Quote Originally Posted by Kun Jon
or whether they need a good shower
This comes up again again amongst Thais when talking about Farang. One guy I first met in Pattaya when "Thai Boys" had just opened (it's gone now) reckoned he could tell one nationality from another just by smell. There was even one nationality that he avoided if at all possible as he said they smelt the worst of the lot. I met up with him recently and we had to leave a shop in The Royal Garden Mall because he'd smelt a group of his least favourite nationality as soon as he entered.

My Thai boyfriend has just moved into a new rented room. He's had to clean the whole place twice because, as he says "Farang, stinky" had been there before him.
More a difference of cultures, I guess. Europeans don't bathe as often as the Thai (or, sadly enough far too many in the US) and are less likely to use a deoderant. Cologne can disguise the stink, but people still smell if they don't bathe enough. I'm sure farangs DO smell to the Thai.

I read somewhere before I made my first trip to LOS that it was a good idea to stop eating red meat a couple of weeks before traveling there if one wanted to lessen their overall body odor, and avoid it while there. It worked for me. That's not scientific research, I admit -- but on my second trip I began eating beef after I was there a week or so, and my friend noticed. Him being polite it took some prying to get him to admit it, but he noticed.

Normally I'd say "I do NOT 'sweat,' I glisten!" but let's face it -- while moving about in the LOS, some of us (my hand is up) are rarely wearing dry clothes for more than a few minutes!

Sorry, a bit off topic here, but if it helps anyone with their BS there...