it's you and disregard our beer rendesvouz arrangement.
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Jun 18, 2012 08:49
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