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Interesting, maybe it's all true. It just sounded so weird that I was like "Whaaaaa?"
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Aug 5, 2013 15:18
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You guys know how I posted a picture of a girl holding a tiger, and calling it a bigger Jew? Yeah, well it turns out that she has a dog named JEW, I'm not sure if that makes it any less anti-Semitic.
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Aug 5, 2013 15:38
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Someone just told me that KFCs in Singapore have biscuits as a breakfast item. I will go try it this week and post a report here when I do so.erobadapazzi posted:Also, to the guy asking about Brunei: Thanks! Will definitely spend a night in BSB then, found a hostel-type place on Google. I'm prepared for the stamps, just got new 48 visa pages put into my passport  Overkill but if I had to pay for it ($82, same fee for 24/48), I wanted to make sure I'd never have to do it again before my passport expired.
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Aug 5, 2013 15:45
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Rai Leh was a nice place to spend a couple of days. More if you do some rock climbing or diving. I only hiked up a mountain and swam for a bit, but it was a pretty relaxing area. I managed to walk there through waist deep water from Ao Nang. I was getting worried after an hour of wading, the sun getting low, and a storm approaching. Saved 60 baht or whatever it cost for the boat, at least. The place I stayed at (Railay Garden View) was only 200 baht a night, still the most expensive lodging during my 1.5 months in Thailand, but much cheaper than anywhere else in Rai Leh. As a cheapskate when it comes to a accommodation, I have fond memories of a guesthouse up north in Mae Salong that was just 50 baht a night (including Wi-fi!) The owner is great and the town is full of former KMT Chinese soldiers and their descendants.
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Aug 5, 2013 16:12
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uinfuirudo posted:You guys know how I posted a picture of a girl holding a tiger, and calling it a bigger Jew? ... more anisemitic
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Aug 5, 2013 16:23
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On the topic of southern islands, what do you guys know about Ko Lanta? It was highly recommended by a friend.
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Aug 5, 2013 18:50
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Spent two weeks there. It's pretty nice quiet island, spent my time chilling at the beach and drinking in Irish Embassy. A lot of swedish tourists, not a whole lot of a party scene but there's plenty of bars at the beach. Overall i really enjoyed it, a lot of options to go island hopping, diving etc. Edit: Main town is Saladan, there is not a lot there, a few nice restaurants and dive shops. Edit2: Good place to rent a scooter and explore the island (wear a helmet, reqular police checkpoints) the traffic is not that bad there. I saw a couple of nasty scooter crashes by locals tho, so might wan't to be carefull. Barfolemew fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 19:48
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ko lanta is nice but unspectacular and a bit boring. I enjoyed myself when I went but I wouldnt go back.
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Aug 5, 2013 21:31
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eviljelly posted:ko lanta is nice but unspectacular and a bit boring. I enjoyed myself when I went but I wouldnt go back. On the Southern islands note, I used to hear a lot about Koh Lipe this and Koh Lipe that, but a friend went recently and said it was all trashed out. I dunno if that's true, since some people go to Phi Phi and feel this way while others think it's awesome. Never been myself.
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Aug 5, 2013 21:47
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By thrashed out you mean full of garbage? Like every other island in SE Asia.
Rojkir fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 22:06
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Rojkir posted:By thrashed out you mean full of garbage? Like every other island in SE Asia.
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Aug 5, 2013 22:20
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Oh hoooooo geng maaaak
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Aug 6, 2013 01:22
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Cambodians can carry the same amount on a ten year-old Chinese motorcycle with no shocks.
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Aug 6, 2013 01:29
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Chai! Thailand hab better technology khap
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Aug 6, 2013 01:52
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Senso posted:Aaw, I might not be in HCMC this Saturday, will most likely be in Nha Trang. Well, if the plan still works, I'm not so sure anymore. I'm debating whether or not to take a night bus tomorrow night (or probably just fly) to Nha Trang or just to skip it and head to Da Lat instead.
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Aug 6, 2013 04:17
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Phu Quoc was the biggest island atrocity I'd ever seen, and that was about 3 years ago. Naturally amazing but had been defiled by development and uncaring local slum dwellers before there was even a sealed road network. I don't mean plastic bags and bottle caps. The beaches were covered in mounds of trash, and there was basically a bucket brigade from the villages to the water, which was treated as a landfill. There were even dead, bloated animals up and down the beaches. You could see a sheen of oil on the water leaking from all the fishing boats. Sigh. It was filthy even by Vietnamese standards.
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Aug 6, 2013 04:43
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Jesus. Ok, it's not like that anymore but even for 3 years ago... Maybe they got their poo poo together right after you left because as far as I know, Phu Quoc had great clean beaches and everybody who went in the past two years said the same thing - the resort beaches though. The filthiest beaches I've seen were the public ones in Vung Tau. I wanted to scream.
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Aug 6, 2013 04:54
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Senso posted:Jesus. Ok, it's not like that anymore but even for 3 years ago... Maybe they got their poo poo together right after you left because as far as I know, Phu Quoc had great clean beaches and everybody who went in the past two years said the same thing - the resort beaches though. As a British Columbian, I expect this will kill me a little inside. (We send our pollution down to Washington like respectable filthy hippies.)
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Aug 6, 2013 07:53
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Pixelante posted:As a British Columbian, I expect this will kill me a little inside. (We send our pollution down to Washington like respectable filthy hippies.)
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Aug 6, 2013 08:36
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Delightful. I used to work in street outreach, so I'm actually pretty stoked to see how other countries manage (or utterly fail to manage) their social problems. Our homeless people are legion, but pretty cuddly compared to the ones I've seen elsewhere.
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Aug 6, 2013 08:40
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Southeast Asia is flat out rough on that issue, there's no doubt about it. I'm sure you'll expect that, though. Thailand's got the first thing remotely approaching a welfare state among the Mekong countries and it hasn't gotten as far as homeless shelters or food stamps. Good nascent universal healthcare program, though. It's lauded worldwide as a model for transitional developing countries. There's an added problem in large tourist cities here in terms of trafficked beggars controlled by local organizations (sometimes mafia, as they say here, but sometimes others). Not as bad as in India from what I understand, but it isn't pretty. One rule that's not 100% accurate, but more accurate than not, in Thailand is that if it's a small kid or a woman with a baby on a street or sidewalk begging somehow, they're typically foreign and they're here as part of some beggar pimp deal. I don't recall seeing any obvious homeless in Vientiane, Laos (there must be homeless people of course), but Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia have plenty in the urban areas from what I've seen.
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Aug 6, 2013 09:00
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Thanks for the island info- half empty towns sounds kind of amazing, I'm looking forward to it. ReindeerF posted:I don't recall seeing any obvious homeless in Vientiane, Laos (there must be homeless people of course), but Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia have plenty in the urban areas from what I've seen. Speaking of which, one thing I've been wondering about and haven't found a good answer to is why there seems to be this massive baby boom going on right now. It seems like half the population is under the age of fifteen, and the only answer that I can think up is some sort of increased aid and access to food in the nineties.
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Aug 6, 2013 10:13
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Depends on the country from what I gather. I think Vietnam and Cambodia are both positive birth rates, which makes sense given their economic and development trajectory. I read that Thailand is heading for zero population growth, or is already there, which wouldn't be hugely surprising given that it's at a more developed stage and is also experiencing a lot of uncertainty and political tumult. Still, I read that somewhere in Thai media, so I'm not sure it's accurate. Plenty of kids around telling me GOOD MORNING at 5PM every time I'm out, so who knows.
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Aug 6, 2013 10:40
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I know this comes up a few times per year, but Penang is a must do in Malaysia, right? Are 2 nights to much? Any particular areas for good food to check out?
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Aug 6, 2013 10:45
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Saint Fu posted:I know this comes up a few times per year, but Penang is a must do in Malaysia, right? Are 2 nights to much? Any particular areas for good food to check out? As for places to eat, I just asked the taxi drivers to take me to the best hokkien mee or whatever. For bonus fun, ask an old ethnic Chinese Malaysian taxi driver for the best nasi kandar and wait for his response.
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Aug 6, 2013 11:23
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How's the air quality in Singapore been lately? I remember hearing about them having a bad run earlier in the year.
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Aug 6, 2013 11:44
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ReindeerF posted:Two nights were too much for me, but it wasn't the worst place or anything. Probably two nights is worthwhile if your goal is to eat a ton, because the tummy can only handle so much, heh. Fuoco posted:How's the air quality in Singapore been lately? I remember hearing about them having a bad run earlier in the year.
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Aug 6, 2013 12:10
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Fuoco posted:How's the air quality in Singapore been lately? I remember hearing about them having a bad run earlier in the year. Yeah, it's back to being completely fine.
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Aug 6, 2013 12:46
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Saint Fu posted:I know this comes up a few times per year, but Penang is a must do in Malaysia, right? Are 2 nights to much? Any particular areas for good food to check out? Penang is a pretty ho hum place with nothing good in particular for a tourist. I hear the food can be good, but there is also so much bad food that it's probably more likely that you'll end up eating only lovely food unless you do some research beforehand.
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Aug 6, 2013 13:11
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The food is amazing and you can easily avoid the bad stuff by inquiring in your hostel or sticking to the main foodcourts or do as the locals do. I really enjoyed my 3 days in Penang, but that might also have been due to the fact that it was the only sunny spot in an otherwise very monssoony country.
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Aug 6, 2013 13:22
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Malaysia is awesome and Penang is particularly awesome. Perhaps not as a short term visitor, but in that regard I think it's just like Bangkok: three days is too long but three weeks isn't enough. After my last few days there I seriously looked in to how difficult and/or expensive it was to buy a place there. The answer is... easy, but very expensive. More expensive, like for like, than here in Adelaide, Australia. The place is gentrifying at a rapid pace. Central Georgetown is like central Singapore, but also kinda not at all like Singapore: it smells, there's graffiti everywhere, certain roads where every shop has a security guard or five out the front, each holding a shotgun; the food is epic, there a ton of indie galleries everywhere, street art to along with, you'll think "WTF?" about two dozen times each day, and it's all in some kind of weird throwback to the war with the architecture and the language and so on. It's much less modern than Singapore, but that adds to the immense charm. That and the sheer history of the place. Admittedly, I am very biased: although I am a whitey Australian, I spent six months in Penang when I was 16. It was a weird place in 2001 but it's changed enormously since then. The adventure was kinda seminal to the adventures I've had since. I'd probably hate the place if I'd only visited once, for a few days. I go out of my way to spend time there now. It isn't an island paradise destination, though... these days it's more of city and an industrial area and a farming area and an airport, on an island, and there happens to be beaches on the edges of this island. It's a big place, and it's wonderful. I love Penang. Finch! fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 14:09
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I spent four or five days in Penang getting a work visa once. That was too much for me but there was stuff nearby I could have done and it would have been fine. I was penny pinching at the time as I still had to get back to Bangkok and wait a month for my first paycheck. Lots of good food and it's easy to find. Is the street stall or restaurant busy already? Not just with tourists? Go ahead and eat there. Not busy? Walk another 200 feet, there will be something.
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Aug 6, 2013 14:32
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Sheep-Goats posted:Lots of good food and it's easy to find. Is the street stall or restaurant busy already? Not just with tourists? Go ahead and eat there. Not busy? Walk another 200 feet, there will be something. Ramadan throws a winch into that though. Still managed to find good places, just a little harder during the day.
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Aug 6, 2013 17:09
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Iroohik posted:Seems like 90% of the homeless are targeting tourists, so I'm assuming those are just scammers. Especially given the hordes of six year olds selling bracelets and such that are so obviously being put up to that by an adult. This seems nuts to me, given panhandling is a poo poo way to get by here, but that's international economy for you. I'm probably going to be the only tourist with a fascination for social deviance who isn't trying to get laid from it. The tour guide is gonna love me. I expect things to be bleak as hell, but things can be terrible in the developed world too. I've seen people die from colds in one of the most desireable cities on earth because they were too socially distasteful to warrant support. My disabled brother would be on the street if I didn't exist. Oh god the state of disability support over there is gonna make me cry like a bitch, isn't it. v Ugh. Yeah, that's gonna be hard on me. Oh well. I'm terrible at easy. v Pixelante fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 23:24
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In the morning the begging mafia van would arrive in Bang Kae. It was (probably still is) a white minivan with the weird little sliding windows that are so popular on them in Asia. I assume it had other stops as there were plenty of disabled people sitting in it at Bang Kae that didn't get out. The lady that got out was maybe 80 years old, little grey bowl cut, bow legged walk that many elderly Asian ladies seem to develop, blind as a bat. They'd lead her from the side of the van up the steps of a pedestrian bridge, walk her to the middle, then sit her down there and give her a plastic cup from a 7-11 and a little eight inch hide drum and a baton. She'd spend the next eight to ten hours sitting in the middle of the concrete bridge in the full tropical sun, her blasted rheumy eyes staring up into the sky, pounding away randomly on the drum. At night the van would come get her again and I imagine take most of her begging earnings as their cut, then return her to wherever they got her from. I don't know if she had fixed days off or anything like that, but it's likely not. In Cambodia near Ta Phrom I saw a lady begging there. Except she wasn't exactly begging, she was laying there looking next to dead, covered with AIDS sores. Her son was doing the begging, roaming around in a filthy pink dress which I imagine he had found for himself. They were gone the next day of course because the authorities in Siem Reap generally don't allow beggars into the temple city lest they besmirch the image of Cambodia. Maybe someone here loves BOOTSTRAPS and is fond of BOOTSTRAPPIN. In that case let me tell you about the soi dogs. These animals roam unkept, unowned and unfed in many SE Asian urban areas. They form packs in less populated places and menace passers-by. If they're strong enough. The weak ones get set upon by the others. Or they get beaten mercilessly by the locals for coming too close or for stealing dropped food. Two in particular I remember. The first of these white, a large bodied dog the size of a lab, some sort of mutt of course. His head was swollen to nearly the same diameter as the thickest part of his body, eyes slits, with a golf ball sized pock mark gone from his head meat, I saw him walking around like that for weeks. The other was a brownish dog, much closer to the sort of dog Thai people call Thai Dogs, the same sort as the King's well known dog Thongdaeng. His back looked almost exactly like the bark of a large pine tree -- hard and crusty, four or five irregular collumns running down the length of it with steep valleys an inch or so deep between them, the high parts of this diseased skin sprouting the tendrils you see coming from moss when its time to spread spoors -- this one was in constant agony and would move extremely carefully about the alleys, his hind legs off at an angle to the front ones, gingerly looking for food passed up by other dogs. In NYC once a man in shiny white Air Jordans and a clean wool overcoat asked me if I couldn't give him just five dollars, just five dollars please. He was homeless most likely, a purple T-shirt on under his business attire overcoat, scruffy, not 100% there mentally. I haven't given anything to an able bodied beggar since I came back to the states. raton fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 23:36
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My favourite thing about Penang is the ice cream parlour where they give you a free padlock if you buy enough ice cream There's a lot of naff touristy shite on the beaches but Bukit Penang is worth an afternoon's wander and George Town has some seriously great open-air food markets. Red Garden kicks rear end.
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Aug 7, 2013 00:24
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Pixelante posted:the state of disability support The fact that I jog by this poo poo, say hi to the guy and don't or can't do anything else bothers me pretty much every single day and my inability to interact when I see issues like this is what has driven me to try to improve my language skills. These are delicate issues of family and social mores and what have you and as foreigners we can really stick our dick in the mashed potatoes by wading in, bleating in broken Thai and causing public embarrassment for some rural Thai family. Still, it's inhuman to not know what's going on and at least kind of try to respond. On the plus side, I also know of communities of different kinds of disabled people where they've built centers to teach skills and help them by providing them with various aids like hand-peddled carts for people who can't walk and so on. As well, I see more and more people in public with children who have Down Syndrome and I personally know people who have family in therapy for serious psychological issues. The best way to think of most social issues in Thailand is to imagine America (maybe Canada too, I dunno?) in the 1950s or 1960s, but emerging into the 1980s and 1990s in the major urban areas. Obviously it's not a one for one comparison as there are modern influences. LGBT stuff is very laissez faire here and they're not lynching minorities in the streets as a sport and sex education is very open and honest thanks to the world-renowned anti-HIV campaigns, but in terms of many small things it's an easy way to think of it. Office life is like Mad Men with pretty secretaries and drunk old bosses leching around. Social welfare issues are out of that era too, but with some progress being made the wealthier the country gets and the more developed. Come and enjoy your stay, it's life! I'll buy you a beer!
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Aug 7, 2013 01:10
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In happier news, I was on this flight a couple of weeks ago: http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/363334/nok-air-flight-dd7411-slides-off-trang-runway  When the special lady friend booked us, I said, "Don't ever book me for a Nok Air flight during rainy season in the afternoon again." Fortunately, on departure day it was really mild. She argued a bit about them having better pilots than One-Two-Go and some other things. Today I won the argument. Thanks, Nok Air!
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Aug 7, 2013 07:28
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Saint Fu posted:One of my colleagues was in town last week and he said it was much improved from last month. kru posted:Yeah, it's back to being completely fine. Thanks. I'm thinking I might stop over for a small holiday soon.
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Aug 7, 2013 09:53
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ReindeerF posted:Thanks, Nok Air! I flew Nok Air last week and the plane was painted like a bird! Like the one in the photo actually. Then when we landed at Bangkok there was another one parked up and it was painted like a snake! I don't care how bad the landing was, that's my kind of airline.
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Aug 7, 2013 10:55
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