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It seems like the numbers keep getting revised downwards. First it was 500,000 then 300,000 then 100,000 now tens of thousands. I guess without an official count no one will ever know and it would be disputed even if there was one. I've been reading a lot lately. There's a very good editorial in The Nation I believe by a political science professor. The question is, what do the red shirts really want? It's hard to imagine that all of them want Thaksin back. Of course his aim is to use these people to get his power and money back. But I have a hard time seeing how he could really regain power. I saw the speculation that the "mediator" might give him a royal pardon but I also have a hard time believing that one, especially after all of the things he has said about Prem and the Privy Council the last couple of weeks. The PAD and it's elitist cohorts need to understand that the "people" need to have more say. This rift has taken time to come about and it's not going to be healed very quickly. Some sort of resolution needs to take place of Thailand will just keep going backwards which won't be good for anyone. Unfortunately it's hard to see how bloodshed won't happen at this point. Be careful all of you who are over there.

None of my acquaintances here have ever cast aspersions on me for visiting Thailand. My close friends know I visit the sex venues but I also visit lots of tourist sites as well. And I take a lot of pictures of the tourist-y things which never fail to impress people. So maybe that helps cover for me.

Unfortunately United recently raised the amount of miles required for award tickets so they are not quite the bargain they used to be. I recently decided to start accumulating Air Canada Aeroplan miles instead. I had 51K Amex Reward Points I needed to do something with because I was canceling that card and I could transfer them 1:1 to Aeroplan and they dropped United so I couldn't put them there instead. On Aeroplan you only need 100K miles for a business class award from North America to Asia which is "cheaper" than United. There is apparently a Bank of America Aeroplan visa or mastercard that collects miles but I don't have one of those yet. I recently started using a Starwood Amex card instead. I am also booked on Qatar Airways from JFK for my trip later this year. Their business class seats from JFK are over $3000 cheaper from JFK than from Washington. So I figured it was worth it to make an extra connection. I have been reading some bad things about their ground staff at Doha, but they are using brand new B777-300's from the USA to DOH and also on the connection to BKK now. So they should be very comfortable. Business class has lie flat 180 degree seats. I am not exactly thrilled about the 7 AM arrival. Ideally I would prefer to arrive late afternoon, but hopefully I will be able to get some sleep on the flights.

It is interesting. One of the papers had a story today saying a new group "the blue shirts" was ready to defend the airport. Apparently the blue shirts are some sort of airport employees. The Nation is reporting just 3000 red shirts left at GH this morning. And there is also this which I find really hilarious: Red-shirts to rally at City Hall A group of red-shirted protesters from the Government House will be deploy to demonstrate at the Bangkok City Hall Friday, their leader Natthawut Saikua said. He said the red-shirted people would protest against the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration for failing to deploy enough mobile toilets to serve the demonstrators outside the Government House. The Nation ---- As if the government is responsible for making the protesters comfortable while they cause chaos for the city/country! Maybe their patron could provide some toilets for them.

I'm afraid I don't have those links handy. But Google is your friend. :-)

Absolutely you should go to Cambodia. It will be HOT and maybe a little rain here and there but if you are in the neighborhood it is definitely worth seeing Angkor and the other sites in Siem Reap. With only 10 days I would say split the time evenly between Bangkok and Siem Reap. I like Phnom Penh but there isn't a whole lot to it and with so little time I think it is worth skipping this trip. You can always go another time. If you do go to Phnom Penh however, there are a couple of gay bars. Blue Chili and Salt Lounge. But you can fly directly from Bangkok to Siem Reap so I would do that if I were you. There is a gay bar in Siem Reap. But on the whole the gay scene in Cambodia is nowhere near as in your face as it is in Thailand. But in my opinion the young men there are stunning so there is plenty of eye candy around. As for hotel recommendations that really depends on your budget. I stayed at the Victoria in Siem Reap. I thought it was OK but it is far from the main town. I would probably stay at Hotel De La Paix or FCC Angkor if I were to visit again. The temples of Angkor are amazing. There are lots of them too. It is worth taking a day to visit Phnom Kulen which takes a while to drive to and then up the mountain and Beng Melea temple is a bit farther away as well. I combined both of those in one day and it worked well. Since it will be hot you will need to pace yourself a bit. I can definitely recommend Purple Dragon's services in Cambodia. If you go to Phnom Penh I can certainly recommend the Quay Hotel. It is very high-design and quite cool. The rooms on the front have views of the Mekong/Tonle Sap but they also have traffic noise from the busy street. Very close to the Grand Palace and other sites. I stayed at the Intercontinental there as well. It is nice in a chain hotel sort of way but far removed from the main city action. The Amanjaya is supposed to be nice too. Vietnam is certainly another option. I am planning to visit there later this year when I return to SE Asia. But I understand that there is even less of a gay scene there. Just binge on sex while you are in Thailand and you should be set to hold you over while you visit tamer places. If you can manage more time you should do it. It seems a shame to go all that way for only 10 days' visit.

so you guys don't mind sexual exploitation of young boys as long as they aren't young Thai boys?

That makes sense. Looks like the event is being webcast live. So I can see it from the comfort of my own home.

Wow. I just saw the line up. Lots of my favorites playing! Nologo, Supersub, Potato, Abuse the Youth, plus several others. Does it cool down after sunset? Or will it be ungodly hot? Wish I could be there. It's a similar lineup to FAT Festival which I have attended the last couple of years but at least that is mainly indoors at Impact convention center in Bangkok.

Didn't Lance Armstrong's bike get stolen in California a few weeks ago while he was in a race? So, while it is certainly cold comfort, you are in good company. I guess things are getting pretty desperate in California these days.

I'm not so sure he would disappear. He still sees himself as the legitimate PM of Thailand who was wrongly overthrown. I would imagine anyone with an ego as enormous as his will not go away until he can set what he sees as the giant wrong done to him right. And there is pride and "face" as well. He feels like he has been greatly insulted and will want his revenge until he dies would be my guess.

According to The Nation the debate is between suicide and execution http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/02/24...al_30096436.php

thanks for the correction....but my basic point remains the same

As I said on another message board, I wonder why they were so quick to rule out suicide. It is possible that he put the bag over his own head in order to suffocate in case the hanging didn't work. I saw a program on television recently that dealt with hanging and its use as capital punishment. They mentioned that if you didn't have the right length of rope or the wrong sort of knot that decapitation is quite possible. Apparently it used to happen all the time until they figured out the exact right length of rope based on the body weight and the noose knot has to be arranged correctly to kill the person pretty much instantly. And yes, indeed, Saddam Hussein was decapitated by his hanging.

most airlines are cutting back flights and scaling down aircraft on routes that don't require the number of seats that some of the more comfortable planes have. ANA has changed the aircraft on their NRT-BKK flights from a B777 to a smaller B767.

perhaps the police agree with the thugs

Airfares can change very quickly. Since you have some time for sure it is worth keeping an eye on fares and jump on it when it gets cheap enough. Perhaps they changed their fare rules. Often times the cheapest fares have 30 day maximum stays, so if you are planning to stay 3 months you may end up having to pay more.

And if that doesn't work and you don't mind paying a small amount you can ask how much it would take to get an upgrade or make an offer. Airlines are struggling and an empty seat doesn't make any money at all. How recently have you been upgraded for free GB? Did you buy the cheapest possible ticket and ask for an upgrade or were you on a full-fare ticket?

Well, there you go! If you don't need the money now it is probably worth holding onto the gold. I know some gold boosters are predicting the price to soar over $2000 per ounce as currencies become devalued due to the fallout from today's crises.

Perhaps that is true in the UK, but in the US you can save a fair amount by using a travel agent that specializes in discount business class fares. It just comes down to whether the agency you pick uses an airline(s) that you prefer. I contacted a few online agencies here while planning my trip for this year. They were offering me the lowest cost on United for about $1700 less than what I would have paid on UA's own website. They also had deals on Korean Air and some others. Ultimately I chose a ticket on Qatar Airways which was not cheaper than what the airline itself offered but I preferred their product so it was worth paying a little bit more for.

What class of ticket did you get? One nice thing about Thai is the ability to buy an upgrade at the airport. Not sure if you are allowed to do it on an award ticket though. I bought an upgrade when I flew BKK-JFK. I had a premium economy ticket and paid about US$700 at the time to upgrade to business class. I think it costs a little bit more now. If you are interested just ask at check in if "stand by upgrades" are available.

That is definitely true about calling more than once. If the first agent isn't able to find something you like just call back another time to try again. I wouldn't make blanket statement about the Indians though. I had had as much good luck with Indian agents as any other kind. It does help to know some of your options. And it also helps if you have flexible dates. It is definitely true that they can come up with convoluted routings. If you are on a few different airlines they have to get supervisor approval but I have not been denied at that stage.

I don't think we will see the JFK-BKK nonstop come back. It's been gone for quite a while already. It was just too expensive to fly that route. TG keeps changing its mind with respect to the LAX-BKK non-stop. It was supposed to change last year to a different aircraft which would have required the technical stop at KIX (Osaka) for re-fueling. But they were never able to unload the A340-500s that fly this route and used to fly the JFK-BKK route. So they are still using it on this route. I think they sometimes substitute an A346 around Songkran when they need more capacity and I believe that ends up changing the route to require the stop at KIX. If you are using miles you should have plenty of options. Whose miles are you using? If it's a Star Alliance carrier you should be able to fly on partner airlines. I know United has increased the amount of miles needed for their award seats. I used to always call them up and got pretty much what I wanted. I flew the past two years on ANA using UA miles for business class awards going Washington-Tokyo-Bangkok. I think ANA must also fly from JFK and Chicago, so you might have a good chance of getting a seat with them. Depending on your starting point it might be better to change planes in Asia rather than going to LAX. I personally don't like LAX so I would avoid it. A good source for news and tips on frequent flier miles is flyertalk.com. They have very active forums there.

"where did the money go?" Most of it never really existed in the first place. It was all just numbers on a page. Real estate prices got overinflated. Property was never worth what people were paying for it. And people who were buying it didn't have any money and no prospect of ever paying the money they borrowed back. So, when sanity finally started returning to real estate values (or they just simply couldn't go up any higher) the people who couldn't pay the money back also couldn't sell their house to pay off the loan. The banks bundled all of these bad loans together and sold them to greedy investors in a con game. For a while the "value" of those things went up. And I suppose if you managed to sell out of them you would have made a killing. But when the "value" dropped all of those paper gains disappeared. And when you look at money in general, what is it really worth? The US dollar for example has nothing behind it. In the old days when we had the gold standard there was shiny metal behind every dollar. Now it just sort of exists. They call the system "fiat currency" because its value is determined simply by fiat...an arbitrary decree. It's all a big con game. And with all of this "stimulus" the Federal Reserve will have to start printing money which will drive down the value of the dollar because there will be more in circulation without anything more of value behind it. The Chinese have been buying up our bonds so we would have money to buy their manufactured goods. So they are going to be left holding bags full of American money that will be losing its value.

I agree no one really knows for sure. I swing between the two extremes depending on what I have just read or heard. If you want to see real pessimism check out The Daily Reckoning http://www.dailyreckoning.com/ It's put out by a bunch of economists who have a fairly good track record of prediction although they tend to repeat themselves a lot and spend a lot of time telling you to buy gold. I am most depressed after I read their newsletters. They are definitely on the side of "this is a worldwide depression that is going to really hurt a lot of people." They recently produced a film called "I.O.U.SA" which is about American debt and how it will cripple our economy. Then I talk to people like my financial planner who is more on the side of "this is a cyclical downturn that happens on average once a decade". Sometimes it lasts a year sometimes longer. This one is longer. Of course he has a vested interest in the current system so that likely colors his opinion. So no one really does know. But I think the Daily Reckoning guys make a lot of logical sense. Their basic take, with regard to the American economy anyway, is that we have too much debt to be sustainable and that the value of our currency is wildly inflated and must at some point go into free fall. That makes sense to me. Hence their drumbeat of "Buy gold! Buy gold!" They also talk a lot about how the consumer is doing what the consumer has to do given the situation, which is to cut spending and increase saving. Which seems to be feeding into a self-sustaining downward spiral. If you are living on a fixed income in Thailand I think you are probably in better shape than you would be if you were living on a fixed income in the UK or USA because your expenses should be lower. Unless your fixed income is so low that you are struggling even in Thailand. In which case you may want to move to the countryside and start growing your own food. :-) I did notice that the USD is now fairly consistently above TBt35 for the last week or so and seems to be gaining.