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Steroid vacation

May 27, 2012


"Juiced up" ... Michael Dorn strikes a bodybuilder pose in a Pattaya street. Photo: Anthony Johnson
THERE'S something about the seedy Thai beachside town of Pattaya that keeps enticing Michael Dorn back - but it's not the sun, sea, sand or sex for which the resort is famous.
The 21-year-old from Blacktown is part of a thriving amateur bodybuilding subculture that uses anabolic steroids and growth hormones as a fast track to the ultimate ''ripped'' body. While the drugs are heavily restricted in Australia by laws that are among the strictest in the world, Dorn - and hundreds like him - have discovered a novel way around the problem: they travel to Thailand on ''steroid vacations''.
A Sun-Herald investigation has found that rather than risk prosecution in Australia, everyday gym users are travelling to Asia and ''stacking'' a dangerous cocktail of steroids that include powerful veterinary drugs and fertility medicine.
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Steroid vacation

Tim Sharky in Pattaya, Bangkok. Photo: Anthony Johnson

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While police in Australia warn of a growing trade in steroids -

Read more: http://www.smh.com.a...l#ixzz1w3glYtSC

News about the Chinese Consulate issuing a warning to Chinese travelers on the safety of travelling in Chiang Mai is troubling.


It is even more shocking that in the latest incident, in which a Chinese female tourist was mugged and assaulted within a famous Buddhist temple, the culprit has admitted to similar offences several times during the past few months. This shows local authorities lacking in their safety provision for tourists.
Chiang Mai lives and thrives on tourism. The number of Chinese visitors to this city from South China is growing by leaps and bounds. Now it is not certain it will enjoy the growth further.
Interior Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit has recently threatened to sack the Bangkok governor if the latter refuses to cooperate with the government on the flood issues. He should turn his attention to Chiang Mai instead. The problem here is much more urgent. The local police chief, the mayor and the governor here need to be probed and sacked if found to be lacking in their duties concerning the safety of tourists. If this problem is allowed to go on, it means national tourism is also threatened.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra should be reminded that this happened in her hometown and right after her government's Cabinet meeting in the city. If her hometown is full of muggers preying on tourists, how could she promote tourism for the country?
Vint Chavala
Lamphun
http://www.nationmul...m-30175715.html

Thaksin wants to return to Thailand
DUBAI ― Despite the blockbuster election of his sister Yinglick Shinawatra as Thai prime minister last summer, her much-older brother Thaksin, himself prime minister from 2001-2006, is still in exile in a luxury townhouse in Dubai, isolated and restless, awaiting the opportunity to return.

Today, however, Thailand’s most controversial political figure even admits that as its ambitious leader he was sometimes a hard man to like. He told me: “I was so angry then ... so full of anger. And in my speed of reaching my anger and in showing it to everyone ... I was too fast with all that.” He says this with a kind of resigned sadness.

http://www.koreatime...172_104413.html

Trouble In Paradise? Suicide And Accidental Death Reach Epidemic Proportion On The Island Of Phuket!

Phuket on Thailand's South coast is a tropical island paradise, a romantic holiday destination with beautiful sandy beaches full of tourists that have come to escape the dreary winter months of Europe and North America. The locals have a reputation for their hospitality, and their charming Thai smiles, making tourists feel welcome and keeping them coming back year after year. Most tourists don't realize that there are an alarming number of unexplained deaths, and questionable suicides.

I was reading the local paper this morning, and I saw another story reported as a suicide, yet the circumstances seem to indicate that something more sinister is far more likely. This is nothing new, stories like this appear in the Phuket papers as often as weekly, with so many bizarre suicides reported in Phuket, it seems impossible to write them off as simply coincidence. Earlier this week, a prominent local media mogul was gunned down in the streets of Phuket Town, in an obvious assassination. Now it is being reported that the deceased journalist Wisut ''Ae'' Tangwittayaporn, first raised questions about the ownership of the Freedom Beach land, printing a story in his online newspaper. Today's report also suggests that a security guard who was questioned by investigators, and "had intimate knowledge of a controversial property at Phuket's Freedom Beach", has committed suicide just the day after the assassination of Khun Ae.

Now the official story is that the security guard felt pressured and depressed, and chose to end his own life, however his involvement in such a high profile land dispute has many people asking questions, and pointing fingers. The local law enforcement has a reputation for corruption, and it is believed that murders are often covered up, written off as suicides or accidental deaths. If you go back through the archives of the local newspapers, and read the reports of suicides and accidental deaths, the numbers are staggering.
http://travelinasia....et-Death-Island

Hi The mia and I are spending songkram in Chang Mai, could any locals give me information on where to go, where to stay and when to go?