In the past month I've had prob 2 days where food was clearly ****ing with my system, and it was from eating at a normal restaurant(not thai either) both times. The thai/chinese food I eat at home every day hasn't done anything to me, so its probably because I'm paying for quality food vs looking for the cheapest stuff(what street vendors and small places do I'm sure). not being able to cook or have someone cook for you at home sucks

I've been here nearly 3 months now and I still have tummy problems after every meal which has resorted to me just eating one meal a day which is usually a club sandwich or tuna salad. It sucks big time no idea why.

weird, i had one meal like 2 months ago which put me in hospital, Doctor said i had a digestive infection and my kidney was low on a bunch of stuff due to lack of water.

Since then have had no problems at all.

Wow, one meal a day can't be great. Try cooking stuff once a day yourself, with proper hygiene and all, and see if that helps. Whatever you can think of that's easyish to make (unless you have a decent kitchen obv). Oh, and club sandwiches and salads are the last thing I'd eat when trying to avoid new bacteria, eat something that's fried/cooked entirely.

Also, drinking milk is great for digestion, I never realized I just basically stopped consuming dairy products when I moved to thailand, until I went on the GOMAD for a while. It made a huge difference to the morning toilet trips, so I still drink at least a litre of milk every day.

i drink a big big selfmade milkshake with just milk, bananas and mango (and sometimes vanilla flavour) everyday. even though i cant take spicy food normally, that prepares for anything. bananas and mangos can have a good cork-effect

Although milk is good, I find that yogurt helps me with my tummy even more.

just bumping this one, any ideas before I cruise expedia?

the royal phuket yacht club in Nai Harn is super nice. A friend of mine stayed there for a couple of weeks. You have to go through one of those sites to get it for 100$ though...

PS. maybe not since its low season

Update, some questions-

Slappz and others in Chang Mai -

October is an optional working month here, where there's only small camps where you get hourly and not much work. So holiday for the non-bustos. I was really wanting to get a resort-type rooom/condo in CM for that month and have my brother come visit. He’s just not really into the whole traveling around seeing tons of sights, though if my Thai is good that might change things. Was planning to just play some poker, (he's getting pretty good, has mad potentials), kick it by the pool and go out for some fun at night, (he's a little more low-key than me). Feasible? Good idea? Heard CM has the best girls, and it'll be nice to get away from uber-thai-thailand at that point, which would also kinda freak him out.

Stomach is feeling so much better, I only have a small fridge so I can get fruit and stuff. Also the Thai-desk-ladies where I’m staying cook the best food I've found here so sick brag there, (20-30bt per plate, standard)

Cooking for myself is bad for a million reasons starting with I can't cook, (I'm 24 btw) We'll have to work on that Thai gf here for that. As someone mentioned, it's more just difficult to eat 3 meals a day, I take a multi-vitamin and drink as much liquid fuel as possible. I'm doing relatively amazing now compared to what I'm hearing is the norm; I was mostly hung-over on that last post.

Night out-

Take cab downtown, Nice chill spot outside for beers, dime waitresses to practice Thai on, relaxed and just three of us chilling. Some Thai dudes with a little English get us shots and lead us to a super-popping spot, which is allegedly Mafioso (people just say that to be cool but NST is known for being an org. crime hub in Thailand, some internet sites about this but biggest concern is massive islamic population on provinces 2 below mine)

It's fun but I think the Thai guys want this Norweigian girl, (which they can have, 5/10 in USA, 3/10 in Scandanavia IMO) and not much is going on, 'Wanna play truth or dare?' lol. I go to the bathroom, pretty wasted at this point, and decide to take a long way back to the group. I get waved over and pulled to a table of Thais. Better English, drinking games, great times.

Sincerely nice people, but Thais also do the thing where they put the hand on your knee to be like 'we like you' and I know this and understand what it means, but in my drunken I get maybe a little homophobic and it’s tough to hide that it's kind of creepy. The other teacher and ms Norway, (Thai guys struck out) find me and are like "WE WERE SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU" a little over the top, I had a mobile so wtf. It's getting later, and the drinks hit me too hard, and I don't want to embarrass myself so I leave another extremely enjoyable group of people I'll likely never see again.

I walk outside and boot somewhere, group of taxi-drivers are coming to me asking where I live, if I'm ok. “Sabaii….(puke)…..Dii!” I tell them where I live, (5km away) and show 500baht note to which they wave hands 'no' Two guys double up so I don't fall off the scooter, one is rubbing my back on the way home, (gay but definitely helped) and they have to pull over for another nice puke. I get back safe and sound and again try to give them the 500baht, they flatly refuse.

NOTE: Memory of this story gets spotty about when the farangs found me at the 2nd club, remember puking outside, remember back-rubbing, remember puking again, remember offering the 500-baht note in front of our complex to the drivers and them refusing, (and found the note crumpled up in my jeans pocket and not in my wallet)

I’m guessing they refused the money because I only had the 500 note and it would be like 150 or so. Even though I was making it very clear I would have paid 3x that to get home then and there.

Wake up and have everything with me and fine, but really upset that I got that drunk.

I wasn’t passing on the free drinks, (pre-gamed before too, dumb) and I just haven’t eaten much and not the best stomach time to start with. At 100% health I would’ve been fine, but just a lesson learned. From my handle you guys can guess alcohol is not my drug of choice and I would prefer to be like a 2-3 drink guy and just chill and try to get laid and make Thai friends. Also, just don’t want to be that guy and massively apologized to the Thai Desk Ladies who I’m sure saw me stumble up four flights of stairs.

English Teachers-

Teachers are turning more and more into what you guys assume they are, I'm still confident I got pretty lucky that they're not as bad as the guys in Surat Thani, (pretty sure I posted about how sketch they were)

I'm about 90% sure the guy that took me out in ST had planned to rob/extort me at the end of the night. Seemed like a very basic scam: Take newbie out to club in town he doesn't know, newbie doesn't want to buy my scooter, make him buy my scooter or just say 'hey you owe me for the night' (GWM pwns this guy unknowingly and gets TukTik to take him home, what a luckbox)

Good news-
There's a 40ish woman staying here from Missouri who could not care less about money and may be my confidant. Teaches very advanced kids privately, her kids back home just graduated high school, she’s doing what she always wanted to do but couldn’t bc she got the preggers young. Hi mom. She kind of confirmed the Farang-sketchness and definitely has heard stories similar to mine that usually end bad, (dumb of me to go out with rando-farang, never again)

I haven't mentioned poker obv, it's just someone where I don't have to listen and silently agree with stupid statements like "I'm going to get a desk fan when we get our first paycheck, (JUNE 9TH, OUCH!)" or "Dude, we found a way where you can save like less than $2 with a lot of effort"

Lamest thing about this bustoness is that it’s just assumed I am, and I’m hiding it from them or just not splurging making it obvious. I feel bad/awkward and don’t want to make it clear that I’m not busto as well. Also I’m not super-rich or even regular rich at all, but next post will be Thai prices in NST so you’ll see. These guys are like sitting on their last couple hundred baht, when I told them about offering the 500bt to the drivers they thought I was nuts.

This sucks along with never wanting to take private transportation, wasting time searching for deals, and having days where we like walk around the town not buying anything or eating out, (sans the 100bt massage we found).

Meanwhile, I'm getting contacted by Neteller and they're letting me know I've got a good chunk of money just sitting in there from like 3 years ago that I haven't touched since I was living in Sweden, (had no idea of this, if I didn’t re-direct my old emails they would’ve emptied it slowly with inactivity fees) Ship it.

While we're all getting Thai massages, the girls see my phone (blackberry, newer non-storm big-size one, so not super fancy) and say -

"ooooohhh people like so much in Thailand, American brand, 20.000baht, very fancy, very nice" and the two others guy are definitely interested in hearing that for the wrong reasons. No happy ending fyi, open curtains all three hanging out getting our joints popped.

I re-read this and I'm being a little over-judgmental. Or a lot. I really don’t want to alienate myself but I stick out badly.

-I’m 5-6 years younger than everyone in the program, as well as everyone we’ve met (except norway but she looks 32 lol)

-I don’t have a TEFL certificate or experience in ESL. I have taught debate camps to rich kids for good money, and was a private tutor for a big D-I athletic program. These things wont prepare me for nutballz thai kids, (I observed a class of middle-schoolers, wow, I have high-schoolers at a very expensive school so not as much but I’m preparing myself for the worst) but I doubt two weeks of 5 hour classes in Barcelona or Phuket will either.

Places require only a degree, and the headmaster here is saying your ability to present yourself, dress nice, butt-kiss in Thai and have a fancy resume means the most, (which GWM is 4/4 there, Ok ¾ if we count the public puking, LETS PRETEND THAT NEVER HAPPENED)

NOTE: I had planned to do a TEFL, but sent out apps/resumes saying I hadn’t but was planning on it when I knew whew I was going to teach and found the right fit. Our company hired me without one and I just didn’t have time to book one, (<1 months notice).

The other teachers had like TEFL story time and every 5-10 minutes or so would look over at me (obv I have nothing to contribute to the convo) and be like “I HAVE NO IDEA HOW YOU PULLED THIS JOB WITHOUT ONE BRO, SO LUCKY” I respond being like, “I’m just going to work extra extra hard, I’ve taught before, I’ll always be early, have the straightest tie, etc etc”

“YA YOU SHOULD BECAUSE YOULL REALLY NEED TO”

So they don’t think I deserve the job, b/c years of teaching and being a good student/nerding out is so inferior to your TEFL program.

-I am not Beaver Cleaver-looking but close, (some french/italian blood) Very ‘milk and cookies’ looking as I like to call it. The other teachers are-

-Half-Mexican from San Diego
-40+ Aussie, seems nice but I doubt he’ll stay, he just seems to feel out of place
-Half-black guy from Seatlle
First thing HB guy talks about when we meet is some black-pride stuff and how that’s very important to him (direct quote, ‘the revolution is not over, there is still work to be done’) and how it’s so hard for him to get a job anywhere because he’s half black. Don’t really know what to say to that one, not trying to go there so fast or really ever bro

NOTE: Last group that taught here one of the teachers was asked to be an ambassador for the governor of the NST province. He was supposedly not a good teacher, just the governor loved him and wanted someone to improve his English with that was a native-speaker, (lots of “He’s sucking his dick” jokes are made) Point of the story is the headmaster believes the fact that the dude was an Obama look-a-like with a british accent were reasons 1, 2, and 3 he got the posh seat. Gotta love Thailand.

Point is I get the farang-attention a lot more even though it’s not ridiculous. I also am the only one who practiced Thai before they came here and is really trying to learn/practice it while they chill and do nothing a lot of the time. I’ve passed everyone of our group with my Thai skills and farang wise am only behind my previously mentioned interim-mom who has been here 1.5 years and made an effort. So nice Thai lessons at that TEFL school bro. I’m guessing me speaking Thai is probably a bigger reason why I get that attention rather than race, but I mean so many different brands of skin-whitening cream? WTF

Wow I wrote way too much, but if you all haven’t noticed I kind of describe and side-note a lot. A lot of the times we have fun and just hang out, but these described events are becoming a little more frequent after the newness wears off. It’s mostly one guy (HBG), as usual in these things. It’s fair to say that I would not be friends with any of these guys at home, but I can find ways to have fun with anyone. I even quietly offered HBG some money in private when I first got here after he told me he got robbed in Malaysia, (which is true). He said “no you got to watch out for your own **** man.”

Well today I’m rolling out to see the biggest college in this area of Thailand which is Walailak University in NST. I’m gonna just see what’s up there, but future plans are to post something to get english/thai lesson exchanges and work on getting in with some of those people who I assume have some of the better English of Thais.

Thanks everyone for all the comments and responses, (there are some questions in there!) Here’s a zoomed in Google maps of where I’m living

http://maps.google.co.th/maps?q=benj...N&hl=en&tab=wl

Hey I've been posting a bunch in the Ask About Thailand! thread and wanted to share my unique experience. I live in a college town in the south here that has practically 0 Farang population. This obv comes with its own issues but I'm living here for a year, and can already tell that I'd rather stay at a place like here than a bigger more touristy area. Well, I also have to live here cuz I'm teaching English so who knows.

I in no way recommend moving to Thailand because of these prices and I don't think they are the standard at all.

30baht = $1 USD

-Transport from our flat to downtown on a Song-Tai- one for downtown, one back, or you can ride them a lot more to anywhere. (10minute ride or so). 10baht
-Private Taxi- 50baht/person gets you anwhere may be more but Song-Tai's are constantly there and sometimes are empty so same thing.
-Delicious Thai food meal 20-40 baht
-KFC 100baht
-Bottle of water 5baht
-Department store undershirt - 45baht
-Department store nice shirts 200-700 baht
-Bag of fresh fruit, 30-50 baht depending what you get, (fill my mini-fridge)
-Department store sunglasses - 100baht
-Department store earbud headphones with built in microphone, (250 baht)
-Flask of Thai whiskey or rum - 100baht
-Fifth of Johnnie Walker Red- 725 baht
-Lighter 5baht
-Giant beer at store 25 baht (Thai 40 ozer, lot of drinkers here haha).
-Giant beer at restaurant 50baht
-Drink at nicest most posh restaurant bar or club in town 80-100baht
-Bottle service, 300-400baht or so per person
-Laundry done by Thai ladies for me - 8baht per piece or 400baht for whole month. Hand-washed, pressed, folded.
-One hour Thai massage 100baht + 20baht optional tip, (no happy ending, farang look too young sure that would cost more).
Thai massage is best put as they are just stretching you out and popping all your joints and just doing these amazing things, but it's not like get naked and lets rub you down, they're doing work.
-Thai-slurpee where they you pick one apple/mango/don't know what it is but it's delicious fruit they chop it up and blend it right there with ice and add real sugar - 5baht
-text message - 1-3baht,
-pre-paid calling within Thailand, 1baht/minute
-My flat with free internet/cable TV/Air Conditioning/Bed/Desk (think of a small euro hotel room) 4000baht/month
-Real nice looking condos advertised for rent downtown- 5000baht
-Scooter 10,000-15,000 baht
-2 hour love-you-long-time (says sketch teacher bob) 1500baht

Just keep it in the thailand thread, this just leads to a huge cluttering.

The half black guy was probably not exaggerating in any way. There is severe prejudice in Thailand towards blacks and Indians. If he looks at all black I'm really surprised he was able to find a job teaching. The prejudice is also very open. I remember on one apartment website the amenities check list looked something like:

[] Pool
[] Laundry
[] Indians Allowed
[] Gym

Ask mama for details, since I'm sure you'll assume this is anecdotal or exaggeration.

imo:

smelly indians < old klauses < dirty backpackers

lol it's so true, and funny : ) Makes me happy that I m pale white.

Also some bars are like
[X] Must have shirt
[X] Cash only
[ ] Arabs allowed

hey so what you think of an 18 year old living there

sounds like a nice not touristy place

hit me back with some more information

REPOST FROM CHATTER-

Hey guys,

i was originally going to post another topic to my follow up of "Talking to a Thai girl in Thai.. basics" post http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ostcount=10823 and probably still will in a few months when I'm bored or feel like it but last night i was inspired to write about something else. While we have Dong and beans the funny asians, i am the not so funny Eurasian American (interesting but true mix) however those who know me well will say that i have a pretty deep understanding of certain things in life. Thailand, women and life wisdom being a few of them. while i can offer counseling on heavy duty situations having seen alot with my eyes (****ty situation in Thailand? holler at me), for this section of my contribution to the thread, i would like to offer my opinion and thoughts on what i consider to be a very important subject especially in Thailand......being tittys. Thats right! tittys! now before i give my word on this i will say i encourage people to share there own thoughts on this subject, however i do not care what you think about what i think about tittys as its not poker were talking about...its tittys! so if you have something negative to say about tittys, you should gtfo the threadaments--->

That being said let me begin with an anecdote, while i cant remember the exact quote i once read a funny facebook update from beans saying something about give a bargirl a water buffalo and you'll feed her for life or something..while it has no real relevance to the points I'm making in this post i just ask you to think what is more beneficial to a girl(doesn't have to be bargirl) giving her family a water buffalo, or giving her tittys. Now keep in mind player B does not advocate the giving of expensive items to Thai girls in general as something like gold for instance will be pawned off quickly when there alone and broke, its more like giving them a
credit card honestly. but if you do like a girl alot alot lot lot...she can never pawn off her tittys chaimai? maybe she can i don't know..without getting to far off topic ill now talk about the different aspects of tittys particularly in Thailand.

Deception-Its happened to the best of us, you see some hot girl in the club with big looking tittys and you dance with her, your happy with life atm because well your staring and about to be feeling up on some big ass tittys. you get home and she gets naked in your bed and low and behold something is missing...the tittys...ARAI WA?!!? While America and other countries have push up bras Thailand took it an extra step imo and there padded bras are basically on steroids and its always disturbing and you almost feel cheated when you based your selection of girl
you met at the club or in general on the size of the nom only to find out there is no nom. kind of like the spoon in the matrix..for the most part. while I'm probably not the biggest victim out of everyone ill just leave you with this word of advice which is the one of the core philosophies I've adapted in regards to tittys in Thailand which is
if you cant see the actual titty/cleavage...it doesn't exist. nuff said.

Upside-Tittys in Thailand is not all bad in fact its quite good. being that surgical operations are cheap and people come from across the globe to get cheap work done. while there is still a good amount of Thai girls with natural big
ass tittys, there is also a larger amount of girls with fake tittys. Now to anyone that says they don't like fake tittys well i ask you if you would rather have a girl with big ass fake tittys, or one that is so flat its like feeling up a wall. Ow arai kap? Moving forward not all fake titty jobs are created equal. in fact there is different levels of cost which in turn have a different output to the quality of the tittys. for 40-55kish a thai girl can get the job done, not busto yet not the Cadillac of tits that i would describe somewhat like airbags.for 65-80k+ (55-65 being mid grade) she can get the top of the line and in some cases i say better than the real thing "hiso" boob job(not hiso just expensive..is it the same thing anyway?) if the busto boob job is like airbags well the hiso boob job is more like real soft fine quality sandbags, like a super comfortable bean bag 10x far as feel and if you were to have me blindly compare the real vs hiso boob job i may not be able to tell the difference or at least choose the high quality sandbags...in some specific instances that is. all i can say about tittys is that while im sure no reg in this thread can really remember every girl he shipped, I'm sure he can remember the ones with big ass tittys, because i sure can....SHIP!

Real tittys-as much as the hiso sandbags are lovely nothing beats the real thing as long as she has not had a baby!i love me some firm big ass tittys! not much else to say about that!

Having covered my main points about tittys i will now go back to the question i asked you initially which is what is better to give a girl that you like, a water buffalo (lol) or tittys. the obvious answer here my friend is tittys, if you give a girl tittys she will basically be set for life as there will always be someone wanting to grab them whatever. again i don't advocate this by any means but argue its more beneficial to you than giving her some bling bling or something and if your that serious about a chick well you basically set her up for life by giving the nom yai. if in fact you do plan on one day marrying a Thai girl one day than it will boost your overall life happiness, hence you will win more moneys by doing so. while it may seem the point of me writing this is about giving a Thai girl tittys, its not at all...

i just thought bean's facebook update was funny and drew a comparison to giving a water buffalo vs tittys when i read it while laughing so i decided to include it in this post. Last night i met this young chick with exceptionally firm and natural tittys and i was using them as a mouse pad this morning while checking my email i was inspired to write this post. The conclusion actually has no main point other than talking about tittys if anything ill just leave you with-----> Big ass tittys > super soft pillow

anyone want a 17" macbook pro, bought in jan. has 8gb memory, 30" monitor adapter. not from thailand so doesn't have thai keys. i paid $4k for it. will sell for $3.2k + will throw in apple tv.

Player bets,

That's one of the greatest posts I've ever read. Koh Kuhn Kap.

GWM

Noob question, (sorry but I tried to search the thread and couldn't find specific answer)

I got my US phone unlocked and have a SIM and all. TH GSM is the provider, and my pack is 1-2-call. It works, I can get calls and text but every time I call a number from my phone book it adds a 1 to the front of it, and then the call can't go through. So even though I have a number loaded in my phone as 08********, when I call it as a phone book number or dialed/received calls it adds the 1 and can't go through. If I type out all the numbers then it works, it's just annoying to always do that. I'm going to try a new carrier and ask a shop what they think, but if anyone has had this problem lemme know.

Sounds like your phone is the problem, not the 1-2 call sim card. Strange though

I think you may have exaggerated your Thai skills earlier!

Keep the posts coming though, it's nice to read something different ITT for a change. Also, I was imagining a small village until you mentioned KFC - so the place is big enough for a Tesco and other fast food joints?

it's almost as big as Pattaya, with a lower percentage of rice farmer's daughters

True that on the Thai skills. It should be Ko Kuhn Krap? Best way you guys learned your Thai?

Should be Kob Kuhn Krap

Many ways to learn;

Pimsleaur - online course (downloadable for free from torrent sites)
Thai School - I go to Walen, but there are many
Books - Thai for Beginners is considered the best amongst most
Websites - www.thai2english.com, www.thai-flashcards.com, www.thai-language.com
Private Tutor

Best way to learn is usually a combination of the above.

pasaar thai yaak