impulse

You refer to "The West" as if it's one entity. Such simple folk...

All good points, but there's a lot more than 2 sides. There's the gub'ment on each side who want to stay in power, the people on each side whose lives don't really change between one despotic dictator or the other, and there's outside instigators who just smell dollar signs. Not justifying Russia's invasion at all, but I'm amazed how Zelenskyy went from an authoritarian kleptocrat to a hero in record time... I guess he's a kleptocrat, but he's our kleptocrat. My heart goes out to the Russian people, just as it goes out to Americans suffering huge inflation. Neither got what they thought they were voting for. To be clear, I'm not equating Russian sanctions with American inflation, just lamenting that you think you're voting for one thing, but that's not what you get...

I think it's a lot more indicative than sitting on a barstool in a brothel and complaining about the price of beer and bar fines and gauging "tourism" by what passes through the doors. I have always contended that Thailand would be better served if they cleaned up the sex industry. Not to eliminate it, just not so in-your-face. For every monger dollar they'd lose, they'd more than make it up in family tourism. That's why I liked the resort in Jomtien. I found the Russian, East German, Belarussian and Ukrainian families to be delightful. The mongers in town, not so much- regardless of their origin. (7 years in Thailand put me off ever wanting to visit Australia, but that's another topic for another thread)

If the guests at my favorite Jomtien getaway were there for the sex, they did a great job of hiding it from their wives, their kids, and their friends who gathered each evening to sit on the grounds and share a few drinks and some food. They took the hotel van into town during the day, with the wife and kids in tow.

As if the servers, maids, drivers and other employees of Westerner targeted hospitality establishments are any different?

Thanks, but my Chinese GF is the same. She'll have 10 bites to every one of mine.

I can hear the buzzing just looking at the photo.

Maybe not, but it's already too late to vaccinate them. If 97% of the deaths are the unvaccinated, they have chosen their own fate. The vaccinated are apparently protected from the choices of others. Freedom to choose what's injected into your body is a fundamental right. Just like the right to smoke, drink, ride scooters, and eat tons of sugar. Let's see how things pan out when the long term results are understood. Which will happen in the long term.

Don't forget the harumph. That's a Blazing Saddles reference.

Research has clearly shown that so-called "fully vaccinated" -- meaning two doses -- is not very effective against Omicron, and the third booster dose fares much better in terms of protection. All 3 have boosted rates higher than Thailand, at a whopping 32%. Along with much higher Covid death rates.

Interesting that S Korea, which is 86.9% fully vaccinated has a death rate almost 6x as high as Thailand, which is only 72% fully vaccinated. Austria, at 74% fully vaccinated has a death rate 3.5x Thailand. Greece, at 71% fully vaccinated, has a death rate 4x Thailand's https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

Downtown. Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays? Would be surprised to see him getting robbed again by the RTP, for testing positive.

With very few tourists around, it has been a long time since we've seen a "my hotel safe was robbed" thread. We used to get a few every month.

Great cautionary tale for those who refuse to keep a hard currency cash reserve living overseas, under the premise that ATM's and credit and debit cards have never failed them. By "hard currency", I mean USD or Euro. I always kept a wad in my underwear drawer, and carried $4,900 whenever I boarded an Int'l flight. I never had to dig too deep into the reserve, but it saved me from having a real bad day on several occasions. Where I used to work, our Int'l travelers were required to keep on their person a refundable, first class ticket to a friendly country in case of SHTF. Like running over a camel, which cost the company a lot more if they were held hostage. In case of SHTF or accident, their instructions were to head to the airport, hop on the first flight to a friendly country and let the company fix the mess with them safely away. In Africa (Angola or Nigeria?), a group of companies kept a "yacht" in the port and the SHTF plan was to get their people on that boat and over the horizon for the US or UK navy to rescue them. It was more of a workboat than a yacht, but it was well provisioned. Anyway, I'll bet the [Russians] wish they had kept more hard cash at hand... And not rubles. Edit: I didn't really keep mine in my underwear drawer, but I'm not telling where I had it hidden.

Typically, I'd buy amoxicillin. It was cheap and seemed to work. I had the surgery to straighten my deviated septum and remove some nasal polyps, though I had that done at the recommendation of a sleep specialist (there's another thread on micro-sleep, which I discuss as narcolepsy. But that's in the Thai driver bashing forum, not the healthcare forum). The surgery didn't work for the sleep problem and was marginal at preventing sinus infections. But that's just my experience. Nasonex is pretty spendy here at about $200 (my GP prescribed it but I declined it at the pharmacy when I saw the pricetag), so I use a generic version of Flonase for <$15. It's not exactly the same, but it's a steroid spray and seems to work the same. I used Nasonex in the past when my insurance covered prescription drugs, but on Obamacare, my deductible is $7000 a year before any coverage kicks in. Yay, Obamacare... Edit: If I ever do get to that $7K deductible, I'll treat myself to Nasonex and all kinds of fancy schmancy tests and treatments because it's all supposed to be covered at 100%.

It's the old my source is more authoritative than yours. I'm not going to engage, because neither one of us is qualified to judge. Besides, the statements I made stand even without referencing the study. Lockdowns caused devastating economic hardship for hundreds of millions, and my right to decide what goes into my body doesn't end where someone else's fear begins. You wanna stay home and get the jabs, feel free.

Good info. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out... Federal government gets a price match guarantee The contract also has something called most favored nation pricing. It's kind of like getting a product at a store with a price match guarantee, like Target or Best Buy. If one of six other wealthy countries, such as Japan or Germany, gets a lower price for Paxlovid, the U.S. can push the company for the same price. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/01/1075876794/feds-contract-with-pfizer-for-paxlovid-has-some-surprises

Don't forget that Johns Hopkins study that concluded the lockdowns only reduced deaths by 0.2%.

Here's Silom in BKK, near Dusit Thani, Songkran 2017. Safely taken from the BTS walkway. Lots of tourists come for "the biggest water fight in the world". At least, they used to... This crowd went on for blocks and blocks, and pretty much filled Lumpini Park. I wear obnoxious Songkran shirts a lot here in the USA. Unbelievable how many compliments I get on the shirts. But I do live on an island, in a beach community.

53 USD is the price for the consumer in Germany I suspect that's a subsidized number. I could be wrong, but Germany is on the list of G7 countries with a price match clause in the US purchase agreement. If they're buying it for $53, the US is entitled to a price match. It would make sense for a high cost, Universal Healthcare country to subsidize or even give away 10 or 15 courses to prevent one hospitalization. And that's how the numbers from the Pfizer study shake out.

If you consider coming to Thailand for 2 weeks, buying a bunch of stuff and returning back home as "working" yes, they were. But I doubt Thai immigration would bat an eyelash. My favorite weekend beach getaway was in Jomtien. It's a family resort, and was mainly focused on Eastern European guests. I found them to be delightful and very family oriented. Nothing like the mongers I saw in Pattaya itself. I'd meet them on the beach, from East Germany, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Over the years, the guest mix became more and more Chinese. The snack shop selection changed to cater to Chinese, too. They started stocking MouTai and instant noodles. They opened up their second restaurant as a Chinese breakfast buffet in the morning to take pressure off the existing buffet and give the Chinese what they liked. The gift shop stocked a lot of the goodies the Chinese like to take home, to prove they were in Thailand. They hired some Chinese speakers for the reception area. The van service to town had Russian, German, English and Chinese signs. That's how you make money catering to the Chinese tourists. A lot of them found the place in a tour group, and later came back as independent (repeat) travelers. Rooms started at around 2000 baht, with poolside villas up in the 10-20,000 baht range. Probably higher, but I never paid more.

Sure, a lot of that goes on with the noobs on tour groups. But repeat Chinese tourists are getting more sophisticated and traveling independently, breaking free of the lady with the flag. My GF shopped at Siam Square, Emporium, EmQuarter and T21. The only time she went to Chinatown is when I dragged her... She did like Chatuchuk, but mostly for the BBQ shrimp. Some of my Chinese friends fund their overseas trips buying luxury goods like watches and reselling them back in China where the import duties are high. Just takes one watch to pay for the trip, with minimal chance of being caught. That's more prevalent in EU and NA, where there's little or no duty on luxury goods. Good money if you cater to them...

Nobody does. And that's deliberate. They get to bang up whoever they choose.

It's not just the numbers. There's more data showing they spend more per head, too. My Chinese GF came to Thailand with a shopping list from her friends of stuff to bring back. Heavy on cosmetics and Thai delicacies like dried fruit and nuts. That matches my experience in the airport check-in where they're loaded with goodies and trying to get it all on the plane, minimizing excess baggage fees. Cater to that, and vendors can do quite well. Treat them like Western or Russky tourists, and vendors be griping an' moaning.

And I think that's a good thing. Here in the USA I have to spend $150, drive an hour, and sit in a waiting room for an hour to spend 2 minutes with a doctor to have him prescribe the same thing that has worked 20 times in the past 40 years. I get a sinus infection, it drains into my lungs and causes bronchitis. Without treatment, it hangs on for 4-6 weeks. Antibiotics clear it up in a couple of days. Doesn't matter that the sinus infection started out viral or allergies. And that $150 doesn't mean I'm going to get a lab test. That's reserved for cases where the antibiotics don't work. In Thailand, I walked in, asked for antibiotics and walked out in 2 minutes, for $10 all in.