August 28 2006
Western women who disappear in Bangkok
She's a respectable, middle-class Western woman without an enemy in the world so how did journalist, Lyle Walter, disappear without trace in Bangkok?
Sometimes I feel invisible in Bangkok... After five years here, the situation is wearing on me. I hadn't realised until visiting the States this summer how much my ego always has been gently stroked by innocent everyday interactions with the opposite sex. Not my husband, but rather the people [men] I encountered while going about my business in the outside world: the bagel guy; the UPS guy; a particularly solicitous waiter... These moments weren't [were] necessary to reassure me as to my self-worth, but they helped me feel recognised as an attractive person with ideas, dreams, plans...
August 25 2006
How do the Thais stereotype us?
I nearly pissed myself laughing when I learned that the Thais refer to England as "Muang poo dee" - the land of high-class people.
Alighting from their vintage Bentley, the first English visitors to Thailand might well have resembled Sir John Gielgud and Dame Judy Dench but, these days, our most visible ambassadors are drunken chav meatheads taking a break from mugging old ladies before returning home, via the Immigration Detention Centre, courtesy of the British taxpayer.
The Thais have a colourful alternative name for most important countries around the world and, today, we learn what they are:
August 24 2006
Thai insults: Is "farang" a racial slur?
When a Thai bargirl called him "farang," one meathead from England was so incensed that he beat her unconscious.
"Farang" actually means "Caucasian" - it's completely neutral - but the tourist who passed judgment with his fists could quite accurately be called "a total cunt."
Coming from a culture where racial labels usually double as insults, many Westerners don't appreciate that the Thais have both polite and impolite words to describe us.
Today, we learn what they are:
August 22 2006
Thailand's other missionary position
Alan Turner, a bigoted young Christian missionary from the Mourne Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland, has vilified Thai Buddhists in his local newspaper in a bid to raise money to buy a luxury car.
Thailand is a Buddhist country but Buddhism basically rejects anyone who is sick, so Siam Care is one of the only groups of people who will help AIDS victims as it is a Christian organisation.
Missionaries used to spout this kind of shite in the 19th Century because they didn't know any better but Turner is a regular visitor to Thailand in his capacity as a team leader of the Tearfund charity and the Buddhists who work alongside him will, quite rightly, be outraged by his remarks.
August 21 2006
Fox News: Bangkok is "Pedophile Paradise"
Any man visiting Bangkok is a pedophile, according to Fox News, and Washington Square echoes to the screams of diseased five-year-old starving slave children being raped and beaten by thousands of salivating Western pedophiles given free passes by the money-grabbing Thai Government.
Fox News is notorious for telling lies but yesterday's report from Rudi Bakhtiar must surely be the ultimate in knuckle-dragging prejudice masquerading as a news story.
August 18 2006
Pills that drive Thai women crazy
A heart attack at the age of 24 prompted a Thai ex-girlfriend to throw away her diet pills. She's lucky to be alive - but her story is by no means unusual. If she talks incessantly, loses her appetite and lurches wildly between euphoria and despair, your Thai girlfriend is probably taking them too.
All over Thailand, countless poorly regulated beauty clinics dish out amphetamine-like diet pills to any woman willing to pay for them. The, often unlabelled, drugs are dispensed in strengths described as ranging from one to ten but impatient Thai women hell-bent on losing weight with minimal effort often choose the strongest and most dangerous. Many also exceed the stated dose in the mistaken belief that if one pill is good, two pills are better.
Seeking a quick fix to the effects of a self-indulgent lifestyle, Thai girls with farang boyfriends are more likely than most to get hooked. Go-go dancers in particular tend to fill out pretty quickly when kindly patrons remove them from their natural chrome pole habitat and deposit them in front of the TV.
August 17 2006
JonBenet Ramsey's "killer" arrested in Bangkok
This creepy-looking pedophile is John Mark Karr, 41, the self-confessed killer of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey. He was arrested in Bangkok today following a joint Thai/US manhunt.
August 15 2006
Japanese tentacle sex
Japanese tentacle sex was probably the last thing on this young lady's mind when she ordered the calamari salad but they only had octopus and she looks reluctant to send this amorous duo back to the kitchen.
Hokusai's The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife is the first known depiction of the now wildly popular Japanese tentacle sex phenomenon. It dates back to 1820 - long before the invention of bikini wax.
Even for Japanese fishermen's wives, the salacious cephalopods of Japanese tentacle sex exist only in hentai. You wouldn't want a Humboldt Squid anywhere near your private parts because, instead of offering you a friendly gobble, it would, given half the chance, bite off an orange-sized chunk of flesh.
August 14 2006
Bangkok Dangerous: Nicholas Cage hits Soi Cowboy
Looking dangerously shifty in a Hawaiian shirt and black wig, Hollywood superstar Nicholas Cage was, last night, spotted lurking outside the Tilac Bar on Soi Cowboy - the very same Bangkok go-go bar where fellow thespian Hugh Grant famously had his tackle felt.
Unlike Hugh, however, Nicholas Cage was in Soi Cowboy on business filming a big-budget remake of the Pang brothers' cult gangster thriller, Bangkok Dangerous.
Signs warned Bangkok revellers that, by entering the area, they were consenting to being filmed - so it probably wasn't the best night to go striding down Soi Cowboy arm-in-arm with a six-foot transsexual.
August 12 2006
Aristocrat misses flight & dies in Bangkok jail
Millionaire tourist Christoph von Hohenlohe, 49, died this Tuesday after collapsing in a shit-smeared Bangkok prison cell while crammed in with 40 other inmates. He was being held in connection with a one day overstay on his transit visa after missing his flight home to Honolulu.
Far from being a criminal, von Hohenlohe was actually minor European royalty and a beneficiary of the Fiat fortune. He was arrested for (foolishly) altering the date on his transit visa - a "crime" roughly on a par with declaring the wrong hotel on your landing card or carrying an extra bottle of wine through customs.
When immigration officials at Bangkok International Airport noticed the amendment, he was charged with possessing false documents and transported to the notorious Bangkok Remand Prison.
August 10 2006
Thai pussy with claws
When Thai pussy turns Tiger, it's the fellas that roar - partly out of frustration because this particular species of Thai pussy isn't generally available for private hire.
Irrespective of whether they work for Tiger, Heineken or Chang, most Thai beer girls are perfectly respectable but the brewers make them parade around in tight, eye-catching slutwear - so it's hard not to develop a raging thirst when they approach your table.
At Suan Lum Night Bazaar, most of the beer girls are university students earning extra cash but, inexplicably, the same beer garden also recruit waiters.
One Aussie fella went completely berserk when a Thai "beer bloke" unexpectedly turned up to take his order - to the extent that he almost had to be restrained. The poor Thai guy was practically in tears as he stumbled off with cries of "SEND A FUCKING GIRL!!!" still ringing in his ears.
August 9 2006
Thailand bans "good penetration" condoms
A condom brand named after popular country singer Tom Dundee was, today, banned by the Thai Culture Ministry because, in Thai, Dundee means "good penetration."
"It's ambiguous, boastful and provocative," explained a Ministry spokesman.
Tom, whose real name is Puntiva Poomiprates, should take revenge by changing his first name to Jim - which, in Thai, means "vagina."
If you google "Jim Dundee," you'll find an Aussie bloke who reckons that he's quite the prison reformer but what Jimbo doesn't realise is that his name means "good vagina penetration" in Thai.
August 8 2006
Khaosan Road hippies face habitat destruction
Like smelly rainforest mammals facing habitat destruction, Khaosan Road's hippies are being driven out of their bedbug-infested plywood cubicles to make way for tourist-class hotel rooms.
Once the focal point of Thailand's hippie trail, Khaosan Road has, quite recently, reinvented itself as a truly cosmopolitan entertainment district that's as popular with young Thai revellers as it is with Western tourists. However, the area remains notorious for drug dealing and philH explains how things operate.
The police get paid a bonus equal to a percentage of the street value of any drugs they seize. So they sell the drugs, bust the users and a few dealers, confiscate the drugs, collect the bonus and sell the drugs. Christ, there's probably a fancy name to this branch of economics!
August 7 2006
Thailand's hippie trail
Thailand's white Rastafarians should be congratulated on their hair-care choices because it makes them easy to avoid. "Don't eat the yellow snow, don't wipe your arse with a broken bottle and never trust a hippie" is probably the best advice ever given.
Facial tattoos, rotten teeth and bad didgeridoo playing are worn like badges of pride but, in reality, the hippies' lifestyle is a dated parody of the two week "Summer of Love" that ended forty years ago. Like WW2 Japanese soldiers still serving on remote Pacific islands, no one seems to have told them.
The abundance of hippies in Thailand is great news if you're recruiting extras for a Charles Manson biopic but it's not so good if you're staying in a beachside bungalow and would prefer your valuables to remain undisturbed.
August 4 2006
Thunder Ranch Shooting Range, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
These lucky tourists have just paid $15 to lob a Chinese-made hand grenade into a Cambodian fish pond. Lucky, that is, to be alive considering that they're practically standing on top of it.
Cambodia’s 911 Paratrooper Commandos are your congenial hosts at the Thunder Ranch Shooting Range just outside Phnom Penh. Here you can, depending on your political affiliations, tool up with either an M16 or an AK-47. An M60 machine gun is available for the discerning few who desire extra firepower.
American readers probably feel pretty smug right now because they can buy this stuff at Wal-Mart and test it at the nearest High School but if, like me, you come from a country where even drug-dealers are denied automatic weapons, playing Rambo is still quite a novelty.
August 3 2006
British man murdered, burned & dismembered by Thai ex-wife's relatives
Bangkok prostitute, Pannada Laoruang, 38, and five of her male relatives and friends are currently standing trial for the murder of her wealthy British ex-husband, Toby Charnaud, in Thailand.
As his five year-old son looked on, the men bludgeoned Charnaud to death. They cooked his body like a pig-roast and then scattered his dismembered remains in a wildlife park.
It goes without saying that the Thai police refused to investigate so it was left to a private detective, hired by Charnaud's family, to piece together the evidence.
August 2 2006
Bangkok nightlife: Bad men who misbehave
If your chum is banging away on a prostitute within minutes of meeting you for a drink, then he's been poorly schooled in Bangkok nightlife etiquette. To leave a pal nursing a lonely Heineken for half the evening is pretty crass.
Unless all members of the party are up for a take-out, politeness dictates that those gentlemen who wish to hook up should do so after hours - much to the dismay of Bangkok's pushy nightlife girls and their barfine-hungry employers.
I aired my strongly-held views to a friend last week but, obviously, I was preaching to the converted. Regrettably, the credibility of my sermon was slightly undermined by a frisky go-go dancer who was stuck to me like a hood ornament.
August 1 2006
Sam Sloan: Adventurer, babyfather & taxi driver
Sam Sloan fingered a pretty Thai girl for just two baht at a Chantaburi carnival and, impressed by this amazing deal, set about fingering a few more.
Later, he married a girl from Bang Na but they only spent one night together because her family forgot to mention the dowry. However, he ran into her again a few years later.
By then, she was a dancer in the King's Corner Bar on Patpong Road. Her number was 66. I picked her number took her to my hotel room and had sex with her for 500 baht... That second time I had sex with her, she gave me probably the best lay I had ever had in my life. I think she went with me only because she wanted to ask me if I had ever had sex with her cousin. I gave her the true answer. (Yes, I did).
Previously
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
December 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
