Travel The MEGA Travel Thread!

[Khadijah]

No thanks on tha harajuku stuff....I can see some lame goth ish like that at hot topic at the mall....Thats the last thing i wanna see when i go somewhere exotic and far away to get away from america

 

[Kenickie]

Kenickie has a boner for belarus before all other travel destinations. I am not so sure. All I know of the place is the shakedown from the guys carrying AKs on the train my father and brother took to St Petersburg.

Tehran could come before Belarus...but yeah...major heart on for those Fascists

^ LOL somehow I doubt much has changed
I was in N'awlinz exactly 1 week before Katrina. I had experienced Rita there, and that alone was a trip right there. I do not know how much it changed since then. Interestingly, aside from the cool voudun and cemetery cultures, what I found "exotic" was actually where I lived: on the west bank (impoverished), in what is (was?) essentially a Black Neighborhood. Never would I have imagined the USA to be like that!

you & i were in the city at the same time A lot has changed since then (obviously) but also not a lot. Did you know Jammy, that the West Bank is actually on the East side of the River? and NOLA is a 'Chocolate City', so basically every neighborhood (minus Garden District & Metarie/Kenner/other suburbs outside city proper) is a black neighborhood

p.s. i think you got a picture of my bike tbh

 

[Kenickie]

so

some Belarus

Brest

victory square in Minsk

"The great Patriotic War Museum"

the national library of belarus in minsk

 

[MynameisnotDeja]

Portugal is calling to me....

Varanasi

You've been there, right Jam? It looks magical!

Nepal has been on my list for awhile.

 

[MynameisnotDeja]

kinda makes me understand how some people are resentful of americans, always traveling in their private train cars, no stress to their lives whatsoever

Yes.

 

[mariacallas]

I was wondering what exotic might be for someone from the Phillipines.

I just like being in places where I can chill, relax and enjoy myself . I don't really wanna go to places that are too difficult to reach, or that have a zero population which thus makes it "cool" and "unavailable to the masses."

 

[Ximot]

It
Personally, if I knew I was going to a place in 9 weeks (which I kinda do - about C. America), I'd spend as much time as possible doing 3 things:

1. Learning the language
2. Stuffing myself with as much historical, cultural, literary, and practical info on that place.
3. Saving as much money as I can.

Hey Jamshyd, ... sorry, long time no look this thread. You asked me if I am having a good time... on a personal/internal level, gradually yes. After a period of being extremely hyper before leaving Europe I fell into a relatively deep hole here initially, but now, looking back perhaps that was normal and partly necessary... I am still spending my time experiencing being unemployed by choice and watching my savings dwindle, using the steam room and the pool in the condo and reading books, studying for my hypnotherapy diploma, making music and sometimes performing it live. And I spend too much time on facebook...

Your advice given here... sure... but I would make no.3 my top priority and then have ample time to learn the language intensively when here... I did 2 months of that, some 140 hours... but use it or lose it... I kind of lost half of it again, but I get by in the taxi and with shopping and small talk, which actually i am not good at in any language.

I like the ladies of course, haha, but apart from that I must say my honeymoon period with Thailand is more than over. I will not start overgeneralising here and say they're all lying and scheming, that would be wrong. But by and large they're an uneducated lot... the men tend to be unpleasant and look down on "farang" and make dodgy remarks about us to our face sometimes, while smiling, because they think we cannot understand them... there are plenty stories of extortion here... whoever is Thai and well-connected with the police will get away with almost anything... scams abound too.... the people seem to hold on to anger like people of no other nation i have been to... a couple of friendships I have had with Thai males just ended abruptly due to stubbornness (can't say I'm innocent in all this, obviously) but I am amazed to see how vengeful, scheming, childish, and outright intimidating and/or violent they can be... and how gossipy. And how easily their national pride is wounded. Oh, don't get me started... I am no longer much interested in Thai people or culture... what I enjoy here is the attention I get from the ladies, my Thai girlfriend (she is actually a 'good one' if I may say so, good heart and honest and not all superficial), the weather (hot and muggy often but better than Euro-winters), the chance to live in a nice place with a pool and a steamroom for a fraction of the cost i would be paying back home, the luxury of not working and getting by regardless (this is temporary, my savings won't last me forever, but why work unless you have to or love it?), having Thailand as a base to Asian travel, and finally the fact that I play experimental music with other people now and then, also live on stage, which is well cool. We kind of play soemthing that isn't done here so it's wild... But now I don't really play with Thais any more... too much hassle on the personal level. As I said I have by and large started to look down on the people, i get on my high "farang" horse and just enjoy all the privileges I have here even if I have fewer rights than a dog... I enjoy how I can live in this city, when so many live in total dumps here... and I feel gratitude that i can do that. At first I was shocked at the gap between rich and poor but then I concluded that it is none of my business, there is not much i can do about it but give a few coins now and then... some here are so filthy rich, it's incredible, I am nothing compared to them... and yet I have so much more than most people here . . . go figure.

Anyway, now I have ranted and vented enough. Been here 10 months, I can see behind the fake smile now, and I guess it's all process... I enjoy Thailand but not the Thais... exceptions granted. by and large they aren't interested in me as person either and so I return the favour, and my friendship focus has shifted mostly towards fellow foreigners... precisely the people i most wanted to avoid when first got here. Funny, eh?

I cannot see myself here in the really long term... too unstable the political climate, too sweet the smile of the people, too syrupy their social mechanics, and too quick their anger, and too pronounced their sense of superiority and racism... and way too few rights and oppportunities for foreigners here.

Great ladies though . . . but that's another story. Many think of the White male as a walking ATM, but not all... the genuine ones just think that we're nice compared to our Thai counterparts... and they let us get away with, shall we say, slighty naughty and selfish behaviour because we are still way nicer than Thai males, and most of all most of them want nothing more than a white male on a white horse who's gonna take them away from this shithole called Bangkok and to somewhere nice ... whether that be Europe or the US or perhaps one of the Thai islands... just.. somewhere... nice.... here money obviously comes in... so yeah, I already know that I will not stay here indefinitely. But as i said I also don't bring myself to really hate it and so I also already know that i will miss it when I go.

Perhaps the most interesting thing for me will be, at the end of my stay, when I go back to Europe, to see how it has affected me... how i have changed, and with what eyes I then see Europe and my life there... after my stay in Japan that was quite something... but this time i already know there will be reverse culture shock... so, with full knowledge of this I also try to use my time here to reflect on that and on what my time here means too me in the grander scheme of my life in general. On the whole I am taking it slow here ... aging on the calendar while trying not to age in the body as much as I used to back home, simply because I try to take it easy.

 

[Ximot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_Never_Smiles <- apparently a fantastic read and quite an eye-opener... not available to buy here, obviously... do not get caught with a copy

 

[TheSpade]

Very interesting to read about your experiences of living in Thailamd Ximot.

Bangkok a shit hole it may be but I it.

 

[MynameisnotDeja]

I may well be in SE Asia come August, will have to wait and see how money goes. You'll not struggle to meet people though.

Agreed. I went alone, and it was a good *although at times very challenging, especially when I got really sick* experience. I think everyone should go to a completely different part of the world by themselves, at least once in their lives.

 

[abbycarreon]

It is quite hard to learn Thai language because it is a tonal language and unless the words are exactly pronounced the right way, Thai people would probably have a hard time to comprehend.

[removed advertising link, please don't use Bluelight to advertise your services, thanks - n3o]

 

[Ximot]

Bangkok a shit hole it may be but I it.

Hi there Spade, I read some of your posts about paryting/drinking/womanising. I agree that Bangkok is hard to hate whilst you're in your 20s and single... lol. Now I am in my 30s and not single. Nor do I get away with drinking/partying daily... neither in mind nor in spirit.

I have a friend who is much like you... he takes pride in picking up girls and then not paying them even if they are hookers who just happen to fall for his charms not least because, as you very well know, there are way more girls offering their services for next to nothing than there are guys willing to pay for them at all. Simple economics, offer and demand. Add to that the fact that a mere 5 pounds are about a day's wages for a 7-11 convenience store worker and you have a world of sexual opportunities at your feet, all yours for the taking... While I totally understand that and can't say I am totally innocent of the sex-for-free thing I have to say that I have started feeling for the girls. OK, some of them do quite well, and I have seen some who even have I-phones and what have you - something I have never owned. So yeah, they do have some money... but as they live in the city they forget the value of it and turn into consumer whores who will buy whatever the market dictates... I mean, the reason i do without a smart phone is not that I cannot afford one, it is because I do not think it's worth the money and I really do not need it... these girls think differently... many, it seems, will spend most of the money they make with customers on gadgets, fashion, alcohol and sometimes other drugs... and even though they may have had reasonable turnover during the month they then find it hard to send money to their family or even pay the rent (approx. 50-80 pounds in most cases) ... let alone save something for a rainy day.

Anyway, i have a couple of book recommendations for anyone who would like to get to understand the psyche of the Thai hooker better.

http://www.amazon.com/Miss-Bangkok-...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282885780&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Lon-Y...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282885859&sr=1-1

Happy reading, they are quite shocking...

 

[junctionalfunkie]

Ximot, hang in there... it can't be that bad. Meet me in Phuket October 9, I promise I'll cheer ya up!

I'm trying to select a small library to have shipped to me once I'm settled with a job, most likely in BKK, by around the New Year. Are books in English difficult to find or expensive in Bangkok?

So far, what's definitely going in the box are:

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
The Complete Works of Mark Twain
Infinite Jest (read once)
Elegant Complexity (Companion to 'IJ')

What else? I refuse to use Kindle and that electronic book crap,so please don't suggest it. I want long, serious novels that I've been meaning to read forever. but haven't, or books I could read over and over....

Other possibilities:

Gravity's Rainbow
Ulysses (read parts at Uni)
In Cold Blood
Cormac McCarthy's 'The Border Trilogy' (have read several times)

Stieg Larson's trilogy is definitely coming; I could probably read the whole thing on the flight over (27 hours w/ layover in Hong Kong!)

What else? Some Thompson or Vonnegut paperbacks, but which?

I also have a series of books on aspects of Philosophy, Buddhism, and Linguistics that are definitely coming. Plus a couple of Thailand guidebooks, of course....

 

[TheSpade]

Hi there Spade, I read some of your posts about paryting/drinking/womanising.

Haha. :D

I have a friend who is much like you... he takes pride in picking up girls and then not paying them even if they are hookers who just happen to fall for his charms not least because, as you very well know, there are way more girls offering their services for next to nothing than there are guys willing to pay for them at all.

You've got me all wrong. This did happen once but only because myself and another traveller had set ourselves a challenge to take home a whore for free but I didn't make a habit of it. She was the only time I went anywhere near a whore any other time they were just regular girls with a variety of different jobs, estate agent, surgeon, student, office worker etc.

Are books in English difficult to find or expensive in Bangkok?

Not at all, all the big book shops have mostly English books. You really don't need to be shipping a library worth of books over there.

As for a Thompson book, has to be the Rum Diaries.

 

[Ximot]

Ximot, hang in there... it can't be that bad. Meet me in Phuket October 9, I promise I'll cheer ya up!

I'm trying to select a small library to have shipped to me once I'm settled with a job, most likely in BKK, by around the New Year. Are books in English difficult to find or expensive in Bangkok?

Bring whatever you like. if you're anything like me then you will end up not even reading half of what you will bring... I have a bookshelf here too... i did send a couple boxes with hard-to-find foods and supplements and my volcano vaporiser, my slow-rotation juicer etc etc... and those boxes included a few books... I also did a couple trips back and forth between my decision to move here and finally doing so, so I got a lot of stuff here now, especially fuckloads of musical gear... and even more books than before ...makes me wonder how I'll take it all back home one day.

Yeah sure I'll hang in there mate. It isn't so bad. Just fancied a rant! Especially because I did idealise Thailand a bit in this thread (opposing jamshyd) prior to moving here, so to an extent that was for him... setting something straight there, giving him a due update on my perceptions.

English books... easy enough. Kinokuniya and AsiaBooks ... then you decent secondhand bookshops... not to worry. Just bring what is indispensable to you I would say.

Pukhet in October? I seriously can't plan right now... but I am sure we will meet

 

[TheSpade]

Yeah how bad can it really be. The sun is shining, the beer is cold and cheap, the food is tasty and the women are pretty.

 

[junctionalfunkie]

Yeah, it won't be bad.... and my cert course ends right when the monsoon does.

That's a relief that English books are available and inexpensive.... just bring the bare essentials.

I think The Rum Diaries is the only Thompson book I have not read, so it's going in there.

While we're talking books, Russell Brand's autobiography is the funniest fucking thing I've ever read. And I thought I'd lived a colorful life. :D

 

[TheSpade]

My mate had that book when we travelled in Thailand funny enough, I read it and it was indeed funny.

Rum Diaries is one of my fave books.

 

[junctionalfunkie]

Ximot - just noticed your mention of musical gear.... I'd love to bring my black 12-string acoustic guitar, but it's a monster. I may just bring my little acoustic (Esteban!) or are musical instruments pretty inexpensive in Thailand?

I'd like to get one of those Japanese-made Stratocasters....

 

[Namhe]

Everyone here should try thai iced tea :>