Saturday night we had a bit of free food and festivities at Buckskin Joe's Village-- a sort of growth on below one of the elevated freeways. It consists of several low key bars all containing eager hostesses in a constant state of serving you a cold beer. We ended up there due to the fact that Hotmail was down and we were unable to access the necessary address information.   Finally we were on our way and found our Canadian host Doug in a rather nice and well stocked condo. Most embassy staff get treated real well--much better than if the were back home. Some even get extra money if they live in a hardship area like Laos or Cambodia. It turns out to be a joke, because a westerner living just about anywhere in SE Asia on western income will live like a king. If you were pulling in $40,000 a year here, you would have a large condo, with maid and services. Maybe you would have a driver or if not you would take taxis everywhere. You would be sporting a Nokia phone and go out to a restaurant for every meal. You would be paid about 500% more than your Thai peers. And you would likely be accused of being a pawn of cultural imperialism.