I'll be glad to get outta town and into Cambodia...

This isn't going to all of a sudden turn into a "misadventures of ezyano" thread I hope. I was just a little shaken by what happened last night so thought I'd write about it.

While drunk. Probably not the best writing, though I'm a mediocre writer anyhow so I figured what the hell. Might as well write while it's fresh in my mind.

My next post will be about Sukhothai, the city I bused to after Chiang Mai. Sukhothai was the capital of Thailand from 12xx to 14xx blah blah blah. The real reason to visit this place is Sukhothai historical park, where the ruins of Buddhist temples remain.

Departure from Chaing Mai -

I made my way to Arcade bus station which lies about 3 km outside the old city, if I'm not mistaken. I'll take a moment to detail my confusion upon arriving at the Arcade station. The ticketing booths are all lined up and have different destination cities with the times they leave. The next departure is usually on a big sign, for example "BANGKOK 1400" which means the bus for Bangkok departs at 2 pm, in case there's a reader out there who doesn't understand military time. Though poker players know it at the very least because poker times usually run in military time, if I'm not mistaken (though it's been awhile since I played online).

I'm trying to search for a bus that doesn't go to Bangkok. I was thinking of exploring some temples. Something historical. But none of the destinations said Sukhothai or Ayuttaya, the two former capitals of Thailand that are riddled with ruins of temples.

Asking the ticketing booths how to get there was now help, they said "only bangkok"

As look would have it, a nice Spanish couple overheard me looking for an alternate destination and told me they too wished to travel to Sukhothai. Again, my luck improved as they happened to know that there's an alternate bus station right across the street that may have different destinations.

We cross the street and, again, I get lucky and a bus to Sukhothai departs in 4 minutes. I pay (like 8$ if I remember correctly) and six hours later arrive at Sukhothai. I jump in a taxi and ask them to take me to a guesthouse. They take me to a place called Le Sukhothai hotel and it's decent enough so I pay 10$ to stay for the night.

Walking around the corner from the guesthouse I stumble upon Chopper Bar. Only it isn't called Chopper Bar but rather "Chopper Barbeer". In case there's any confusion as to whether that bar serves beer, I suppose.

I ordered a watermelon milkshake which was refreshing, and the chicken Sukiyaki soup was incredibly tasty. The wait staff seemed to favor the bikers there, and the service was slow for me. The waitress was really sweet though and gave me a free desert, I think to make up for the slowness of the service. They even had some good live music.

The next morning I headed to Sukhothai Historical Park, which I'll detail in my next update. After I get some curry in me.

can confirm

good story

glad to hear she didnt mess up your face before i finally get to see it for the first time in to long

1-10 how bad did it hurt?

None of what happened to you would have happened if you weren't trying to get a free shag out of a whore.

Look we understand that some people are incredibly ashamed of paying for sex. That's fine, just don't do it. But don't go around every day trying to get hookers to give it up for free. It's just dishonest.

To be fair, sometimes newbs don't know the score when it comes to freelance discos.. I picked a gal up at Insomnia BKK my first time there and she was on me like white on rice. I thought nothing out of the ordinary because I'm quite hansum and thought she was excited to be with me.. took her home and right after the deed she stood there awaiting payment lol

I know of other guys where they assumed it was a normal girl and end up in a slight tussle after the fun ended..

some freelancers prefer to go with older guys because they're such an easy customer, whereas a young stud still has that ego and might make a fuss about paying or short change the girl...

still the girl was out of line, he did pay for her drinks and offered her a cheeseburger.. If a thai girl did that for me at a club, I'd be like hell yeah. free drinks and burgers, how can you beat that?

hookers dont have signs on their heads that say "hooker"

he danced with a girl at a disco, no talk of money ever took place, once she brought up money he politely told her no thanks he didnt want to pay


do you really have to get on everybodys @ss for everything? he did nothing wrong here the girl totally overreacted obviously, if she was going to be like that she should have brought up money right off the bat so as not to waste her time

I'm not saying the girl didn't overreact, obviously a bottle in the face is going too far.

But he didn't "do nothing wrong" either. The fact remains that he was wilfully wasting her time if he had no plans to pay. This happens to girls all the time and they ****ing hate it. At the very least, pay her a couple of hundred baht for wasting her time. He probably spent at least double that buying her drinks that she didn't even want.

That's what pisses them off the most - the fact that you'd happily spend 1000 baht buying overpriced drinks in a club, but absolutely refuse to pay them for sex. They'd much rather you gave them the cash and a 50 baht bucket of Lao Khao. They're there to make money.

He danced with a girl at a disco in Pattaya, where 90% of the girls are hookers.

its a fine line, i was scolded for asking girls walking on fields if they wanted to go hang out because i shouldnt assume every girl there is "working"

now he is getting told he shouldnt be dancing with a girl

i get what you are saying, maybe you should just work on your tone, re-read your initial post, you (as always) came off as a complete ass, he didnt do anything dishonest, he wasnt looking to get a free shag out of a hooker, ya ya i know lol @ me giving you life advice but u come off as a complete dick in 90% of your posts (but you have the ability not to, as you demonstrated in your last post)

You seem pretty ****ing clueless about Thailand and SE Asia.
Let me describe to you in as few words as i can how South East asia and Thailand works in general compared to your comfy cushioned life in the west:

- You are white. Every person in that country who is not of a middle class and higher status (and thats a VERY small percentage of the population, so calling it middle class is wrong...lets call it ELITE class) sees you as a walking ATM.

- Anything you wanto do, see, eat, whatever will come with an additional "**** the rich foreigner because if he can afford a ticket here he can afford to pay 500% more then thais on this Curry"

- When you are in pattaya the worlds biggest Red light district, and you go to the biggest hotspot for paid sex in the world; Walking St, and you go inside a "bar" (brothel) or a "disco" (brothel with music) or are walking along that "street" (walk through brothel), you are a customer looking for a product. This product is sex. Each girl you see in this area and surrounding area is for sale. Each girl is assuming you are looking for sex and is willing to offer themselves to you for a price. Occasionally you will get lucky and a more naive and "farm fresh" girl will come with you for free under the pretense of you becoming a "boyfriend" or "sponsor". This girl doesnt know better and will soon be asking you for money to pay for her brothers/mothers/fathers/cousins/dogs hospital operation.

- Dont be asking thai people for any sort of advice that involves finance or financial gain. Don't ask for directions. They will give them to you regardless of whether they know where something is or not. Dont put your faith in the goodness of strangers in a third world country where everyone is struggling and if survival means screwing a rich foreigner then no problem.

- Dont take the ****ing train from city to city when a ****ing plane ticket from Chiang mai to Bangkok will cost you like $40 on Airasia and takes less then 1 hour.

- Dont go randomly exploring places that you haven't previously researched, have contacts in, going with someone that knows etc. This isnt Australia or Norway, there are places where you will wander into that are not going to be safe. Especially the South of Thailand where bombings are as common as daylight.

- Use your brain. Dont bring your first world attitude and first world beliefs to a third world Asian country. Things work differently. Everyone looks out for themselves. There are no "careful falling debris" signs around construction sites. There will just be falling debris.

- If you want to find a girlfriend or companion i recommend a girl that's lived or studied abroad. Long term relationships with pure thais, no matter from which class (but especially the majority poor) are in most cases long term incompatible. If you want a new girl every night you have many options, just don't get attached.

Thats it for now. .

thats what happens when u spend a lot of time with 1 shop around dance with 1 . then another, talk to several ,dont just hang with one .if you not gunna buy it
she was expectin a payday
u spend time with one they expect u gunna be bangin it

It sounds like lack of common sense in general. I wonder who really thinks of going to the biggest brothel city in the world, to the biggest brothel area in that brothel city, and thinks; "hey, I'm going to look for normal girls - I'm sure there are perfectly normal women just partying it up on hooker street!"

Hookers have limited working hours. Of course they'll be pissed if they got nothing out of you aside from being lead on. They're not there for your stupid free drinks and burger. Every evening, their time to get a customer or two is ticking away.

Thailand is a bit of a victim of it's own success. There are too many foreigners going all over Thailand and locals start to get jaded and see foreigners as a source of money and little else. That said, I have been through many little village towns where people are still super nice and extend overwhelming generosity expecting nothing in return. When I ran out of daylight in one town, the locals offered to put me up for the night in their temple, gave me food and drink, etc. (The next day, I left some money with the monks for their temple construction.)

Some people like to experience different modes of travel in a country, particularly if they have time. I took a train+vip bus to Krabi that was a PIA, but I wanted to do it not for financial reasons, but for the novelty value. If you know where you're going, I would recommend taking some of the trains out of BKK for short day trips. Particularly the old trains with huge seats, windows instead of A/C... it's kinda fun.

I still want to take one of those super-VIP busses that have couches and tables, but it looks like those are only hired out by organized tours...

I think you're starting to get a bit paranoid here. Thailand is very safe for foreigners. Occasionally, there are some bag/camera snatching incidents in tourist hot spots, but I can't think of even one area in Thailand where I felt like I was pushing my luck. I often ended up wondering about after midnight looking for open street vendors, etc. Almost every other country seems more sketchy in comparison - even in the US I wouldn't wonder about in some parts of DC/Baltimore/NY, for example. What is the worst/most dangerous neighborhood in Bangkok? In CM? Anyone know?

I spent a good bit of time in Deep South, too. While there is a chance of inadvertently getting caught up in something, it's a minuscule risk not worth thinking about. (People tend to overestimate terrorism risk versus risk of driving which is much higher.) It's a Muslim minority versus Thai Buddhist conflict and Westerners are not targets for either side.

It's actually an interesting area unlike any other part of Thailand. It is worth going to. It's one of the very few spots where I didn't see any Westerners. It feels... Muslim... if you've ever been to a Muslim country.

have fun with that haters E

Wow some really helpful insights people. Thank you for taking time out of your day's to give me your viewpoints.

First, I feel really fortunate my face is intact. My glasses got all ****ed and my face stung like a bitch, but didn't get cut at all. My glasses flew from my face and the lens went AWOL...popped it back in like a boss though.

I've been cut by glass before. What happened was a big shard of glass sliced into my foot. Didn't hurt at all but the blood was gushing pretty good. Figured my face would start bleeding after it shattered near my eye but for some inexplicable reason didn't even get cut. PHEW.

Not super into Thai girls. They're alright but the language barrier is a killer. If I date one she's gotta be a university girl. I met this one girl going to an international university in Hua Hin (spoiler alert that story is coming up) and her accent was awesome. She spoke English so perfectly. And she was interesting. Not at all interested in dating now though, so I'm not too concerned about cultural barriers or whatevs.

Kaizen K- Agreed that Pattaya is possibly devoid of good ladies. I wasn't even trying to find a good lady, a bad lady, or anylady. Just wanted to dance and usually like to groove out with a partner, ya know? Not gonna be going back there anytime soon though.

Dark Mace- Actually, for reasons pertaining to getting student loans easier, I'm legally Native American.

-Thanks for the tip about asking people for financial advice. I'm pretty sure I don't on this forum, though I have posted a hand or two when I'm confused about optimal lines. That's sort of financial advice, right?

-Interesting thought on exploring places without research. I actually prefer exploring places that are a little bit off the beaten path, a bit dangerous. It gives a little bit of a thrill, doesn't it? Bringing my camping boots to Cambodia tomorrow...

- I like taking trains. I get to see the countryside. And read. And listen to music. Those are my favorite things. Haven't you ever heard that it's the journey that's important, not the destination. The problem with this particular train is after buying 2nd class air conditioned tickets, they decided to downgrade us and give us a partial refund. I don't mind paying more for comfort, and it was unfortunate we were forced to be less comfortable. I say we because that leg of my trip a friend was joining me.

-Sorry you couldn't make it work with a pure Thai. I'm probably not going to try unless she happens to be smart as a whip and communicate really well. I can't even get girls from the US to communicate well with me so it's going to be an uphill climb finding a good Thai communicator.

-With regards to terrorism, I agree with dc publis that it's a miniscule risk. Math is truth, not movies, and more people die every year from falling coconuts than Americans die of terrorism (fact check anyone?)

K2D- Thx I AM enjoying the haters. Not going to be partying/getting drunk much more this trip though so we're going to lack the interesting stories that get people to add input. I keep waking up too late so I think I'll just stop drinking booze and hydrate with H2O.

You wont find many non hookers in pattaya but after you had the drink thrown over you why didnt you just leave?

Sukhothai-

Waking up early and walking around the new city, I realize there's nothing really to do (except dick around on the internet for 30 cents an hour). So around noon I take a tuk tuk to the old city for 3-4$ as it's 14 km away.
First thing I do is rent a bicycle, as I've heard it's the best way to view the temples. After renting a bike for 1$ (apparently the bike rental prices range from 30 cents to a buck seventy-five, but I really didn't feel like shopping around) I went to buy my ticket to the park at a cost of 3-4$.

Riding through Sukhothai is a peaceful experience and were I more of a poet I'd surely be able to describe it to you. There's a series of moats and roads, and riding my bicycle through those paths I could visit the temples, or the ruins of what was something significant for these people.

A really relaxing afternoon and a fine way to spend ones time, IMO. Unfortunately for me the very first shot of a temple I had lined up in my Canon and the damn thing ran out of batteries. Oh well. If you want pictures just google "Sukhothai Historical Park" or something.

All in all a nice trip to Sukhothai, but I'd be headed to Bangkok that very evening. I've seen what Sukhothai has to offer, and while nice, I couldn't see myself living here for a year so it's time to move on.

Next entry - To Bangkok

Fyi this forum is not run by thai nationals, therefore asking for financial advice regarding how to play a hand does not really apply to my reasoning behind asking a THAI person in THAILAND.

Furthemore, terrorist attacks in america and the west maybe fairly rare, but terrorist attacks in the South of thailand, filled with angry Muslims is an entireley different story.

http://endthelie.com/2012/03/31/bomb...#axzz24GIcoe00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17571133

http://www.castanet.net/news/World/7...ck-in-Thailand

Yep...more people die from coconuts falling on their head.

we get it dude, youre rich, you dont have to keep rubbing our nose in it

The evening Bus to Bangkok -

Was uneventful and dull. The highway not much to see. Uncomfortable to read. I just listened to jams on my Mp3 player...maybe some of my audiobook too but I'm not enjoying Douglas Adams' "The Long Dark Tea Time".

Some 8 hours later I arrive in Bangkok and take a taxi to Khao San Road, which was supposed to be a backpackers mecca. The excitement of the lights and loud music suggests this is indeed the happening place. There's backpackers from all over the world, and I immediately meet an interesting drunk group of German University students. They invite me into their room for drinks which happens to be across the hall from me, which I take them up on. They're serving Jim Beam and Coke. Germans go all the way to Thailand to drink Kentucky whiskey with an American.

"It was the cheapest liquor at the airport" they claim in their defense, though I wasn't attacking their drink selection, just noting it was an interesting choice.

Discussing everything from travel itineraries, school, and politics, I decide to go out to get some food. I've not eaten since before the bus ride some 10-11 hours earlier.

I went out to eat and tried to make something brilliant, but it was a failure. You know that saying shoot for the stars, for even if you miss you'll land in the sky? Well I tried to put pad thai onto a burger king burger. I'm not going to detail the taste, because that's something that I lack the ability to describe with words. It was not a good creation though, and difficult to eat. I ended up enjoying the portion of the Pad Thai that I ate separately, however.

Unfortunately because I was arriving so late to Bangkok everybody was wasted already at the bars and I was just getting started on drinking, so my annoyance level at everybody else was high. Have you ever been the only sober one? It's terrible.

Ladyboys are annoying. Regular hookers are annoying. Just trying to walk down Khao San road you get accosted by hookers who walk up to you. I shake my head no, try and walk around them, but they just walk up to you and put their arm around you. I'm like "no thanks"

"why not?" they plead, "where you stay? You HANDSOME!"

Seriously pisses me off...all they while they're hanging on my damn arm while i'm trying to get away and make sure they don't magically make my wallet disappear. The ladyboys are especially annoying because A) I find them gross B)they have a kung fu deathgrip C)they are especially persistent.

Note to self - Don't ever go to prison. I'm too pretty for prison.

Anyways, all these annoyances served is to cement my decision to leave early the next morning for my next destination: Hua Hin.

D_M - I have no clue what you're talking about asking Thai people for financial advice. Far as I remember, I haven't been asking Thai people for advice on finances so I'm not sure why you bring it up.

Secondly, I'm not concerned about terrorism so that's not really an issue with me. I get it that the world is a scary place, people get murdered every day, etc. I appreciate your concern. I'm sure I'm not going to the heavy terrorist demographic regions anyways. They're usually less fun in general. Places that I wander into without fully researching are usually places that I read blurbs about in Lonely Planet or similar guides.

i want to give you a standing ovation for burger king + pad thai...... whered you find bananas in thailand?

i dont know how u can handle all these buses

You started out ok but now you sound like the one that is clueless. You can go anywhere in Thailand safely with zero knowledge. Plus, fearing terrorism is ridiculous, as dc stated, if you want to fear the world, don't get into a car.

I'd prefer taking a bus over a plane 90% of the time. Just checked Air Asia and for the next 10 days a flight from BKK to Chiang Mai cost 80 dollars plus tax and fees, going to be like $100. A comfortable VIP bus from Mo Chit costs $20 and offers a tremendous amount of flexibility, can hope on one any time you want.

Sorry but this isn't true for the Songkhla/Yala region at the moment. Muslim separatists shooting at vehicles is a daily event, bombs etc. I would avoid that area at the moment. Luckily there's no reason to go there anyway.

Most governments also have this listed as a "Do not travel" zone, which means that if you do go there and something happens to you, you void your travel insurance.

There has been a lot of violence in Southern Thailand, roughly 60 deaths related to the insurgency in 2012. That includes a decent percentage being Thai soldiers, police and politicians. There was the bomb at the upscale hotel that accounts for 25%. Basically besides that incident your odds of being a foreigner involved are close to nil since you are not the target. Odds of being somewhere a bomb goes off at that place at that time is like lightning striking.

There are travel warnings for lots of places. Going somewhere like Sinai where bombs go off far more frequently and foreigners are the target, still extremely low chance you are at the location of a bomb going off, it doesn't prevent me from going. If people are kidnapping foreigners in a place where foreigners are few and far between I may consider not going otherwise terrorism is a fairly irrational fear for the most part

12,000 people die in car/motorcycle accidents every year in Thailand. Not going somewhere because 60 people have been killed seems a little odd (double the murders in my home city in 2012)--but that is the purpose of terrorism, to put fear into you, even if the numbers don't add up

More people have died in traffic accidents in Israel than all their wars combined, but nobody says "don't get into a car when you go to Israel"...

Just my opinion. I know some people don't feel comfortable going to these places, over reaction IMO

There's a statistically insignificant risk of me getting caught up in a terrorist attack. Thank you J_A for recognizing that.

"The only thing to fear is fear itself"

So don't be scurred and stop trolling the post with terrorism related topics.

Did you miss the part where going there voids your travel insurance? Not that most people have it, but given there's no good reason to go to Yala or Songkhla anyway (except if you're doing a visa run to Malaysia), it's best avoided.

Their targets have changed recently, 2 teenage boys riding home from school were randomly shot and killed last week for no particular reason.