Bangkok is a bit like Las Vegas. If you want to live a clean, healthy life, you can, quite easily. If you want a life of sin and debauchery, you can easily achieve that too.
HANGOVER 2 perpetuates a stereotype of Bangkok as a place where sin and debauchery is commonplace, so that's why I didn't find it amusing at all.
OK enough posting for now. It's 4:00am here in Bangkok and I have to take a shower and get to the airport for a 6:30am flight to Macau.
...cool yer jets young man! I for one thought the movie, and it's just a movie, was funny!
Never have seem much of Thailand, the movie did actually inspire me to want to travel there someday...despite the 'under-belly' of EVERY Major city in the World!
Again, it was just a movie...your points are well taken, but jeez, let up just a bit, will ya?, lol!!!
As you were gents!
Jason, Just because they turned you down as a stand in for Stu to take up the REAR, chill. It's a movie!
Jason,
Totally agree with you. Some Bozo watching this movie is going to get wrong ideas about Thailand.
This is the biggest waste of a thread EVER.
It's a f***ing comedy. Get the f*** over yourself. There's nothing in this movie that is supposed to be taken seriously.
Don't come back to america, you'd stifle our style.
Sadly enough, I thought the movie didn't do some parts of Thailand justice.
Have you ever been to Pattaya?
Bangkok, portrayed in the Hangover II, looks like kiddy land compared to the real Pattaya. If you want to go to the real sin city (Las Vegas is G-rated in comparison) go there.
Excellent Post! Thank you.
seoul purpose wrote:
There is something to be said about someone willing to pack up, move to the other side of the world and make a life for themselves over an extended period of time. It is a different path from the one most people take - true some of those people may believe that the ones on this path can't hack it and have nothing going for them at home (not denying this isn't true for some, but there is a small core of people who have done well.) But they probably couldn't do this themsleves. At the very least most people back home can't imagine going this route.
I'm similar to Jason in many ways - minus the business-class trans-Pacific flights and jet-setting lifestyle. I've been out in Korea for years, and while I'm not getting rich I've made a life for myself, while enduring a love-hate relationship with this place. I can understand why Jason would feel aggrieved at seeing Bangkok portrayed that way - it hits closer to home for someone who has lived overseas. It's typical for people to dismiss what he is saying, because of their own smaller perspectives and a need to be petty and malicious. If you want to cast blame on him for the incident at the health club, well, I've had similar issues over here in Korea to me too, and I wasn't running nearly as fast as he was - most places do not expect that someone may want to use treadmills for something more than a stroll while watching TV. In my case at least, it was just one result of being in a different environment. But I guess I'd be as "guilty" as he was, right?
I don't agree with everything I've seen Jason do on here, but I've corresponded with him in the past, and I'm sorry I missed meeting him when I was in BKK a few years ago. I'd say that anyone who would be quick to dismiss Jason's perspective as a long-term expat find the capacity to approach it with more maturity. His a d@mn sight better than how I've seen people in his position conduct themselves here in Korea.
Excellent Post! Thank you.
667EnergyDrink wrote:
Name a movie set in Las Vegas that doesn't focus on casinos.
Leaving Las Vegas. OWNED.
homer j wrote:
This is the biggest waste of a thread EVER.
It's a f***ing comedy. Get the f*** over yourself. There's nothing in this movie that is supposed to be taken seriously.
Don't come back to america, you'd stifle our style.
it's a troll thread. don't take it so seriously.
Energy drink is liar. Thai gym staff are accommodating to most farangs, warts and all, but Mayeroff's obnoxious pushy behaviour and gutter tactics, forced the management to get rid of him. Good riddance!
to catch a predator wrote:
Energy drink is liar. Thai gym staff are accommodating to most farangs, warts and all, but Mayeroff's obnoxious pushy behaviour and gutter tactics, forced the management to get rid of him. Good riddance!
I was asked to get off the treadmill in SE Asia after using it for 30min to let it "cool off". After 10min break, I could get back on. I thought it was ridiculous and argued but in the end I didn't own the gym and otherwise I liked that place so I did as I was told.
Thighland wrote:
I was asked to get off the treadmill in SE Asia after using it for 30min to let it "cool off". After 10min break, I could get back on. I thought it was ridiculous and argued but in the end I didn't own the gym and otherwise I liked that place so I did as I was told.
Why didn't you notify the newspapers to run a story on your "humiliation" ,you could send them a picture of you from a race you ran years ago and brag about your PR's? That'll teach that gym you are not to be messed with....
999EnergyDrink wrote:
Why didn't you notify the newspapers to run a story on your "humiliation" ,you could send them a picture of you from a race you ran years ago and brag about your PR's? That'll teach that gym you are not to be messed with....
Because I didn't run 2:18 in Berlin in 2003 and also don't have a Jersey of the National Team that I could have shown off to prove how great I am.
Jason, you still going for a sub-30:00 10k? As for the rest of the thread, Phuk-et. Nobody takes Hollywood or most of the biased American media literally, and if they do, well, then ignorance is bliss I guess. Thailand is a beautiful place, minus the monsoons.
West Virginia get the it the worst when it comes to Hollywood movie magic.
The only movie you need to see to prove this is "Wrong Turn"
Hollywood act like were just a bunch of fat, dirty faced, inbreeding hillbillys. While the fat part is true were also much more than that.
Thighland wrote:
Because I didn't run 2:18 in Berlin in 2003 and also don't have a Jersey of the National Team that I could have shown off to prove how great I am.
Here you go
http://cgi.ebay.com/Nike-CHINA-Olympic-Athletics-Track-CROP-TOP-Singlet-/160598417241?pt=UK_Sports_Memorabilia_ET&hash=item2564695f59You sound like a crop top wearing dude.. then all you need to do is make up some PR's and you will full access to all the treadmills and maybe the eliptical machines as well..
Hey JasonHow's the expat scene there for teachers of english as a foreign language? Know anything about it?
666EnergyDrink wrote:
Just saw "Hangover 2" here in Bangkok at Central World this afternoon.
I've lived in Bangkok pretty much full time since September 1999, although I travel frequently to Europe, the USA, Japan, China, Taiwan. Bangkok is my home base.
As usual, Hollywood did not do any justice to this great nation full of hardworking and creative people. Hollywood seems to WANT to portray Bangkok as a filthy, lawless, dangerous, corrupt, crime-ridden and chaotic city. It's not that way at all.
My apartment is about 200 meters away from a vacant lot where the movie production trucks for Hangover 2 were parked for about a month last year.
Delta Airlines does fly to Bangkok (via Tokyo) but it lands around the same time as United, about midnight, not during the day. The airport shown in the scene where the plane lands is NOT Bangkok. I can't tell where it is. The Delta flight is not 16 hours, it's about 21 hours (including the 3 hour layover in Tokyo). There is an LAX-BKK nonstop on Thai Airways and it's 17 hours. I tried the non-stop last year one time and it's painfully long, even in business class.
The wedding in the movie appears to be at a 5 star resort in either Phuket or Krabi, on the Andaman (Indian Ocean) side of the country. You CANNOT take a boat from Bangkok to that area without going all the away around Malaysia and Singapore. It would take a speedboat about 48 continuous hours of travel. The flight is about 1 hour from Bangkok to Krabi or Phuket.
A Thai father would never insult his son-in-law-to-be in front of others, especially at a wedding party like that. First of all, he would have had to approve of the marriage in the first place. Thai people are generally very non-confrontational until pushed to the edge (then all hell breaks loose!!!)
If you wanted to crash in that filthy room that the protagonists wake up in after their crazy night out, you would have to look very very hard. In Bangkok there are many small hotels where you could sleep off the night's excesses, and most are reasonably clean and safe. Again, the movie producers purposely WANTED Bangkok to look sleazy and dirty. Thai hoteliers generally strive to keep their rooms as clean as possible, even if the building is old and out-dated. My apartment building is about 25 years old, and my apartment is about $300/month, but the janitors do their damnedest to keep the trash picked up and the floors swept every day.
The go-go bars on Soi Cowboy are all owned by Thai people (police and military), not by Arabs. You would never see a gun being bought or sold in one of those places, but I haven't been to that kind of place in many years.
The notion of foreigners starting a riot in Patpong, throwing molotov cocktails, etc., is ridiculous. The Royal Thai Police would have thrown them in all in jail if they had started something like that...or they would have had the crap beaten out of them by Thai guys.
This movie is incredibly stupid and an insult to Thailand. I am surprised that they even let them film the movie here.
asdfasdfasdf wrote:
Sadly enough, I thought the movie didn't do some parts of Thailand justice.
Have you ever been to Pattaya?
Bangkok, portrayed in the Hangover II, looks like kiddy land compared to the real Pattaya. If you want to go to the real sin city (Las Vegas is G-rated in comparison) go there.
Bangkok is very tame in comparison to Pattaya. The city that trumps them all is Phnom Penh....the most insane city in the universe.
If you want to read the most insane travel book in the world, read "Off The Rails In Phnom Penh" by Amit Gilboa.
I think that Mr. Gilboa is BANNED from Cambodia for life. He really didn't do anything that isn't done thousands of times a day in Cambodia, but his major sin is writing about it and having the truth be published.
666EnergyDrink wrote:
Bangkok is a bit like Las Vegas. If you want to live a clean, healthy life, you can, quite easily. If you want a life of sin and debauchery, you can easily achieve that too.
HANGOVER 2 perpetuates a stereotype of Bangkok as a place where sin and debauchery is commonplace, so that's why I didn't find it amusing at all.
Based on what you just wrote then shouldn't you have started a thread on how the original Hangover made Las Vegas look bad? It was dudes on a bachelor party in Bangkok, they weren't going to the cultural district or a vegan restaurant.
BostonSub3 wrote:
I still don't understand why anyone would want to live their life in Thailand as a runner. Congestion, traffic, not many other runners, too hot, too rainy.
Jason, please elaborate!
I have a nice apartment in the middle of town: $300/month.
Utilities (electricity, internet, etc) are about $75 per month where I live.
Medical care: I live 5 minutes walking from the best hospital in Asia, Bumrungrad Hospital. I had achilles surgery 2 times there by the best orthopedic surgeon in Asia, Dr. Panya Wongpatimachai. $2000 all in, and I was able to run the Paris marathon only 2 months after my last achilles surgery.
My out-of-pocket expenses (food, transport, etc) are about one-third of the costs in the USA. I can walk to the supermarket, the gym and Starbucks.
Of course there is a social aspect. In most places in Asia, it's generally a breeze to meet beautiful women, and I mean real women (college students, office workers, divorcees, etc), NOT whores. Asia is the only place where I've actually rejected women who would be considered "9's and 10's" in Reno.....sometimes I just don't have the time or energy to take a girl out and I just want to be alone to rest and recuperate for the next workout. I also have normal friends, other American guys, and "my gang" of retirees from America, Australia, England, Europe, etc. and we sit around the pool and tell raunchy stories and bad jokes, argue about politics, complain about Thai habits, etc etc etc
Yes, you have to be a bit creative when it comes to training in Bangkok, but it can be done. I do about half my volume at the gym and about half in the park and track. These days I go to the fine gym at a 5 star hotel where they don't care how hard I pound the treadmill. When I got 86'ed at Fitness First and joined their gym, the management at this hotel and had a long talk with me about what happened at Fitness First, and they understood what really happened, that the azzholes at Fitness First were harassing me when I trained real hard.
When it rains, it's great...you have the whole park or track to yourself. That's the best time to train since you can stay cool.