What’s In Your Pocket?

11 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Thailand Travel Tips and Tales

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When a 10-baht coin is worth 100,000 baht, you know inflation has gotten out of hand.

Even though I’m not a fan of change I still end up with far too many coins in my pocket during my travels in Thailand. Personally, I think coins should be banned world-wide. There’s not much you can buy for under a buck these days anyway, and there’s gotta be a better mousetrap for dealing with those few sales that do total to such an insignificant amount. Like a kingdom-wide fine against 7/11 store clerks who insist on giving you a plastic straw when you buy a can of soda. Those fines could be paid with the overage from sales that still tallied to under a buck. Or loyalty cards could be issued that tracked those amounts for future use when you need to hit a public restroom that chargers a user fee for entrance to the porcelain kingdom or for the toilet paper you may use during that sojourn.

Instead we hold to that quaint custom that used to give meaning to the phrase ‘a penny for your thoughts’ and even if it’s satangs instead of copper we all end up burdened by a pocketful of the coin of the realm. If I’m out shopping with my friend Noom, I hand him the coins I get as change. He used to horde that loot. Now he gives it to the first beggar we pass. Paper is the only thing of value in his life these days too. And if Noom isn’t around to lighten my load, back in my hotel room I throw those worthless bits of metal into a pile that reaches Mt Everest in size by the end of my stay – I’m not a big fan of tipping housekeeping staff either, but am a fan of killing two birds with one stone.

Being the insidious thing that they are, despite my coin-avoidance techniques, when I get back to the US of A, invariably, I have a pile of the damn things in my luggage. They get thrown into a drawer that I only use for stuff that I have no use for. I should just throw them in the trash can. But even in the worthless form that coins are, it still is money. And it’s difficult to throw money away. Which doesn’t explain how often I’ve thrown money away on a bar boy who turned out to be a dud, but that’s a different subject. Whether you are pro or anti coin yourself, you probably have quite a collection of Thai coins too. You might want to dig those suckers out. Because it could be worth 100,000 baht. Which, even in coins, is nothing to sneeze about.

Your change please!

According to Punnawat Siriruengwanich, the owner of Panun Jewelry Shop in Rayong, there are 45 to 95 10-baht coins floating around somewhere in the world, each worth 100,000 baht. They are collectibles. And while I never saw the value of other collectibles, like Beanie Babies or Limited Edition Commemorative Elvis Presley plates, collecting cash always seemed like a worthwhile hobby to me.

Punnawat says 100 of the 10-baht coins were minted back in 1990 for a foreign exhibition; only half made their way back to Thailand ‘cuz I’m not the only man who hates carrying coins. !0-baht coins have been minted annually since 1988; in 1989, 100,000,000 were produced and in 1991 1,380,650 were placed in circulation. But the 1990 mintage was only 100 coins. “So it’s a very rare coin and a great interest for coin collectors,” says Punnawat who is responsible for the 100,000 baht bounty placed on the missing bi-metal currency. “Only five of these coins have been found, as far as I know.”

Since Punnawat offered the 100,000 baht bounty, the country has gone into a 10-baht coin feeding frenzy and even the Finance Ministry has gotten into the act. Treasury Department chief Naris Chaisut felt obligated to address the validity of Punnawat’s claim and said he checked with the deputy director-general of the Treasury Department to confirm the rarity of the coin. Only 100 were minted in that year; they were issued to delegates at a coin exhibition in England to make them aware Thailand was about to mint 10-baht coins to replace 10-baht banknotes. Punnawat says an unnamed businessman contracted him to search for the coins. Not that his hunt for the elusive coins has paid off, the treasure hunt’s popularity has forced him to change his phone number. “I did not expect that it would be such a massive trend,” he says. “My phone almost burned down.”

It’s a shame that pay phones have become a thing of the past, or Punnawat’s phone problem could be easily solved. Although the irony of someone using their 100,000 baht 10-baht coin to make that call is just too delicious to think about.

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P.S. Please Send Money

08 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Blogs

≈ 6 Comments

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Money Matters

Driving home from a long weekend away, Phil, who you may remember as one of the two contenders for the title of current love of my life (but who shall now be known as The Bastard) brought up a line I’d just published in a post, noting that I do not pay Noom, my bar boy friend and still current love of my life, for using his story on my blog. Which just goes to show you the rule for road trips lasting eight hours or more should be that the passenger must give the driver head for the duration of the trip. Unfortunately, Phil’s mouth was otherwise unoccupied. And the petty little discussion he started, I’m sure, had nothing to do with having just lost a $500 bet to me on the outcome of the Weidman/Machida fight. Vegas is a great town to experience the 4th of July; the fireworks inside the ring for UFC 175 were even better. But not being able to accept being the loser that he was, he thought he’d came up with the perfect one-two punch combination and went with my lack of

My initial response was that I’m not telling Noom’s story on my blog, I’m telling mine. Noom is just a co-star. Phil set that error straight by noting no one reads my blog because of me, they read it because of Noom. The bastard. So instead I went with the argument that while I’ve never specifically paid Noom for his guest appearances, considering our financial arrangements for his general upkeep, he’s been more than well compensated. That one didn’t fly either. Neither did my blog making him an internet star. And you don’t want to hear Phil’s opinion of my claim that Noom has benefited from the large numbers of guys who have offed him after reading about him here either.

I coulda argued further, but it’s difficult to win a debate whose standard places you in the untenable position of defending a point your heart really isn’t behind. Besides, there were still four hours of travel to go and I was still hoping for the aforementioned blow job while driving. So I conceded the point, told him he was right and that I’d have to do something about it, and then reclined my seat back a notch and unzipped my jeans. But The Bastard wasn’t letting me off that easy. Nor did he take the hint about getting me off either. Instead he began planning Noom’s financial future. And having just spent a few days updating my home page while I was away he decided from the large number of hits this blog gets daily it was time I ‘monetized’ my blog.

Huh. I explained that a) a large number of those visitors are only interested in Joe Manganiello’s penis; b) I hate the use of trendy words and phrases like ‘monetize’; and, c) I enjoy writing this blog and turning it into a profit center would make it more like a job. Phil nodded in agreement with my points, rolled his eyes at at least one of them, and then informed me taking care of Noom was my job. The Bastard. But a wily bastard nonetheless ‘cuz he reached over and began giving my crotch the attention it craved while laying out his plan on making Noom not just famous, but rich too. At some point I must have agreed. Because just before putting his mouth to a better use he said, “Good. I’ll email Noom at tell him.” The Bastard.

See how quickly they turn on you?

So that’s the story behind the Donate button that now appears on my blog pages, as well as a rather messy orgasm I had just outside of Bakersfield. Personally, I woulda waited until I came up with a good name for the fund, or at least a specific purpose and goal. ‘Cuz left to his own devices, Noom would blow whatever cash I raise on his behalf on something frivolous. Like food for his family. Instead, I’m thinking that one of his desires I’ve studiously ignored in the past is a sponsorship for entering the senior division of body-building competitions. That would go a long way to feeding his ego. Which is ravenous. And would require he keep his body in tip-top shape. So I’d benefit too. Plus it would lay a good groundwork for the future argument that the best way he could thank his sponsors would be a steady stream of photos of his body’s progress. Preferably nude ones. Which sounds like a win/win proposition to me.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog, have come to lub Noom as much as I have, or have found the information provided here useful or the large amounts of snark mildly humorous, then it’s time to show your lub by sending some cash. I thought of using one of the crowd funding websites for this purpose, but that woulda required some research so I’m instead using an old Paypal account. You do not have to have a Paypal account to donate (despite, I’m sure, Paypal’s suggestion that you open one). Any amount you feel is appropriate is fine (but do keep in mind that Noom has expensive tastes). I think I’ll keep the donations anonymous, but will come up with some graphic to show how much The Bastard’s plan has raised. And while I will no doubt be getting weekly emails from Noom asking how rich he is, I’ll wait until my next visit in November to hand him his sponsorship monies. So show your lub, make me proud, and click the Donate button below. I thank you, Noom thanks you, and undoubtedly The Bastard will thank you too.

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Soi Twilight: Post Coup, Post Curfew, Post Coital

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in The World of Thailand's Gay Gogo Bars

≈ Comments Off on Soi Twilight: Post Coup, Post Curfew, Post Coital

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Gay Bangkok, Gay GoGo Bars, Money Matters

Bidness is slow on Soi Twilight, but that may not be a bad thing.

Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days. But then it is the slow season. There are not many tourists out braving the gauntlet of barkers lining Bangkok’s most famous street of male prostitution. But then tourist numbers are down in light of the recent, and still running, coup. Those numbers were impacted by the country-wide curfew too; even though that restriction on movement has been lifted, those who canceled their holiday plans are not rushing to re-book their trip. And gay sex tourists are staying away in droves thanks to General Prayuth deciding prohibiting the soi’s live sex shows would make everyone happy.

Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days. The listless boys on stage in the show bars have gone positively comatose with boredom over playing to a vacant room. The most action to be found on the soi are bar signs on the fritz, blinking neon that was never intended to flash at times seeming to be the only thing moving on the soi. The rub-and-tug boys sitting in front of Bonny Massage have few potential customers to ignore. The cacophony of the soi once punctuated with calls of, “Show Now!” has dimmed; “No Show Now!” just doesn’t have the same cachet. It’s so quiet at times you could hear a fish fart. Which wouldn’t be surprising considering the flooded streets left in the wake of nightly heavy downpours. Which also shouldn’t be surprising because slow season is rainy season. And during the rainy season bidness is always slow on Soi Twilight.

In the gogo bars, there are no little fem boys screeching, “Tip me!” into customer’s laps while being plowed by a co-worker. Any members that would qualify for the Big Cock Show! are discretely tucked away, a not really all that massive bulge the only evidence that they ever existed. At Hot Male the 69 boys advertised out front is a testament to the Thai confusion over doing math, even if you count both heads. And none of those heads are involved in performing that act on stage for the enjoyment of fans. Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days. And the penises that work there are in an equally flaccid state.

Time drags on on Soi Twilight, fortunately the drag shows no longer do.

It’s the coup. It’s the curfew. It’s the specter of political unrest, maybe even a civil war. It’s the crackdown on corruption, that which once provided the city’s very life-blood. It’s the army’s decision to put a happy end to sex shows. It’s the slow season. It’s the rainy season. It’s the world economy still in a coma thanks to Bush & Company bankrupting the planet. Take your pick, blame who or what you will. It doesn’t matter. Because wherever you prefer to point your finger, the proof is in the pudding: Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days.

Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days. In case you didn’t get the message. And the harbingers of doom and gloom are quite happy about that fact. Never mind that bidness is slow all over the country. Ignore the coup, the curfew, the lack of naked boys on stage doing what naked boys on stage tend to do. Because the real reason that bidness is slow on Soi Twilight is that the dastardly bar owners, those greedy bastards, are finally getting their comeuppance for gouging us all over the years. Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days because the prices bars charge for a drink have sent potential customers’ wallets fleeing for their lives. Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days because karma finally kicked in to screw bar owners who charged too much for you to screw the man of your dreams. Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days because Thailand’s sexpats are mad as hell and aren’t gonna take it any more. Or as Jabba The Butt recently put it: “If you want to go to these bars and pay them 380 baht for a drink and 700 baht for an off, be my guest. You certainly won’t have to worry about encountering me in any of them. I think I’ll just stay put and suffer along in the Sunee Plaza bars where most drink prices range between 100 to 120 baht and an off is usually 300 baht.”

Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days. And the bar owners are busy high-fiving each other. It took raising off fees to 700 baht and drinks to 400 to keep Jabba and his band of merry men in Pattaya where they belongs. They had to stop putting on live sex shows while raising prices to unheard of levels to clear the soi of the sex tourists who’d try to sneak a peak at the shows for free and then begrudgingly nurse a single drink for three hours when forced to pay the piper. It took bar boys demanding a minimum of 2,000 baht for the shortest of short-time offs to rid Soi Twilight of the cheap bastards who enjoy complaining about rip-off prices more than they enjoy what those prices would give them. Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days. And the bar owners couldn’t be happier.

Bidness is slow at Balls. But then when isn’t it.

Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days. At least that’s what you’ll hear. And it is during the middle of the week, during the middle of the slow season. As it always has been. On Friday and Saturday nights, not so much. The bars are hopping then. True, there are no live sex shows, but there are shows. They just don’t show what they once did. Or for the nostalgia inclined, they are back to putting on the type of shows that those who’ve visited Bangkok for decades remember from years ago. The shows they all claim to miss. The ones that promised more than they showed. And if you think bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days because the gogo bars are charging $12 for a drink, then you need to come up with a good reason why the beer bars of Soi Twilight that only charge 100 baht are slow too.

But don’t ask the gogo bars owners for help in solving that conundrum. They are too busy collecting big baht from the customers flocking to their establishments, the customers they target, the customers who still believe Soi Twilight and the sex it sells is a bargain at any price. You know, the customers you like to call newbies, uneducated, foolish, or stupid for shelling out that kind of money. Those would be the customers who return to their home countries, happy, satisfied, and spreading the word about the lush lads they scored in Bangkok for the price of a song instead of tales of how expensive Bangkok has become and how sad it is that bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days.

Bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days. You can get a street-side table at Dick’s without squeezing through the sardine can-like scrum of elderly farang taking in the life of the soi rather than experiencing it because the latter just costs too damn much. You can book a massage boy at Bonny without standing in line or having to wait for the hottie you’ve been lusting over to finish with his other clients because those in search of a cheaper orgasm have moved to greener pastures. Even if those pastures won’t necessarily end on a happy ending. Because it is the cost and not the service provided that matters.

The gods finally listened and bidness is slow on Soi Twilight.

Now that bidness is slow on Soi Twilight, you can have the seat – and view – of your choice at any gogo bar on the soi because the bars are no longer filled with disgruntled sex-pats and cheap bastard sex tourists taking up valuable space while they sit and wallow in their misery over the money it cost them to be there. In the bars you get more attention than you can handle, and when a certain guy catches your eye you don’t have to rush to book him before some other customer calls him to his table for an hour-long grope session which he’ll tip the boy 20 baht for enduring. Maybe customers agree the prices are high on the soi, but rather than moan about it they seem to be intent on getting their money’s worth; the bars may not be filled but the customers they do have are all smiling and having a good time. Yes, bidness on Soi Twilight is slow these days. And it’s the best thing that’s happened on the soi in years.

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All That Glitters Is Not . . . Oh. Wait.

02 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tips

≈ 9 Comments

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Money Matters

Applying gold leaf to a Buddhist statue is a way to make merit in Thailand. It’s also a good way for a temple to make some bucks.

I’ve had the problem in the past of convincing first time visitors to Thailand that all those gold statues and Buddhas at wats are really gold. Not solid gold, short of the one at Wat Traimit, mind you. But smothered in it, yes. And with dozens of images coated in gold at even the smallest temples, that’s a lot of moola. Especially with gold running about $1,260 an ounce these days. Granted, if the locals sprinkled cocaine on their gods instead of rubbing gold leaf all over them we’d really be talking some major bucks. But the Thai government tends to frown on drugs – at least those they can make money off from jailing people – and white Buddhas just ain’t as popular as the gold ones are.

Since I recently recommended a great touri activity when visiting Wat Pho is to scrape some of that gold off for a souvenir, I thought I’d look into just how much baht that might net you. Or if taking home a sheet or two of the gold leaf they sell at wats would be a better course of action (not taking into account the impact stealing from the Buddha might have on your karma). I suspect the gods are already taking out their revenge on me, ‘cuz that not only means doing math but using the metric system too. But since I mastered converting ounces into grams back in the ’80s, I thought I’d give it a go.

I shoulda allowed that math thingy to scare me away as it usually does. Because gold is weighed in troy ounces, rather than avoirdupois ounces, so the 28 plus change grams per ounce I learned as a fledging drug dealer in my youth doesn’t apply. And then, ‘cuz this is Thailand, the unit of weight measurement is Baht, which is different yet. And then it depends on the percentage of gold versus other metals you are talking about too – typically in Thailand this is 23 carat, which is 96.5% pure (while in the U.S. you normally find 24 carat gold which is 99.95% pure).

What the other metal or metals added to the gold is matters too. Typically that’s a mix of silver and copper. But in gold leaf it’s usually a case of either or: when copper is added it’s called red gold leaf, when silver is added it’s green gold leaf. So the gold leaf you buy (or scrape off a statue) at a temple may be 24K gold, 23K gold, or even 18K gold; it may have additional copper or silver added to it; and, there is chemically produced fake gold for sale at wats too.

Now you’d think as expensive as gold is these days, regardless of the purity you are dealing with, manufacturing gold leaf would be extremely controlled and its thickness carefully measured. But in Thailand most gold leaf is still pounded by hand. The factories, which are mostly small family run businesses, machine roll gold bullion into paper-thin sheets. Then it’s cut into 50 millimeter square pieces and given to a craftsman who hammers it into a sheets about twice the size of his hand, a process that takes about 6 hours (and for which he earns about 100 baht per hour).

The resulting sheets of gold leaf, which are about one ten thousands of a millimeter thick, are then cut into 3.5 – 4 cm squares, which are packed in small carded envelopes and sold by the bundle, not by weight. Typically, a manufacturer gets three to seven square meters of gold leaf from one gram of gold. And how does that craftsman know when he’s pounded the gold leaf to the proper thickness? By the sound his hammer makes when it strikes the sheeting.

So, as imprecise as the manufacturing is, coupled with the various degrees of purity of the gold used, attempting to value just what the gold leaf you scrape off a Buddha would be worth is a losing proposition. Not that actually buying a few sheets helps in anyway. Because, of course, what one temple charges for those small squares of paper-tin gold leaf has nothing to do with what another temples charges its merit makers. It’s enough to make me suggest you go to Chinatown and shoplift some gold instead. But the Buddha would probably be less vindictive about your thievery from his image than a merchant in Chinatown would be. The good news is that if you get caught, gold leaf is extremely thin and easily swallowed; eating it is considered safe. So bye-bye evidence. And as Master Card would put it: Not getting busted for stealing gold from the Buddha in Thailand: priceless.

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Heebie-Freebies

17 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tips

≈ 7 Comments

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Money Matters

What you don’t have to pack on a trip can be a bonanza of freebies.

A friend who makes a scented product recently landed an account with a broker who supplies amenities to hotels on the Vegas Strip. On the strip mind you, not the budget accommodations miles away from the action or the older downtown/Fremont Street hotels. Within three weeks he delivered annual contracts with four properties for daily stock of her product. Her profit on each unit is twenty-eight cents. Which hardly sounds like it’s worth the effort. But that’s for a total of 3,800 rooms. Per day. For a year. Or in numbers that have a real meaning, she just landed new accounts worth just under $375,000 annually. In profit.

Recently married to her partner of 15 years, I’ve asked that they adopt me. I think it’d be cool to have a pair of lesbian for mothers. Especially rich ones.

Nothing stokes the fires of entrepreneurship like the scent of money; we’ve spent many nights since brainstorming ideas for other unique hotel amenities we could offer to 5-Star properties. A few have real potential. Which may get developed if we can ever get her partner to stop pushing her idea of branded, disposable dildos. Lesbians. They have such a one-track mind. But then mini bottles of shampoo, soaps, toothbrushes, showercaps, and disposable razors have been done to death. And maybe a guest who just lost a few grand at the tables would be happy to find a vibrating friend left on his or her pillow as part of the turndown service. So if you check into the Bellagio next year and find a dildo on your bed, you know who to thank.

While I often joke about how magical the word free is to a Thai, the truth is it works its wonder on all of us regardless of the culture we were raised in or how large our bank account is. And one of the first things almost everyone of us does when we check into a hotel is to look to see what free goodies have been left for us. Realistically, none of those amenities are actually free; their cost has been carefully considered and added into the price of your room. But since they don’t show up as itemized costs on your bill at check-out, everybody considers them to be freebies. And the more you pay for a room, the more free stuff you get.

Of course, being human those free amenities incite greed in all of us. I have a friend who is a bit of a cheapskate who, as soon as he notes what the hotel thought he deserved as a guest, calls down to the front desk to complain that there is no (insert whatever there actually was) in his room, thereby scoring a free set of whatever it was that was free to begin with. Another, who I never considered to be cheap, advised me to never leave an unused bottle of the hotel’s shampoo out during housekeeping service because they would not then leave you another. And whenever I travel with my buddy Dave and we stay at a nice property, when we return to our room after the turndown service, he rushes in to grab up all the chocolates or mints left on the pillows. If my lesbian friends end up marketing those dildos to the Bellagio, I’m booking a night there for Dave and I. That’ll teach the bastard.

I don’t have enough hair left on my head to actually require a daily shampooing, haven’t for years but go through the motions anyway. And though I know every hotel I stay at will have free little bottles of shampoo, I pack a bottle from home anyway. So I seldom use the free shampoo. For years when my niece was young, I’d pack all those free, unused shampoos in my bag and then give them to her in a large box at Christmas. (It was an add-on gift, I’m not a cheap bastard.) She loved them. The year I thought she was getting too old to appreciate that booty and didn’t bother with it, I think I ruined her Xmas holiday. She is now in her thirties and reminds me every year to not forget her box of shampoos.

Not that she ever gets to see any from Thailand these days. Noom considers hotel amenities to be gifts left by the hotel’s management specifically for him. He hordes all those little bottles and package like they were gold. He rates the hotels we stay at by how much and what kind of free amenities are left for him. And that hotel had better not skimp and try to pull a fast one on him. He was quite upset at one hotel’s effrontery of not providing one item, which took a good hour of attempted translation and a round or two of charades to identify. The missing amenity turned out to be those ubiquitous cheap, plastic shower caps. Noom would have had an easier time of explaining what was missing if he knew what in the hell they were. But he didn’t have a clue. He just knew he was supposed to get one. Daily. I empathized with his plight. And then explained what a shower cap was. At the next hotel we stayed at he dutifully put his free shower cap on before taking his morning shower. And then took it off so that he could wash his hair.

I try to act as though I’m above the allure of those free miniature bottles of shampoos and conditioners, that the little bars of soap are not large enough for use, that the disposable razors are so cheaply made they should be disposed of before use. I do grab the toothbrushes though. They make great trick toothbrushes back home – a fresh mouth on the guy you just picked up for the night is a necessity, but you really don’t want him using yours. I’m not impressed by the slippers some hotels provide – I’d rather they properly clean their floors. And in Asia, the robes provided – which are not free or meant for you to take with you unless you stay at a really expensive place – are never large enough to fit my body. But the freebie that is de rigueur in my opinion in Thailand is the daily stock of bottled water. Which from dump to Trump, every hotel in The Land of Smiles provides to its guests for free. Some are just a bit parsimonious about it.

I don’t know what the wholesale price for bottled water is in Thailand, but at 5 baht for an ice-cold one at the Weekend market, it can’t be much. And I get that every satang counts, that they can add up to a significant amount by the end of the year. But then so can the expense of dealing with dead guests who did not properly hydrate. That much the hotel industry in Thailand has figured out. Some, to my dismay, have also figured out a way to make a profit off guests’ hydration needs. Two free bottles of water a day is a standard freebee in Thailand hotels. Which two are free is the rub.

Obviously, if you are gonna take a free bottle of water with you for your day’s excursion, the plastic bottles are the way to go. But some hotels stock both plastic and glass bottle in their rooms. Those glass bottles – which are twice the size of the plastic ones – are free, the plastic bottles of water cost. And often as much as a beer on Soi Twilight. Which novice traveller don’t realize until they check out and get billed for what they thought were free bottles of water.

Noom prefers his water at room temperature. Don’t ask me why. So part of his checking out to see what management gifted him routine includes pulling the free bottles of water out of the fridge. The first time he did, bypassing the clunky glass bottles in favor of the lighter plastic ones, I explained the difference. He didn’t believe me. And checked with a housekeeper. Noom has a finely developed sense of what is right. And what is his due. So you can imagine how incensed he was at that trick. It still pisses him off when he finds glass bottles of water in our room. No problemo. When the hotel has opted to play the free/not free water game I turn a blind eye to Noom stealing the batteries out of the television remote at check-out time.

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TIT: A License To Rule

17 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in This Is Thailand . . .

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Money Matters

In Farangland people pay for customized license plates, in Thailand the license plate’s number of the car you just rode in can mean you’ll soon be running the country (once again).

Thais take their religious beliefs quite seriously. So it stands to reason one of the more popular uses for the local wat is as a source for obtaining lucky numbers. Not that every local heads to his favorite temple to obtain what, obviously, will be that day’s winning lottery numbers. Those are as easily divined from innumerable sources: the number of times a gecko chirps in the morning, the address of a house that a kamikaze bird played death by window at, the numbers a frog croaked out after you gave it a cigarette to puff on, the hospital room number where a respected Buddhist monk known for foretelling lucky numbers died . . . and if you run across either a two-headed cow or five-legged dog, uh, hello?

There are virtually no lengths Thais will not go to in order to get that winning combination of numbers. Wats and monks are a good source, dreams are always a good bet for winning the pot of baht you’re dreaming of, and everyone knows the spirits in trees love nothing more than making winning number magically appear on their bark. The odd markings on a car left by a Naga who’d slithered over it wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t a sure sign of your path to riches. And birthdays, house numbers, car registrations, and cell phone numbers are all filled with numbers that will make you a winner too.

My friend Noom scoffs at these ridiculous attempts at foretelling what the winning numbers will be. But then one day when I tripped climbing up a flight of steps at the National Stadium BTS station, he carefully counted which number of stair I’d tripped on, and then the total number of steps to the station. And then we spent an hour walking around town so he could find a lottery ticket with those number on it. Don’t laugh. He won 10,000 baht. ‘Cuz even clumsy farang can be lucky if you play them right.

Your path to riches in Thailand start with this lady.

Finding a Thai who doesn’t believe in ghosts is easier than finding one who hasn’t played the lottery. At 40 baht per ticket, it’s an affordable means of gambling. Until you consider what the average daily wage earned by most Thais is. And then, because this is Thailand, that 40 baht ticket will actually cost you 100 baht. They come in sets, with a top and the bottom part, each bearing the same six digit number. And you can only buy them by the pair. So 40 baht becomes 80 baht,. Which has to be lucky for someone. Then there’s the 20 baht fee added by the seller. Unless he or she is lucky enough to have drawn a farang as a customer, then their odds of winning is increased by an additional 20 baht tacked on to the ticket cost.

On the plus side, if – or if you are Thai, when – you win, your prize money is doubled too. Unless you are a bar boy whose farang’s numbers just came in in the money. Then the sky is the limit. If your farang won 20,000 baht or less, you’ll take his ticket (and hopefully not him) to a local agent to cash it in. If he won more than 20,000 baht, you’ll have to get taxi money out of him to make the trek to the Government Lottery Office where you’ll receive a check for the winning amount. In either case, farang will always believe you when you tell them that only Thais can win the lottery. They are, after all, hansum men.

The official lottery in Thailand is drawn twice a month, on the first and sixteenth, give or take a day. First prize is 2 million baht. Or maybe that’s 3 million. Which, of course, is doubled, so it’s really 4 million. Or 6 million. There’s also a whole series of other cash prizes too, running from 1,000 to 100,000 baht, based on how many of your numbers come in, in which order, and/or how closely to the winning numbers your actual numbers were. But there’s also a tax imposed on winnings, from 50 satang per hundred baht won to 2 baht per hundred, depending on where you collect your winnings. All of which helps confuse farang, who probably were a but suspicious about purchasing lottery tickets from some old lady sitting on the curb in front of McDonalds in the first place.

Who else would you turn to for the lottery’s winning numbers?

No problemo. Thais know better. And every Thai knows, whatever magical formula he used to pick his numbers, the lottery is his best chance at becoming rich. Well, finding a farang to ‘sponsor’ you is the best way of ensuring those riches, but the lottery is always a close second.

The first official lottery by the Thai government was held in 1874 as part of the celebration honoring Rama V’s birthday. The second (and third) lotteries in Thailand were thanks to the Brits. During WWI, England wanted to borrow money from the Thai government but was concerned that a direct loan might affect the monetary stability of the Kingdom. So they sold lottery tickets instead. Who won those lotteries is lost to history, but as with all forms of gambling, the real winner was the house. Which in this case was the House of Windsor. In 1932, the Thai Red Cross go into the lottery game, and by 1939 Thailand’s official government lottery finally was run by the official Thai government, which, some 35 years later, morphed into the twice-a-month lottery that all Thais are familiar with today.
The most recent lottery was held this weekend. I’ve yet to hear back from Noom (who is probably busy counting his winnings) but since there was a tie-in with past lucky numbers being lucky for a change, I assume he played the lottery big time. On Saturday, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra tripped while getting out of her car in Chiang Mai. And if a falling farang is worth 10,000 baht, an equally embarrassed PM has gotta be worth a million or two. Or if you are fond of wearing a red shirt, that’s gotta be worth the fate of the nation.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’re already a winner. On the other hand, you may want to note these numbers for the April 1st lottery.

This morning Thailand’s Government Lottery Office is being grilled over whether or not this weekend’s lottery numbers were selected randomly, despite the process they use to pick those numbers being more convoluted than the various ways of winning. A group of anti-government protesters even marched on the Lottery Bureau demanding an investigation. Their problem is that the last two digits prize, and Sunday’s lottery result were, 79. Which matched the last two digits of one of the two vans Yingluck rode in while in Chiang Mai.

Even worse, depending on your political affiliations, in the underground lottery (which uses the official lottery’s winning numbers, but offers better odds) the last three digits prize winning number was 404. Which matched the license plate number of the lucky van she lost her balance in front of.

Supporters of Yingluck’ troubled government, which is facing yet another election at the beginning of next month, claim the coincidence of the winning lottery number and the accident-prone PM’s Northern Thailand stumbling visit is a sign that she is the rightful leader of the country. The sore losers backing other political hopefuls, and undoubtedly also losers in the most recent lottery, are crying foul. So it’s politics, and superstitions, as usual in Thailand.

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The Economics Of Paid Sex

08 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in Smells Like Science

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Money Matters

Money and sex are more interconnected than what you may have thought.

Those of high moral standards (aka Christians of whom Christ would want nothing to do with) are not big on prostitution. They will tell you it is a degrading profession that leads to crime, drug use, child abuse, and – other than homosexuality – is your quickest path to Hell. And despite prostitution being the world’s oldest – and most popular among customers – profession, the general view of those who engage in the commercial sex scene is that they are lonely, socially inept, ugly and often ancient losers who wouldn’t have a sex life if not for their wallet. Which may be true in Pattaya. As well as in the U.S. House of Representatives. But those who study the sex life of others shows differently. Customers of prostitutes are not that easily pigeonholed. The span all age groups and all economical levels. Some are even attractive enough they could turn a few bucks themselves by turning tricks. Which begs the question: Can something that feels so good really be all that bad?

Yup, smells like science to me.

Those men in little white coats have proved in the past that an active sex life is important to your well-being. Getting laid makes you happy (and yes, someone got a shit load of government grant money for figuring that out). We now know a regular exchange of body fluids helps strengthen your immune system too. And now, thanks to Nick Drydakis, a senior lecturer in economics at Anglia Ruskin University at Cambridge, we also know that getting lucky is also good for your wallet. No mater what that happy ending costs you.

Working with the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany, Drydakis found from studying the responses regarding health, sexual activity, employment status, and earnings from 7,500 people aged 26 to 50 – which included both straight and gay men – that not having enough sex can lead to loneliness, social anxiety, and depression. More importantly he found that getting laid tends to make people more confident and social, which can translate into positive professional qualities; those with a great sex life are more likely to be more confident, emotionally stable, and focused at work than someone who spends his nights crying and masturbating over a 15-year-old poster of Brad Pitt. And better yet, Drydakis’ research showed that people who have sex at least four times a week made 5% more in wages than their less sexually active counterparts.

Ca-Ching!

Think of that orgasm you just paid for as money in the bank.

Drydakis’ findings held true even when factors such as education and profession were taken into account. And while his research also showed people who make happy endings a regular part of their life are likely to be healthier with fewer limitations such as diabetes, heart diseases and arthritis, his study also revealed that even people who have health problems earn more if they have regular sex. Drydakis also discovered that those whose sex life really sucked earned 3.2% less than those who got off at least once or twice a week. Whodathunk orgasms could be so profitable, even when you are paying for them?

Not that Drydakis specifically addressed where those orgasms were coming from and whether or not they were paid for. That bit of research undoubtedly will be saved for the next round of government grant funding. But he did make several observations on why sex and earnings are linked. And it’s easy to connect the dots. Firstly, Drydakis said that it could be because people who earn more have the disposable income to go on more ‘dates’. Secondly, he felt it could be because people who earn more are more attractive to potential partners. And thirdly, he theorized that the reason could be that men with higher wages are better able to buy their partner gifts and that they are rewarded with sex. Which pretty well defines the customer/bar boy dynamic.

Research and scientific theory are all good and well, but how does that translate to the real world? Well, if you make $50,000 a year, $2,500 of that then is thanks to the memories provided by the working men in Thailand. Or in a currency you may better understand: roughly 38 long-time offs. Which means if you make three trips to Thailand each year, the additional wages you earn thanks to the happy endings you pay for works out to about a dozen orgasms per trip. Which in turn means those moments of pure ecstasy ain’t actually costing you a dime.

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In Thailand, That’d Be Free

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in California, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Money Matters

The cost of a beautiful tropical beach scene in Thailand: nada.

I’ve always assumed having spent so much time in Thailand that some of the local mind-set would have rubbed off on me by now. And after this last weekend decided it must be the Thai fascination with anything that is free. Free is a magical word to Thais. Anything free is considered a large dollop of good fortune. No matter how much it costs to qualify for that abundance. I tend to be more enamored with irony myself, so a free massage that cost 600 baht for two bottles of water hits my mark as well as it does my friend Noom’s delight in getting something for free. It’s a win-win for everyone involved. Except for my wallet.

Not that all free things in Thailand involve an outlay of cash. Or a further outlay of cash. Noom, not being much of a drinker in the first place, was a bit dubious about my suggestion that the fancy cocktail stirrers served with our tropical concoctions at a beach resort in Phuket would make for a nice souvenir. Even though he loves souvenirs almost as much as he loves free stuff. But when I carefully cleaned the one in my drink off with a napkin, handed it to him while mentioning it was free, his entire attitude changed. And he pocketed the one that had been served in his drink too. Knowing him the way that I do, I immediately let him know we were not ordering another round. And that glimmer in his eye that had been envisioning an entire set of free cocktail stirrers dimmed a bit. That’s the thing about free stuff. You have to know when to stop. Which is before free becomes and empty wallet.

But there are a lot of free things in Thailand. Many of which you are not even aware of. The locals are in line for a lot of largesse thanks to their government. In Bangkok, one of the buses is free. I can’t remember its color, but do remember it does not have air-conditioning. Noom has pointed it out to me but knows me as well as I know him and – free or not – knows there is no way I’m getting on a bus. Much less a non-air-conditioned one. Around the New Year (ours, not theirs or the lunar one) train travel for Thais is free too. I’m not sure if that covers all routes and all trains but Noom thought it worthy enough of an event to take me to Hualamphong Station once to see the huge crowd of locals camped out on the station’s floor patiently waiting for their free ride. I’m pretty sure touri don’t qualify for free train travel. Too bad. I’m anti-bus but pro-train.

The best things in life may be free, but no one promised that meant they’d be exciting.

This morning I read an article on-line that said the toilets at bus and train stations in Thailand will now be free to use. I made a mental note to avoid both in the future when Noom is with me. He enjoys marking his spot wherever we go almost as much as he does my wallet paying for free stuff for him. Of course, this being Thailand, the free wee offer is not yet a reality. The Governor of the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) says their toilet operation works by allowing a fee to be collected in exchange for the maintenance and cleaning of the loos by a ‘contractor.’ Which undoubtedly is some member of said Governor’s family. For me that’s a good thing. The lure of both a free train or bus ride and a free place to pee might otherwise be too much for Noom and I may yet find myself on one of those damn dilapidated non-air-conditioned free buses.

Last weekend Phil and I headed down to the Monterey Peninsula for a long weekend of sun and fun. It was a re-do of a trip we’d made two weeks earlier that we had to cut short due to an unexpected illness in his family. This time we decided to cut over to the coast early and take Highway 1 south. It is a beautiful if slow drive that winds along the coast and several northern California style beaches. When you say ‘California’ most people immediately picture a beach. With miles of white sand and palms tress blowing gently in the balmy breeze. That’s Southern California. Up north the sand is finer, not so white, and blows into and onto everything within a mile of it. And the water is gray instead of blue. It’s also near frigid in temperature. At best, beach goers might wade out into the surf for a minute or two. But no one goes swimming. Northern California beaches are best experienced by driving past them.

Phil knows this. But our plan was for a romantic weekend away and he let the romance take over from reality, suggesting we stop at a beach along the way for a picnic lunch. I’m not as much of a romantic. But have learned when your guy starts acting like a girl, your best bet is to just shut up and go with the flow. So, in prep, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up supplies for a picnic lunch. At a Safeway. Not a mom and pop joint.

The cost of using a squat toilet in Thailand: 5 baht (and your dignity).

It didn’t take long to fill our basket once I’d moved him past buying individual ingredients to just ordering pre-made stuff from the deli department. Even when your guy is acting like a girl there is a limit to how far you should allow that to go. So everything was fine. Until we got to the checkout. A new law had recently gone into effect that required the store charge customers ten cents for a bag. Huh. Tree huggers, like your guy who is acting like a girl, should be limited in their indulgences. But no one had told this community that. So to combat destroying Mother Earth by needlessly issuing paper bags to shoppers, a fine had been imposed. A dime is nothing. A dime is not even worth bending over to pick up when dropped. But bags at stores are supposed to be free. I don’t think even Noom would be excited to hear the bag he got was free. No matter how much the stuff I’d just paid for him to fill it with actually cost.

No problemo. I ponied up the dime, got a quarter’s worth of bitching in for that pleasure, and we headed off for Highway 1. Since it was Phil’s romantic vision that required we stop to dine seaside, I let him choose which beach we’d pull in to. Which means when I started doing so at the first we came upon he said, “No, not this one.” Ditto for the next beach. I quit slowing down as each beach came up until he finally gave me the word. San Gregario was the winner. I don’t know why. It looks just like every other beach along that stretch of the coast. Maybe Saint Gregory is the patron saint of romantics.

Pulling into the not very filled parking lot, the first thing we came to was a small hut with a park ranger in it. Who promptly demanded an $8 ‘use’ fee. For the fucking beach! He was clear, during the ensuing conversation, that the fee was for using the ‘State Park’ not for parking. ‘Cuz $8 for parking would just be silly. And he also touted the fact that that $8 fee was good for all state parks for that day. So after paying our initial $8 at San Gregario we could stop at the rest of the dozen beaches – that all look exactly like San Gregario – for free! I suspect that attempt at making lemonade would only appeal to a Thai.

The cost of a not so beautiful, not so tropical beach scene in California: $8.

He was less forthcoming in answering my question that if it was a use fee and not a parking fee, why then were those (smarter) folk who parked back up on the highway not charged $8. You could even say that by then he was getting a bit surly about the whole thing. So, begrudgingly, I paid him his $8, figuring it wasn’t really fair to take it out on him; it’s not like he was the one getting the eight bucks. Unless California’s Governor cut a deal much like the State Railway of Thailand’s governor to allow the fees collected to be pocketed in lieu of paying its employees wages. Which, if you know Jerry Brown, is not out of the question.

Being a native Californian the idea of having to pay to use a beach goes against my grain. I’m sure unsuspecting touri from foreign countries are quite shocked at the idea too. Especially at a Northern Californian beach which is good for about 15 minutes of your attention. The amenities at San Gregario – which I closely scoped out since it was now about value as much as it was about cost – included the aforementioned parking lot. And a singular uni-sex toilet. I didn’t check to see if its use was included in the $8 State Park use fee we’d just paid. When there is an ocean a few feet away, paying for a place to piss just seems to ne a needless expense. I don’t know what it costs to maintain a small parking lot and an outhouse, but at $8 a head, someone is making a tidy profit off of Mother Nature.

Since this article isn’t about beachside picnics, I won’t go into that joy other than to note eating lunch on a fine-sand beach presents the same problems as having sex on a beach does. Sand gets everywhere. And neither a picnic nor sex when combined with the grit of tiny granules of sand makes for a romantic interlude. Having your guy bitch about the $8 use fee he just had to pay to visit a fucking beach probably doesn’t either. I did, however, make a mental note that if Noom ever changes his mind about coming to the U.S., all I’ll have to do is tell him it costs $8 to go the beach and that’ll nip that idea right in the bud. Free may be magical, paying for something that is supposed to be free is just stupid.

You paid how much?!

No problemo. We had our sandy lunch and took off back down the coast. Until the next beach five minutes away. Which I pulled into, thereby cutting our $8 use fee in half. Ha! Sometimes you have to be smarter than the average bear. This one, by the way, didn’t have a toilet. But did have picnic tables set up along the parking lot. ‘Cuz collecting $8 use fees only goes so far. I should also point out that if you visit one of these beaches and think a nice piece of driftwood would make for a good – and free – souvenir, there are signs posted telling you that removing anything from the beach is verboten. Noom would not be amused.

Though Phil was with having to stop at the next four beaches (technically five because South Pescadero Beach is use-fee free, so it didn’t count) which brought our cost down to just over a buck and a quarter per beach. $1.25 is a reasonable fee for using a beach’s parking lot. Value-wise it got even better since Phil used the outhouse at one of them. And, although I have no idea what he plans on doing with them, we used our ten cent shopping bag from Safeway to collect a bunch of driftwood pieces too.

By the time we hit Monterey, the beaches were no longer considered State parks and were free as Mother Nature intended. They are nicer beaches too. It’s still not water you’d want to get in, but there are otters to watch and sea lions to ignore. There are also tons of seaside restaurants which make for a much more romantic dinner than the beach does for a romantic lunch. And none of them charge you to use the restroom either. At least not if you shell out $80 for dinner. I didn’t check to see if they’d charge for a doggie bag for your left overs since there were none.

The cost of watching otters at play: a case of the warm fuzzies.

We spent a day touring the local wineries, some of which charge, some of which don’t; checked out the local mission, which charged but then religion always costs you one way or the other; and drove along 17 Mile Drive, which not only charges you to use the non-existent beach but for driving past it too – but then it always has so that was worth the cost of watching Phil try to figure out why I had no problem paying that fee. Big Sur is free too, as is nearby Jade Beach where, thanks to past visits and the inbred knowledge all rock hounds possess we used our ten cent Safeway bag to carry the free pieces of jade we collected. Figures. The one place the State could legitimately charge you for beach use, they don’t.

In Hawaii, by law, free access to the beach must always be given. In Thailand, the locals wouldn’t put up with the government fleecing touri for use of the beach – fleecing beach goers in Thailand is a right of the people. I don’t know which penny-pinching undoubtedly Republican politician came up with the idea of charging a use fee for California beaches, but I’m sure he’s since moved to Washington where as a member of the House he can screw with people nation wide. I’d be more pissed off about the whole thing than I am, but have to admit watching the sun set with your arms wrapped around a guy you like is worth whatever the cost.