Excellent post. I enjoyed my time in Lima and I agree that Peru has a shitton of stuff to do. Food was decent, people were nice, tons of stuff to do...Peru in general was one of my favorite S.A. countries.

Requesting more on Taipei,Thailand & Phillipines please

Wtf mate? It's safe here in Finland too and the police only fires (every shot incl. tires etc) in the line of duty sth like 15-20 times per year, but still it seems incredible that they don't even carry guns routinely?

I mean yeah you have a small country, and safe without a doubt, but you would think that they would carry a gun for 1) their own protection and 2) the proactive threat of firepower which you would think that lowers crime

2 big threads about thailand full of info imo

Yeah I understand this and very helpfull they are too.
I prefer this format however as it is more concise instead of sifting through thousand's of pages

great post. but what about womens?

Sydney, Australia

Firsthand experience? australian citizen and resident

Cost of Living - 1

living in sydney, and australia in general is very expensive, consistently in international top 10 lists.

a 2 BR house in the suburbs 30 minutes from the city will set u back easily $500/wk

nightlife is also VERY expensive

Recreation - 10

pretty much anything u can think of u can do here. its a city with something for everyone. very diverse environment (beach, rain forest, bush, forest).

more bars, clubs, restaurants etc than u could possibly see in a few months. theres always something going on in terms of music and festivals

How Scary? - 2

it depends on the area u are in, but generally speaking u wont have any problems. australia is a 1st world country and sydney has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. keep to urself and u'll have no problems. some parts of sydney u would be smart to avoid at night (parramatta, cabramatta for example).


Poker Playing -

a) live poker - 2

nonexistent outside of the casino (only 1), and the rake and game selection is awful. if u dont mind dealing with that and snappy, underpaid, overworked dealers u should do ok. i should point out that tournaments run regularly, the fee is relatively low and the structures are decent

b) online poker - 10

online poker is legal in australia, and defacto untaxed. pretty much everyone young has played at least a few times, very open

How Easy to Get There and Stay There? - 5

most western passport holders get a 3 month visa waiver. a 12 month tourist visa is fairly easy to obtain.

doing visa runs is going to be a problem. the border control for tourists is very strict (due to heaps people from SE asia staying here on tourist visas and working illegally), and they will definitely ask u why ur returning so soon. expect to be put back on a plane (annoying after 6 hours return from NZ)

Well, there seems to be plenty to go around and they definitely like gringos. The female Peruvian population in general probably won't win any prizes for their amazing beauty though, so it won't be like cruising down the main street in Copenhagen on a warm summer day.

If you're into paying for it, I'm pretty sure that's available as well.

Ecuador

Experience
My wife is Ecuadorian, and this was my first trip down there with her and her family. We stayed for 1.5 months, and virtually saw the entire country, living with locals. The country is divided into 3 very different regions. The coast, the sierra, and the oriente (Coast, mountains, and amazon). Each category will differ somewhat depending on the region you are in, but I will do my best to give a clear picture.

Cost of Living: 9
Travelling to Ecuador for the first time from Toronto, was comical when it came to costs. A quick rundown on prices (All USD): $0.60 bottled beers, $1.50 for a plate of rice w/ beans and a meat of your choice, cooked how you want it (typically from "hole in the wall" type places), if you go to the chain restaurants, expect $3-$4 for a full meal. 5-star equivalent restaurant we ate at, dinner for 4, chilean wine, steak w/ prawns type meals, bill came out to $65. $0.25 public transit, $8 bus ride across the country (9 hours), $4-$6 max taxi ride to get anywhere within the big cities. A condo we looked at in Salinas, amazing spacious 2 br, floor to ceiling glass sliding doors, on the coast overlooking beautiful beaches, $130,000. This condo anywhere in Toronto, or any city equivalent in costs, $500-600k easily. I hesitate to give this category a 10, because Ecuador is the first third-world/developing country I've visited.

Recreation: 10
Coast: The most undeveloped pristine coastline I've ever heard of or seen. Going out on a limb I'll say 95% of the coast has no human footprint. Every 10-20 kms driving along the coast, you will find small fishing villages, where you can spend an afternoon soaking it up on the beach, and the waves are decent to surf. Habitable places we stayed for longer periods, would include Salinas, Montanita, and Esmeraldas. All exotic beach locations, Montanita being party central (Babylonia as my inlaws called it). Sea-doo's and 4x4's are all readily available for rent. Guayaquil, the most populous city in Ecuador, is considered coastal. This city can be avoided, nothing much at all to do (This was our "home-base" for the majority of the trip).

Sierra: Quito and Cuenca, the 2nd and 3rd largest cities in Ecuador, are located in the Andean mountains. Both are at high altitudes, so the majority of physical recreation activities consists of hiking or biking. A town called Banos not too far from Quito, has all the extreme sports covered, including white water rafting, bungie jumping, hand-glidding, you name it. Babylonia of the sierra when the sun sets, as well.

Amazon: You can do amazon tours for a few nights, and stay in the rainforests, watch out for the penis fish.

How Safe: 5
Changed this heading, to avoid confusion. Everyone you speak with, over-emphasizes how unsafe it can be in Ecuador, including locals. From my experience, I didn't run into one hairy situation, and I ventured way off the beaten path, where I'm sure no gringos have been in years, if not ever. The people there looked at me more out of curiosity, rather then with criminal intent. The reason I'm giving this category a 5, is because I'm also 6'4, 260 lbs, and I'm assuming part reason why I wasn't bothered was because of this. At the same time I did see in the news, people who were killed in the streets only a few blocks over. Same goes for most travel, be smart and respectful, you should have no problems. Guayaquil was by far the "shadiest" city out of them all. Popular areas and touristy places are full of military and police, and from what I understand, the new president has cracked down hard to clean up any corruption in these organizations. You feel extra safe around them.

Poker Playing: B&M: 6 Online: 6
Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca, the 3 largest cities, each have one private poker club. I was only able to visit the two in Quito and Guayaquil, but had a great experience at both. Poker is still in its infancy over there, so most all of the players there had only been playing 0-3 years. Combined with a widespread lack of understanding poker math, made for very soft games. We played 1/2 and on weekends 5/5. Crushing 1/2 and 5/5 there over the 6-7 sessions I played, combined with cost of living, has me seriously considering returning. Gave this a 6 because of game selection, and locations.

The internet is slow to average at best. I didn't play online at all, but I talked to a bunch of people who did. I don't know the legalities for online poker there, but I'm going to assume it's legal, and if not, then it's the last thing on the authorities priority list.

How Easy to Get There and Stay There: 8
Daily flights from Miami $200 ish, and all other south american countries (didn't investigate for Europe). Return from Toronto was $800. Tourist visa was 90 days, and from what I understand can be renewed by leaving to peru/columbia for the day and returning, and getting another stamp. Same as many other places I've read about.



Oh, and BABES. Not as fine as Argentinian, or Puerto Ricans, but I still couldn't help myself from imagining them while making faithful love with my woman.

maybe 2-5% of the population smokes cancer, and not once did I run into any weed, or anyone smoking weed. You can find pure if you're looking for it.

Can you guys that posted about Peru and Equador please also tell us what rake they charge at the live poker rooms?

Thanks!

If they are close to Brazilian girls (beautiful (yes I mean chocolate girls) and easy to get) then my destination in future is Peru
thanks for info dude

5% uncapped is the standard in Lima as far as I know. Games are still very much beatable, but I wouldn't ever consider live poker for a living down here because the stakes are too small and the games usually run from 8 or 9 in the evening until 6 in the morning.

@Lomi

They are very far from looking like Brazilian girls. If you're choosing a South American country solely based on girls I think Brazil, Colombia or Argentina is the way to go.

Brazilians are a fantastic mix of many ethnicities, ofc a lot of Portuguese (and more afro) descent but they have a lot of Italian and German with a little spice of good old Africa in them which makes them really hot imo (they have hot girls ranging from afro-black to moderately light skinned/haired/eyed)

Whereas Peruvians are mostly just a mix of Amerindian and Spanish, European descent from various different countries isn't that present there.
And in my opinion spanish-amerindian people aren't usually that goodlooking, not wanting to be racist or anything, but I just think like that - they are quite small and not that beautiful in general compared to some other countries.

But in all fairness I knew one Peruvian girl in France who was really really hot.

Girls in Bolivia/Peru/farther west countries are (generally) going to be less hot than those in the east. This is due to a higher % of indigenous populations mixed in I think. I thought that the Argentine and Brazilian girls were much hotter than those in the west (in my experiences).

imo girls arent hot in south american countries except brasil, argentina and uruguay
and thats a big downside, considering there are some nice places to be..

I've heard that Colombians are very hot...can't confirm though, never went there.

Police in New Zealand don't normally carry guns on patrol either.

Can anyone confirm this or give a link? I always thought gambling was illegal in most muslim countries.

This is a level? This is the Philippines, not Malaysia. Catholics, not Muslims.

My bad. I was actually thinking about Indonesia. Don't know how I confused the two.

check the thailand travel guide sticky at the very top of the forum, roger wrote alot of good stuff there.

lol u a sagely dude. how would you rate earth overall?

Please tell me that this is a level / joke, right?

I really want to believe here... it's just that when it comes from an American my reads are off - borderline stuff

is Walker Hill the only casino with poker?
also how bad is "absurd rake"? uncapped 5%? or higher than 5%?

thanks!

Not a level at all. But it is a generalization.

What do you take issue with? 'Expensive'? Look at property values in good neighborhoods and hotel prices in good neighborhoods in SA vs Asia vs Africa vs US. These prices will reflect the disparity I'm talking about. The 'nice' upscale areas in SA and Africa tend to be very expensive, unless the only barometer on your life quality scale is cost of alcohol.

Or are you talking about 'security'? Look at the poor areas in Asia and compare them to the African and SA and US slums... It is no comparison. They are a world of difference in terms of security and that is reflective of the rest of these countries as well.

And yes, I know there are exceptions, but that's what they are, exceptions. It's not like I can cover everything in my 3 sentence quick and dirty World summary.