iIanPPI

Water in Thailand is so cheap, a liter of water is negligible. They should have a sign that says free for Thai, farang 20 baht.

During songkran in Pattaya, second road.... I filled up my water pistol from a large bucket on the road. A bar girl approached me and told me to pay 20 baht for the water. I asked her if she was being serious and she just stared at me not saying anything. I saw one man fill up his water gun and walk off, without paying, I pointed at him and said ''Look at him, is he paying? Is he paying 20 baht?''. The bar girl just said "No no, he Thai, you farang, you pay 20 baht". I could buy 2 liters of cold drinking water from 7/11 for 20 baht, not 1 liter of undrinkable luke warm stagnant water. And so I poured the water back into the bucket "You not want? *laughing*", I just said "Don't worry, I have many many millions of baht, thank you". I have experienced the two tier pricing for years, this for some reason really pissed me off. They have no problem ripping off the white man.

I have been tempted to buy a condominium (remember, you're only buying a lease, not freehold), but decided against it. The price of hotels, or rooms, or apartments, is so cheap to rent in Thailand, that I would need to live here for well over 20 years before buying a condo saves me money. Along with that, renting somewhere I can move at a moments notice; and I don't have to worry about the political instability in Thailand, the asinine visa policies, insurance, the building catching fire, the building being smashed up because the developer didn't bribe the right people, or anything else. I do understand the allure of buying a condo, being able to stick a flag in the sand and say "this is mine", but it is in my case it would be without merit and not a wise decision financially.

Do you have an autoclave?

There is not so much a culture of prostitution in Cambodia, the only prostitutes I've seen there were drug addicts, and generally 'low rent'. I might be wrong on that, but it's a lot less in your face than in certain parts of Bangkok or Pattaya. I would say head to Sihanoukville - I haven't been there for a few years but from what I'm told it's somewhat more developed than when I was there, there is nightlife but nothing really comparable to Pattaya. Of course the police is a lot more relaxed in Cambodia and you can find many restaurants and bars openly selling pizza laced with marijuana, and marijuana milkshakes. It is certainly a better choice for those of us interested in nefarious activities. The rural areas are mostly the same as Isaan which is where I spent most of my time. Instead of saying ''farang'' I found that people would just stare at you like you are a 16 foot tall green alien with 5 heads. They would just stare at you and sometimes it really annoyed me. If a small child says ''farang'' at least you can engage with them and say something back, not so much with the death stares of Cambodia..... However this was in rural areas miles and miles from a city where there are very few white people. In general I would describe the Khmer people as quite friendly. The infrastructure is all good in the tourist areas where you will be heading, and there is only really temples to sight see, much the same as Thailand. I suggest visiting the killing fields though, I did enjoy that. The markets in Phnom Penh are much better than anything I've ever seen in Thailand; for example I was able to negotiate down a Ralph Lauren polo shirt for $1. I have never been able to strike such a deal anywhere in Thailand, also counterfeits are generally less plentiful in Thailand with the sporadic police cut-downs. It's definitely not Pattaya, but I think Cambodia is a good place. Worth a visit I'd say.

I used Debian for many years, mainly because of the security side of things. Now I'm using Windows just because I need video editing software and stuff like that, which you can run on Linux using Wine, but it's just a headache to do that. I recently bought a notebook which was 13,900 baht with no OS, for a Windows license they charge 2,000 baht (bring the total to 15,900). After expressing my displeasure with the sales assistant he installed a pirated version of Windows on the computer, along with pirated version of Windows office, winrar and a bunch of other stuff. Which is fine except I can't get updates, but for 2K less, that's OK with me.