doesn't sound half bad.

Does it come with reliable internet? Amenities? $?

There are less people and everything is about half the price. What's not to like?

I've been to Phuket 4-5 times and I much prefer Samui (particularly Lamai) because it's a small community and it's much easier to fit into the expat scene there.

It's also pretty good for the 20-something party scene since Samui is still pretty firmly on the backpacker "banana pancake trail", but Phuket really isn't since Lonely Planet long ago decided they were too cool/hardcore for Phuket. So if you are into meeting other young falangs who don't play poker then Samui/KPG is a better place to do it than Phuket.

internet is 100% reliable, 60% of the time. 18k and it has a gym/pool although i havent seen the quality of the gym and the pool water is ***** cold

ldo

You should always try eat as much local food as possible wherever you travel imo. Always gonna be cheaper and taste way better. When you start to really get sick of it or crave something from home, thats when you should go for a burger or pizza, but you shouldn't be looking for that kind of stuff every meal. Thai food is good, go for it. Get more adventurous than just pad thai or chicken fried rice. Go to a restaurant with a Thai person (Miriam, if you're in CM) and let them order tons of stuff, its always fun and tasty.

So I'll finally be back on Thursday. Prob gonna hang with my gf this weekend but lets get some early week degeneracy in next week. Group dinner followed by g-club would be fun. Also, I wanna give BED another few tries because I liked it last time I went (think it was a Tuesday). I'm pretty pumped about coming back

Tues is the night to go to Bed supper. other nights are nowhere near as good.

well I've sorta been forced to stick with places that at least have their menu in English as well as thai since not everyone understands the language of KAP KAP KAP . When(funny how its when not if) I come back to thailand I will know how to speak some thai and be more adventurous. One comparison of CM to bkk is that CM street food is almost 100% fried, where at least some in bkk is grilled.

pretty sure I've tried more new food in past 2 weeks than the past 2 yrs of my life.

Hey luke are you still here tonight? I'll be down for a decent Thai restaurant if you want to check some more food out. lmk kap

I think you're running bad with finding street food also, I can't even think of anything fried Ive had here from the stalls?

Westside of the city imo is the best area to stay (Nimmaheiman Rd, Huay Kaey Rd, Suthep Rd.) It's less touristy, cheaper, is close to the mountains and has the best bars/restaraunts.

If I didnt want to stay in this area then somewhere by the river close to Nawarat bridge, good view restaraunt the riverside restaraunt would also be pretty cool. That's on the East side of the city though and pretty far from the places I like to go.


There a few serviced apartments on the west side that are decent, I'm unsure of how reliable any of the internets are though except for the place we are staying at. If you are renting somewhere for a bit longer I'm sure it's not much trouble to have a decent connection installed.

Alex also just bought an AIS super3G usb aircard which can only work in CM and has up to 5mb speeds. So far he said it's been really good for grinding, and was pretty cheap at like 3-4k. So that is deff an option


When are you thinking of coming bill-o?!

555 pretty much sums it up. make sure you get a room next to the wireless router

i just got the ais super 3g usb thing. seems pretty reliable so far. 1.5mb/s dl speed. very easy to grind on. cost 3200baht for the device, then pay-as-you go ~1700baht for 10gb.

If you just use the stick to grind with, about how long time can you grind with 10 gb?

i honestly have no idea, but a friend who's much more comp savvy then me said 10gb is quite a lot and i can't imagine grinding uses up that much.

i'll try to post something more concrete in a few weeks.

End of next month. I miss my thrice weekly massages and tasty thai food.

Didn't you have a house when you first got up there? Is it in a good location and already primed for internet? Could be an option for me if so.

Thanks for the info! I'm really thinking this might happen so I'll probably see you soon.

Cheers!

hope to see you soon darling

saddened to discover that it's looking more and more likely that CM will win the Billy sweepstakes

team cm number 1!

I've never been to CM so I figured I should check it out. I figure I'll drop by Phuket for a week or two before heading up and then after I hope to crash your place like a week each month. There's a direct flight between the two now, right?

edit: Oh no! Is there really only a direct flight from CM to Phuket and not the other way around?

I flew direct from phuket to cm

The first house I stayed in wasn't very nice unfortunately, had lots of things wrong with it. So I deff wouldn't recommend it to any 2p2ers. It's actually pretty hard to find houses around here outside of looking on the websites. But even on the websites rental prices are super low compered to Phuket.

The internet situation is pretty much identical to Phuket. You find a house, hope it can have the best net installed and go from their. The net here is probably a bit more stable (or at least as good) than Phuket in general though if you get the best package available.

I found both these sites really good:

http://chiangmai.thaiapartments.net/
http://www.houseinchiangmai.net/

There's a bunch more also, if any of the guys want to link some (virgee)


seeya soon maybe kapp!

I would definitely avoid the tourist areas like near thapae gate and the big night market if your gonna stay here for any length of time.


went on a "trekking tour" today. rode elephant thru jungle/forest which was cool, then saw "hill tribe" which is basically u go to a poor area where locals try to sell you the same **** they sell at the night market. total scam ldo. Also did bamboo raft ride which was fun. was like 1k baht for day trip with pickup/dropoff so wasn't a bad deal imo. hill tribe bull**** was dumb though, I really wonder what the 3+ day hiking trips through various villages are like. Do all of them sell the same **** that was probably made in China?



myrium check ur phone!

you can just trek through the jungle on the return leg like miriam kap

hello sir and welcome back!

airasia flies both ways between phuket and CM

thai airways only flies CM -> phuket

555

excellent! tyty.

Does anyone know if I need to be at immigration office in Phuket before/after a certain time in order to get a visa extension?