ssmurry

While it wouldn't surprise me if some did jack up the prices to 'make up' for lost income, the majority of hotels are struggling so I think they'd just be happy with any income. There's some crazy deals going on Agoda at the moment. I've booked decent hotels around Soi 20 for cheaper than the price of a ST room. Previous hotels for 2k+/night going for 600-700.

Fair enough, I probably rag on the place too much. There's def good intel to be had on there and if I were in Patts more often I'd be on there more. The TS models tube thread is really useful for finding local LBs who have done porn. Maybe liberal use of the 'ignore user/thread' function would solve my issues with the place.

Funnily I actually started there first- my account on there is from 2010 (shit that's 10 years ago). Much busier than here but the bitching that goes on between a few long-timers that derails every other thread is annoying, plus the general "old man yells at cloud" feel of the place- like ThaiVisa forums if you've ever had the misfortune of visiting. Not that there's anything wrong with the experienced crowd but a few seem to miss the irony of the whole "young people are ruining everything, anyway I wanna fuck this young person"

Lol the advanced section isn't some nirvana with contact details of LBs willing to give out free fucks or private hi-res photos of LB ass-cracks. Trust me when I say that you can have a perfectly good time in Thailand with the large amount of information available in the public forum. Half the stuff in advanced is discussion on how the forum is run with barely over a dozen new topics in the last year. I'm honestly surprised whenever I see a new post in advanced- and normally it's a "has anyone heard from X user?" Maybe the advanced section in the Pattaya sister forum has more activity (I'm not advanced there and rarely visit) but it certainly hasn't been busy here even before the covid situation. Most, if not all, of us make an effort to post publicly so don't worry you're not missing out on anything worthwhile. At this point it's more a (meaningless) label than any particular improvement on the forum experience. I certainly haven't noticed a change if that matters.

They've got big walls up around it and I'm assuming plenty of construction going on behind. The Mall Group owns the land and plans to build yet another mall, Emsphere, to go with the ones they already have in the area- Emporium and Emquartier. Apparently supposed to open this year but I'd say unlikely at this rate. https://coconuts.co/bangkok/news/dinosaur-planet-closes-makes-way-yet-another-mall-phrom-phong-station/ The good thing is that they plan to build an arena at the Emsphere, not the biggest at 6,000 capacity but at least there'll be a live event venue that's actually downtown. https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1548074/the-mall-flits-into-new-arena

Don't forget the bloody $3000 you gotta fork out to do quarantine on return. Plus they're denying three out of four requests to leave anyway.

Yeah I don't disagree, their mask use is about as good as their helmets- if they're worn at all they're loose or completely unstrapped so they'd fly off in a crash, or using bicycle helmets. For whatever reasons (heat, prior mask usage, less touchy-feely social interactions, pure luck) Thailand has escaped the huge death tolls faced by other countries so I'm not overly concerned. The face shields and gloves worn by a lot of customer service now is way overkill but whatever keeps them in the illusion of safety. I'm just glad they haven't put up plastic barriers inside PT like they've done in restaurants. Some of them are literally cling wrap on a couple of makeshift pipe frames, what's the point?

What's equally as amusing is that they still enforce/follow the social distancing for seating- so you can't sit next to each other but standing in crammed as shown is fine. Unfortunately I can't see a feasible solution to this during peak time- there'd be lines onto the street if they enforced passenger limits and they barely have enough trains running as it is so they won't be increasing the number of services. Thankfully the number of (detected) cases has been single digits/zero for the past 1-2 weeks, and with wearing a mask necessary to ride the BTS/MRT and well over 90% of people wearing masks everywhere else, I would say it's not as big a concern compared to other countries with similar crowding issues.

Was reading that they'll be opening the remaining stations by the end of this year, and that from one end to the other on the light-green Sukhumvit line will be about 1.5 hours. They will also be adding around a dozen new trains to make up for the extra stations IIRC. Would be good to get the airport 'link' finally linking the two airports at some point, or at least having some metro line going to DMK. The original ambitious metro-plan with 13 different lines still looks a long ways away..

I'd say there would be a really thin gap between rows, like now with economy class, where you'd pretty much jumping over peoples knees- again like it is now anyway. Theoretically I'd enjoy having my own pod-like space but doubt this will become standard- they'd make it much more claustrophobic in real life and there'd be a bunch of safety hazards with flight attendants having obscured views, etc. Maybe something more realistic would be the current configuration but plastic screens between each seat. There's no way flying with every other seat empty is a viable long or even medium-term solution.

Flights back to normal by Oct 2021, says AOT, note that's October next year “If the Covid-19 situation is brought under control in countries worldwide, the economy in Thailand and other major countries will recover, while traffic volume will return to normal in October 2021,” he said.

A lot of valid concerns there, I suspect the way we travel will change for the foreseeable future- at the very least for the next 1-2 years while a vaccine is being developed and then distributed. Medical/fit-to-fly certificates being the first barrier before even getting onto the plane, and yeah all the measures you've mentioned being implemented in one way or another. Think each country/airline will probably have their own requirements/procedures. Can't see it being very cheap to fly either- IIRC low oil prices in the past have had little effect on ticket prices anyway.

As per title, when in the 'View New Content' page I've been trying to get the Expanded view to work but doesn't seem to do anything (i.e. it remains in Condensed view). Tried logging out and changing browsers but to no avail. Not a huge deal, just thought I'd see if anyone else is having this same issue. Cheers

Really? That's good to hear. Last I was there the place was falling apart- bathroom taps leaking, AC barely chugging along. Did they fix up both the ground-level curtain ones and the upstairs 'pricier' rooms?

Fair enough mate, in that case I've heard good things about the Panasonic Lumix TZ range. I think the most recent ones TZ80 and TZ90 can be had in the A$400 range or even less if you can get it on sale. You can also look for older models on sale, here's the Sony RX100 for sub $500 https://www.ryda.com.au/sony-rx100-cyber-shot-camera It's a superb camera and at the time was used as the 'second' camera for many pros, it was that good. Blew away every other camera in it's segment. I've used the later editions and been very impressed with it's quality. Maybe I'm a bit picky but I've used my ex's Canon SX420 (the older one) and apart from being able to zoom really bloody far haha, I didn't think the images were particularly much better than what you can get with a phone nowadays. With that said, it's your money of course and I don't wanna pressure you into spending more than you want/need. On one hand I enjoy taking photos because it captures moments that often cannot be recreated, and having the right gear allows me to better achieve this. On the other, I've tried to cut down wastage as there's no point overspending on something you'll rarely use. Anyway apologies for the long rants. Regardless of what you end up using I'm sure you'll have a blast regardless. Just the mental images of some of the girls I've been with will stay with me forever hah!

I've always liked the advice "the best camera is the one you have with you" as it applies on many levels. Smartphone camera quality (and specifically computational photography) has improved dramatically over the past half decade, enough that I would say a top-tier smartphone (Google Pixel, iPhone, Samsung S10, etc.) would suffice for most. Works out well because most people already have phones on them. It sounds like you're keen on shooting videos too however, with video recording capabilities of phones still leaving a lot to be desired. Should you want to upgrade to a dedicated camera option this leads to the second interpretation: getting something portable and easy to use. I've known too many non-technical people pick up bulky and relatively cheap DSLRs expecting them to dramatically improve their photos, only to not be bothered enough to learn to use the camera properly as well as rarely even taking them out because they are too big and heavy to carry everywhere. If you are really keen on photography/videography and willing to lug around 1-2kg worth of gear sure, but I'd say most average people are not. Back to recommendations, I like 'advanced' point-and-shoots like the Canon G7X/G9X and Sony RX100 series but they can be quite costly- ranging from A$700 all the way up to $1500++ They are pretty simple to use with reasonable auto-modes, fairly compact (not pants-pocketable but fits into coats/bags) and the image/video quality is perfectly fine for most I would say. There's a ton of reviews out there, at the time the Canon G7X mark II was lauded as a good vlogging camera. Not sure where in WA you are but JB HiFi has them and maybe you can check some out there. Going down budget I'm not sure I can recommend the cheaper (<A$300) point-and-shoot cameras. Picking up second-hand or waiting for sales of the aforementioned cameras is a better bet in my opinion. Otherwise, I'd say you're better off just upgrading your phone and maybe getting a tripod with phone mount for any videos. Make sure there is adequate lighting, turn on extra lights if you have to. Work with what you have.