Tuesday 22 March 2011

Ballin' in Bangkok


With a few hours until checkout time at my hotel in Kuala Lumpur, having failed miserably at finding a suitable more long term place to live in the City, and not willing to pay the full cost of a 5 star hotel room every night after my roommate Amatay shipped his English ass back to the UK, I made the snap decision to book a first class flight to Bangkok that night.

I had gotten bored of KL already after 16 continuous days there, and was missing Thailand already. (Be sure to read my trip report from the last time I visited Bangkok if you haven't read it yet).

My flight didn't leave until 10:30pm, so for once I wasn't in a rush to get to the airport. Most flights involve me sleeping through my alarm, rushing around having not packed the night before, and getting to the airport a few minutes before they close checkin. So, at 6pm, after shipping a late checkout, and with lots of time on my hands I left my luggage with the concierge and enquired with the group of Taxi drivers outside the hotel on the price for a trip to the airport. They wanted RM180 (USD$60). I tried to haggle but they said it was a fixed price, and when I said "no thanks" they laughed at me and told me good luck walking there.

These Taxi drivers in Kuala Lumpur are pure scum. In particular the ones that wait outside hotels. They refuse to use their meter and will try to scam you for 3 times the fair price or more every time. Just pure filth. I'd managed not to use any of the ripoff merchant's services during my stay in KL, preferring to walk to a busy street and flag down a metered taxi rather than the ones that sit and wait in strategic locations waiting for a tourist to shaft. They most likely make most of their money out of people who are going to the airport, since they are the only taxis waiting outside the hotel, and people can't walk farther with all their luggage to find a non-bastard taxi to take them.

So, with time on my side, I took a leisurely stroll into town, shipped a great massage, picked up a delicious cookie dough milkshake, then found a metered taxi at some traffic lights. The driver drove me back to the hotel to pick up my bags, stopping in front of the same exact scumbag taxi drivers who were waiting in a line outside the hotel lobby. They, and the porters (who are likely getting kickbacks from the scum taxi drivers for letting them wait outside) didn't seem too impressed that I had outplayed them.

As we drove off I gave them a nice big middle finger "fuck you" through the back window. Total spent, including the massage and milkshake, was under RM90 (USD$30).

Daleroxxu > Scumbags!


So after an amazing couple of hours in the air, eating a delicious 4 course meal and lying back in the bed chair all snuggled up watching Due Date, I arrived in Bangkok just before midnight. The hotel I booked offered me transport for 1100Baht (USD$37). Instead I caught the last train, that left at midnight, into the city at a cost of 30Baht (USD$1). Daleroxxu outplayed the scumbags once again.

The last time I stayed in Bangkok I stayed in the Sukhumvit area with the rest of the tourists. This time I chose a more quiet location, In Makassan / Siam, with less tourists (and therefore less scummy taxi drivers, suit salesmen, massage girls and whores hassling the tourists) but still fairly close to some huge shopping malls.

My room was perfect for my needs. A nice comfy king sized bed, 24 hour room service, free wired broadband, desk facing TV and at last a comfortable chair to grind in. My back has been killing me due to grinding poker on my laptop in completely unsuitable chairs in hotel rooms.


and you know that you're in Bangkok when your hotel Minibar includes a packet of condoms, lawl.


So that is where I've been living for the last week, and it's been really nice, but unfortunately the last couple of nights has seen the Internet continuously crap out, costing me money when I'm in the middle of a poker session, and I've failed at getting the incompetent staff here to do anything about it. There's also no decent western restaurants near this hotel, and good food is important to me. So I've arranged to check out today, and have booked myself a room in hotel in Sukhimvit, and near a restaurant that I ate some excellent meals in during my last stay in Bangkok. The hotel is near Nana, so I am prepared to deal with the army of Thai whores / bar-girls that will be fighting over me every time I go out at night time.

Unfortunately the pokers still aren't going well for me at all, and I am break-even for the month in the games. I've just continuously run terrible when all-in as you can see from the all-in ev line on the graph.



It's been a horrible experience, resulting in a lot of screaming and binge eating. I could really do with the 30 buyins worth of ev that's been robbed from me by the stupid fish idiots that I play against :( So I am still playing PLO50 for now, until I can grind my PokerStars account up enough to play higher. Sigh.

3 weeks ago I only had $38 and a few FPPs in my busto stars account after some bad bankroll decisions, insane run-bad, and using the last $1400 in my account to buy into the Macau Cup Main Event which went terrible for me. Fortunately I still had some Stellar Reward bonuses to cash in, and got $700 by using the Supernova Concierge service, so that got me back into action. Despite breaking even in the games I have managed to make a bit of money through FPPs/Bonus, so I now have a comfortable amount to play PLO50 but not enough to play PLO100. I never want to play PLO with less than 100 buyins in my account. The swings are just too huge! But with a lot of hard work hopefully I can move up again SOON.

7 comments:

  1. good luck man, sick year so far for you. if you ever want to visit germany/düsseldorf. send me an email. you can stay at my home for free, but i promise its not as interesting as KL ;) good luck man, love your blog

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  2. Nice post, which hotels were/are you in in BKK? We've booked Prince in KL and will prolly stay in Chatrium Suites in BKK when we go back in mid-April; bit out of the action but v nice.

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  3. ^^nice offer

    Great Blog Man and gratz on team pro

    Any chance I could have a blog link swap please?
    I have yours on mine already

    Thx and Gl

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  4. I stayed at Eastin near Makassan. Not saying where I'm at just now for fear of fanboys stalking me :P

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  5. Hey Dale,

    You been to Cabbages & Condoms restaurant yet (just off Sukhumvit, close to Asok Sky Train/Soi Cowboy)? Great food (Thai) and good for a blog mention. Couple of decent pool halls nearby too.

    GL.

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  6. I will check it out fo sho thanks

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  7. let me know if you need a solution to the Thailand interwebs

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