impulse

There are several. One's next to the post office on the tourist drag that goes along the river. There's another on the tourist drag a short walk from the bridge. That one also has rental Stand Up Paddleboards. Nice guys. Though I haven't used that one, I occasionally stop by to shoot the breeze. They don't know me from Adam but they're very nice to me. It's hard to miss their sign and they usually have a kayak or SUP out front. If you're bopping around, there are also banners along the road advertising some. And the hotels I stay at usually have brochures advertising them, and others. Edit: I'd add that I was there last week and they were both open for business when I walked by. There have been others that have come and gone. The one by the post office seems to keep weird hours, but I think they (she) can be contacted a few doors down.

On that, we agree. But a little bit of clarification would be nice. Or we'll have a thread about the British guy in a scooter crash who thinks he had insurance but now needs to do a GoFundMe. And those threads never end well.

Trump and Musk could cure cancer, pay off the national debt and bring peace to the world and the lefties would still hate on them. Paraphrasing Uma Thurman... "It's in their nature".

Medical insurance for $9 doesn't pass the sniff test. I think something is lost in translation. Or someone's just fibbing.

Full disclosure, Yahoo is blocked here and I couldn't be bothered to do a Bing search (because so is Google) But on general principals, if I could choose between training the FBI field agents not to upset anyone using the wrong pronoun, or how to choke out a bad guy using non-lethal means, I know which one I'd prefer my tax dollars to pay for.

Which is which in the Thai heat? Because that solid blue shirt is going to look horrible with sweat marks all over.

I can't imagine there will be honest to gosh insurance for $9. More like a fund from which they can pay the hospital debts of tourists that get treated and can't (or won't) pay. As I recall, Thailand gets stuck with about 400 million baht of unpaid hospital bills each year from tourists that don't pay. I know the word "insurance" is getting tossed around, but I think that's a misunderstanding. Though it would be nice if I were wrong there.

I'm wondering how tourist numbers will be affected when the killing ends in Ukraine and Russkies and Ukes can go back home and not be sent to die.

As I mentioned above, they could add the tax to plane tickets and do a refund in the airport while Thai (and other exempt) people are waiting for their luggage. Show your boarding pass and passport and they hand you 300 baht and stamp your BP so it can't be used twice. Eezy Peezy. And they'd increase the take if they made the queues real long so the well heeled wouldn't bother. They could probably also do rebates with QR payment systems where you scan your BP and take the funds into your smartphone. Thai people like rebates...

I always wear long pants and a collared shirt in public in Thailand, except at the beach and at the pool. Edit: Got a kick looking for pics of pit stains and there are actually companies that sell shirts with pre-printed sweat stains. Up to $350 for a T. LGN is selling shirts with printed-on sweat stains for $350

Most Thais don't sweat like a falang.

I love Songkran shirts in the heat because they don't show sweat like a solid or striped shirt. I buy enough every season to last for a couple of years because they're not really made to last. In between seasons, I can always go to the BoBae market near Hua Lampong train station and buy more. They're even cheaper in the off season. I get compliments all the time for the shirts back in the USA.

Sure you can. Thai people love a rebate. They can take their international boarding pass with their Thai passport and queue up for a 300 baht rebate while they're waiting for their luggage. Same with anybody holding a WP. Though I don't know many of them who would get their panties in a wad over a $9 fee. I'm already paying over $150 in taxes on every airline ticket. Another $9? Big whoop.

It's more along the lines of putting a temporary hold on paying them while they audit the veracity of the charges. Which is what any properly run business would do if they discovered some of their employees were paying bogus invoices. It's nice to have some adult oversight for a change.

I don't mind paying the 300 baht as long as it's easy to pay, with no queuing up. And no SNAFUs if paying it online. Just add it to the airline ticket.

if anyone takes the train, bring a mask. The open windows can let in a lot of dust, especially during some agriculture seasons. You may not need it, but you'll be real glad you have one if you do.

I love K-Buri. For the river, the history and just kicking back. It was my favorite weekend getaway when I worked in Bangkok. I try to get up there for a day or 3 whenever I'm in Thailand. Take the train at least your first time, just to say you rode on the Death Railway. And stay right on the river the first trip, though there are great hotels in town, a short walk. That top photo in the OP is pretty old. There's a massive temple to the right of the bridge (and has been for a looong time) and there's a faux WW2 camp on the left side of the bridge. Highly recommended to spend a few days, and make your way to Hellfire Pass for more history, especially Aussies, Brits and Kiwis. Don't forget to visit the Allied cemeteries and read some of the touching markers. Visit the night market near the train station for food, except on Saturday night when the night market is under the Skywalk at the river. Great examples of Thai street food. I stock up and snack for a few days back at the hotel. I also recommend renting a kayak and have them drop you a few miles north of town and paddle and float back. Great wilderness experience. Shameless plug... Seat61.com is a great source of travel info to get there and back.

It's hard to tell which of these minor judges just hate Trump, which of them have wives (or kids) that work for the NGOs, and which are just stoopid. DOGE will let us know, but it may take some time to train the AI. Then it'll take Bondi some time to follow up. In the meantime, Roberts just saved taxpayers from wasting a ton of money.

Apple says it’s fixing a technical bug that caused its voice-to-text system to briefly replace the word “racist” with the word “Trump.” Some iPhone users had reported on Tuesday that when they spoke the word “racist” using Apple’s voice dictation feature, the system automatically typed in “Trump” before quickly correcting to the word “racist.” The company on Tuesday acknowledged the glitch that it said was causing its system to incorrectly suggest the word “Trump” when users spoke words with “r” consonants, and said it was rolling out a fix. Apple fixing bug that caused dictation feature to type the word ‘Trump’ when users said ‘racist’ | CNN Business That "fix" should include the names of the employees they kicked to the curb. Nobody's buying their excuse. (Except those with the syndrome)

Is that like those German guys who laughed at him for saying they'd made a mistake tying their energy future to gas from Russia? Who's laughing now that the German economy is pretty much in the toilet?

Both of those statements have been disproven by more up to date studies.

Something's causing the massive increase. And the people I trust the least to do the investigation are those on the hook for $ hundreds of billions of liability if it turns out to be their product. Whether that's Big Farma or Big Food or even cell phone radiation. We deserve to know.

Maybe. But the death rates in the USA were decreasing steadily long before the MMR vaccine came out in 1971. Most people seem to think that was due to improved sanitation and living conditions, and would have continued to drop with or without the MMR. I don't claim to know the answer. I want our health experts to dig into it, free of the corrupting influence of those profiting from it. In countries with deplorable sanitary conditions, they obviously may need a different calculation.

Someone needs to explain the massive increase in the rate of autism and other chronic childhood (and adult) diseases that we've seen over the past 50 years. It may not be vaccines causing it. But I kinda want to know. There are too many entities trying to squelch the data, good, bad and indifferent. I'm hoping RFK Jr digs into the data. It's out there. We just need smart people not paid by moneyed interests to dig into it. A little help from the AI community would be handy, too.

That's a pretty concise summary of the state of things. They really screwed the pooch with the mRNAs. (Those are my words, not from any specific sources)