วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 2 มิถุนายน พ.ศ. 2554

No internet!!! :(

Hey all, I am up in Chiang Mai and my new place doesn't have internet at the moment. So I am sitting in an internet cafe listening to Ladyboys give each other English tips as they scam money out of guys all over the internet. Funny as hell, like 12 MSN/skype windows open at the same time. Regular girls do this all the time too. Never believe an online relationship with an SE Asian girl and NEVER EVER send money...
Now, I picked up two more shirts while I was here.
 

Baboons airbrushing each other's butts red and yes, that is Mao dressed like a child while riding an AT-AT and leading it with the communist doctrine like a carrot on a stick....

I am also adjusting to the heat here, check out this nice heat rash!
It was much nastier in person, and on both calves... Sweat jeans rubbing against my calves = me not happy. it's 99% clear now though.

I have one teaser pic of some mountain shots on the way up. This is via iPod in Choburi on a bus. I have a lot from my train ride, but they're from one small area on the trip due to it being a night train.

Trying to read as many updates as possible! And I will continue to post as much as I can.

วันศุกร์ที่ 27 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2554

On the road

Going up to Chiang Mai by Train today, leaving in an hour to go to Bangkok which will take 2hrs and then the night train wont leave until 6pm and then I will arrive 9am. So I won't be able to read any of your awesome updates for awhile, but I will be back!

Our island adventure

So on Wednesday I went back to Koh Larn, a small island about 30mins off of Pattaya city
I went with two of my Thai friends, the one being the guy friend who has let me crash at his place for the past two weeks and the other a female friend I had not seen in almost 3 years. Her mother, grandmother, and American husband came along too.

Here are some shots from the island, I got these after taking a scooter up some insanely steep roads.














I nabbed a bunch of shots that I want to stitch together, but this laptop is not powerful enough to even run pain.net, so I will be doing that when I return home.

At night we had a barbecue and we picked up some pork and chicken. The other American and i were the only two to eat the pork and chicken and woke up the next morning with fevers and messed up stomachs... I slept for 18hrs yesterday and am still a bit under the weather. this is the meal that did it:
We suspect the Thai's poisoned us Farang :3



วันอังคารที่ 24 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2554

Today, just some randomness

My one Thai friend who married an American and moved to Minnesota came to visit 2 days ago and we have all been hanging out. Her husband also speaks Thai and the two of us have been having a hell of a time mindfucking the locals in this resort area cause they rarely hear Farang speak Thai.

Other than that, THE RAPTURE!!!!! didn't happen it seems, but I did see this gem:

Looks like some one was even spending money over here talking about the rapture... Less than 1% of the 65+million people here are Christian....

I also took some photos from the deck of the one mall here in Pattaya, here they are unedited in 16:9 ratio... they are probably going to be a PITA to upload on this crappy internet.



Lastly, Fear the Eon made a post about crappy google maps and it reminded me about the Arby's google maps places in my University's ecological study area. *Doh* I can't find it now to link it :( I will look later.

OK well I am off to a smaller island today and won't have my laptop. Maybe I'll make a post from my iPod if I can find wifi.

วันอาทิตย์ที่ 22 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2554

Cars!

And not the movie.
OK, so a little background about cars in Thailand. There are 3 categories: pick ups, expensive, and taxed to all hell. Here is a bit of the layout:
"Cars sold in Thailand have long been taxed on the basis of engine size and horsepower, with passenger cars taxed from 30% for cars with engines under 2,000cc and less than 220 hp to 50% for cars with engines over 3,000cc and over 220 hp. Pickup trucks are taxed significantly less, starting at 3%, under policies aimed at supporting development of the light pickup market."

But in reality it's crazier than that. This is for cars made in the country or countries they have deals with and even then it's only certain models. A new BMW 3 series might run you $70,000. Like that new Mustang 5.0? Only $140,000! On a smaller scale a Honda fit might run you 3-5K more than the US, while a Mini and a Nissan cube are 3x more expensive. It makes no damn sense, but hey, whatever... Also don't ever try to import your car or motorcycle here, they will tax it based on what they deem it's value is and then try to make sure you mess up the process so they can steal it from you and sell it at a private (corrupt) government auction. Knew a guy on an Expat forum who lost his Supra this way...

 Soooo, when you see a nice car here, and there are quite a few (LOTS of corruption here, the people who are rich are insanely rich and often are high powered enough to have the taxes waived) you tend to take notice.

SO here are some pics, I left them the original size.

 So here we have a scoobi, not really digging the shopping cart wing though, but the two 240's sitting behind it are nice.

Next we have what seems to be a normal BMW with a bit of a rake, only to find it's FMIC. Most likely it has had a SR20DET swap from a Nissan or a 1jzgte swap from a Toyota, unless the owner has the $ for a 2jz

 What's that hiding under the plastic? A nice Audi R8 you say? Probably $200k!

If I were to live here again I would try to build a 1980's BMW e30 with a Toyota 1UZ-FE, surprisingly this V8 has slipped through all the taxation problems but are in low demand due to the high gas consumption. Gas here is about $4/gallon, but you have to remember that most people only make $300-600USD/month

I'll keep posting more. I was at a wedding all day yesterday so I had no time. I ended up meeting the couple last week through a mutual friend and went with them when the wedding pictures were taken. Over a couple of beers that night I got invited and was the only Farang (white person) at the wedding haha, had a blast. I didn't bother taking pictures since I had like 3-4 friends with nice DSLR's and my little cannon just didn't cut it.

วันศุกร์ที่ 20 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2554

More soi dogs and scary gym Nazis

So, I have been going to the gym while I am here in Pattaya because I won't start training Muay Thai until I move up north to Chiang Mai. It was rather interesting yesterday when I saw this guy and his friend lifting.

So, now I know the iPod camera sucks, but I wasn't about to take out my Sx230 and start going to town. I captured this by mirror acting as if I was changing music tracks, I cropped myself out of the pic.
So the blur on the back of his head is exactly the same xXx tattoo Vin Diesel had in XXX... The one on his arm looked to be a tribal swastika and then on to his face... Yes I know I don't have a picture of it, but if you have the courage to ask a guy with a Mike Tyson styled facial tattoo and Nazi SS lighting bolts for eyebrows (the hair was shaved) to smile for your picture, then come on down to Pattaya...

And here I thought all the Germans stuck to Koh Samui and this was scary Russian land...


On a cuter note... MORE SOI DOGS!!!

 
Sadly I saw one pup limping around 7-11 cause he got hit by a car or bike :/


I also snapped a few pictures of cool cars I have seen here in Thailand, with an ACTUAL camera, and will make that a separate post later on today.

วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 19 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2554

A few more pups

So I snagged these yesterday using my iPod touch, not the greatest of cameras, but I haven't been hauling around my digital camera too much. I'll try to get better pics later. The first girl was nearly hairless while the second looks like he's a snuggler!





I also snagged two awesome shirts, Teddy's revenge and a Lego pirate. I mean, when isn't a lego pirate one of the coolest things?

That's all for now, but my day is just starting here, so lets see what else I find.

My first blog

How many first blogs are titled the same? Probably a ton since we are all so original.
In this blog I plan on posting random pictures of my time here in Thailand. So dogs are the stray dogs, or ill cared for pets, that roam the side streets, sois, of Thailand. There are TONS of them, because Thai's rarely fix their dogs and very few people eat dog in this country, unlike Vietnam. I like to consider soi dogs the genetic left over bin of the dog world, there are some crazy combinations out there. There are also some mangy nasty ones as well. I will also be posting other random things as well.