Fancy seeing Bangkok, land of crazy traffic, on a bike by night?

When I first heard that Grasshopper Adventures was running a Bangkok Bike Tour, I thought it was a joke. It’s hard enough to cross the road by foot, let alone roll about by pedal power. And then I discovered they also run the tour at night, and I thought for sure these guys are crazy - and I signed up right away.

All good inventions take a while to catch on, but for the brilliance behind designing this cycling tour in Bangkok was to keep the bikes off the road and in the back streets.

Tags: Bangkok,Bicycle,Holiday,Tour
Categories: Bangkok
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Every time I go for a beauty treatment here in Thailand, I get spanked.

The other day I went for a pedicure and the woman bent my toes back in a most unnatural fashion, then punched and spanked the bottoms of my feet. Okay, okay, I’ll give you a tip!

It was the same going in for a wash, spank and blow-dry. These ladies at the beauty parlour are from the shampoo-rinse-repeat school of hair massage. Just when you think you’ve made it through the rinse cycle and are starting to enjoy the fluff dry, brace yourself Effie. Spank, spank.

Tags: Bangkok,Massage,Spanking,Thailand
Categories: Bangkok
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Double standards?
Two teachers from Bangkok’s Sai Mai district have been jailed for 50 years after being found guilty of sexually abusing five young girls.

Lon Soragnit, 58, and Pimol Sunsri, 49, raped five students aged between seven and eight in the school’s classrooms and at one of the defendant’s homes.

It’s a shocking case of abuse of trust, from people who are supposed to educate children, not molest them.

I know how keen Thai authorities are to ensure the safety of students (usually by forcing foreign teachers to produce their life history before being employed).

Tags: Bangkok,Beer,Gillian Gibbons,Jail,Jobless,Muslim
Categories: Odds And Ends
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My only experience with Air Asia was a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok a year or so ago. I remember it as pretty ordinary with the exception of some smaller incidents. Not more than one could expect when saving a little bit of money by flying a low cost airline.

So when my brother and I was about to make our reservations from Bangkok to Tawau on the Malaysian island of Borneo, and Air Asia provided the fastest method of getting there, It never crossed my mind not using their services again. Well, I surely will think twice about doing that next time.

Tags: Air Asia,Bangkok,Kuala Lumpur,Tawau
Categories: My Diary
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Boxing clever
Muay thai kick boxing is going global, while preserving its ancient roots. Movies and live matches are making the sport a ‘must-see’ spectacle, while ever more visitors study this beautiful blend of force, dance and devotion.

The colourful boxer’s shorts arrayed at souvenir stalls show what a national icon muay thai (Thai kick boxing) has become. Many visitors who wouldn’t ordinarily see a sporting event while on holiday - and might not be boxing fans at home - seek out a muay thai match for the rich experiences it offers. Every bout combines ancient ritual with celebrity presence, brute physicality with balletic grace, fierce competition with modest respect.

Tags: Bangkok,Muay Thai,Thai Boxing,Thailand
Categories: Thailand
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Asia Dive Expo (ADEX) is Asia’s largest and longest running trade and consumer exhibition for the dive industry and related businesses. ADEX is firmly established as THE superior platform for business and networking for the dive industry in Asia. Returning once again to Bangkok, ADEX brings together the very best for trade and consumer under one roof in its 13th edition in 2007.

I will participate on ADEX these dates:

April 27 PADI IDC Staff Instructor Update.
April 28 Emergency Instructor Trainer Course.
April 29 Relax and check out all the exhibitors.

Link to ADEX 2007 website: http://www.asiadiveexpo.com/

Tags: ADEX,Asia,Bangkok,Diving
Categories: Odds And Ends
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One thing first-time visitors to Thailand find intriguing is the spirit house, ubiquitously found in the yard of almost every Thai home or building. In Bangkok, the biggest and most popular spirit house is that located in front of the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel at the corner of Rajadamri and Ploenchit Roads. Built in 1956, long before the current hotel came to be, this spirit house has over the years emerged into a major Bangkok shrine, drawing busloads of devotees not only from Thailand but also from people across Asia - Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Singapore, even Malaysia.

Tags: Bangkok,Erawan Shrine,Thailand
Categories: Bangkok
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Day tour for less than 100 Baht.

Why would anyone go through the trouble of traveling kilometres away for a piece of pottery? It doesn’t make sense, especially if you take a forty Baht skytrain ride to Sapan Taksin for a boat trip to Nonthaburi. That almost half of the sixty or so passengers of the boat you took were all headed for Nonthaburi - and ultimately to Koh Kret, the pottery island - made it all the more mind-boggeling.

Tags: Bangkok,Food,Koh Kret,Pottery,Thailand
Categories: Bangkok
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Silom - Surawong - Sathon
From end to end, these parallel streets are full of big blocks of multi-story buildings, housing many banks, finance firms, insurance companies, export-import houses, hotels, airlines offices, restaurants, shopping arcades, department stores, and entertainment establishments. This area is busy not only in the daytime, but also in the evening, when people come to eat, to meet buisness friends or to seek enjoyment.

There is a small area in this district which, for about 30 years, has been very well known to foreign visitors for its bars and nightclubs. Known as Patpong, this famous place offers various kinds of entertainment - wine, beer, music, dancing, etc. In this area, there are both skytrain and subway stations.

Tags: Bangkok,Bangna,Downtown,Rama,Siam,Silom,Sukhumvit
Categories: Bangkok
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A golden brownish leaf floats in the early morning breeze from a teak tree towering high above the road that climbs through Khao Yai National Park. I watched it drift; its graceful descent to the tarmac caught by sunlight filtering through the trees. Its descent became my marker. Could I speed up just a mite to catch the leaf before it touched the tarmac? I didn’t, but in those few seconds I knew why cycling, of all sports, fascinates me the most. You concentrate on small matters, like finding the strength to round the next bend or climb a mountain road. As you travel in slow mode a destination shares its secrets.

Tags: Bangkok,Bicycle,Khao Yai,Thailand
Categories: Bangkok
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