Gecko123

I go to bed at 7:30-8:00PM, and not in the least bit ashamed of my bedtime. Proud of it in fact. I keep a sleep diary, practice good sleep hygiene, and most nights sleep like a baby. I occasionally nap midday, but try to avoid it whenever possible because it tends to interfere with my sleep quality at night. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise and all that. I expressly get up at 3AM in order to exercise safely when there is no traffic. After 1-1.5 hours of exercise, I return home, have coffee, breakfast, and am ready to start yard work and gardening at day break before the sun gets too hot. Most people in the countryside start to rise around 5 or 6 am, with many people (vendors, early shift factory workers, farmers checking irrigation pumps, etc.) starting their day even earlier, so my early rising isn't as eccentric as it might sound to you and perhaps others.

I wouldn't cycle in an urban area at 11:30 PM. People out on the road after drinking would be my biggest concern. People with night vision problems and driving around with uncorrected vision is a major concern as well. I live out in the countryside and get up at 3 AM to exercise, including cycling. At that time in the morning there is virtually no traffic on the road, and I am convinced it may be the safest time of the day to bicycle in Thailand. Terribly saddening to read this type of story. There but for the grace of God.

You're spouting ideological nonsense that flies in the face of 99% of scientific studies. Haven't noticed any increase in heat in Thailand? Huh? Did you notice there wasn't a cool season this year, Peter Cottontail? As far as your "just move North" strategy for dealing with climate change, join the club. What do you think is driving mass migration northward from Central and South America? How could you possibly make such blasé comments about climate change? Wild fires in Greece, flash flooding in Vermont, Mexico City on the verge of running out of water, ground water aquifers all over the world being pumped dry, rivers around the world (Mississippi, Loire, Rhine, Po, Yangtze, etc.) either becoming unnavigable and insufficient to meet agricultural needs, snow line levels rising in mountainous regions, glaciers receding, wild fires in Canada, Spain, Portugal, France, record droughts, the Mediterranean Sea and oceans around the world heating up to record levels, signs that the Atlantic current system is starting to break down, wildfires in the Russian tundra, atmospheric rivers pounding California with never before seen torrential rains, wildfires in Chile, no snow in European ski resorts, rising sea levels eroding beaches and cliffs. None of this resonates with you? There isn't a farmer in Thailand who would agree with your observation that the climate hasn't changed in Thailand in the last 20 years. You must be living under a rock and never read newspapers.

I've got you pegged as a Russian troll and have put you on ignore.

From the above article: "While rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the air can be beneficial for plants, it is also the chief culprit of climate change. The gas, which traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere, has been increasing since the industrial age due to the burning of oil, gas, coal and wood for energy and is continuing to reach concentrations not seen in at least 500,000 years. The impacts of climate change include global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and sea ice as well as more severe weather events." If you don't think the above climate change impacts are affecting global food production, you are sadly mistaken. Extreme weather events are becoming daily occurrences. You would have to have your head in the sand not to recognize this.

There is a sugar cane harvester in use which chops the cane into foot long lengths and shreds the remaining leaf debris into a compostable ground cover which I believe can be left in the field and doesn't necessarily have to be burnt.

I really don't see why they don't make it illegal for the sugar cane factories to accept burnt sugar cane. Where I live, early in the harvest it seems like almost none of the fields are burned before harvest but as the season starts to draw to a close more fields are burned. I wonder if this is because as the season winds down the growers start running out of time before the sugar mills close or because migrant labor starts getting in short supply.

Foreign men who feel the constant need to make derogatory and emasculating comments about Thai men need to get counseling.

I wouldn't fault older people for being more pessimistic, might have something to do with acquired life experience rather than projecting one's mortality onto the world. What I would fault older people for is putting their head in the sand about climate change because they figure they won't be around very much longer and have to deal with the consequences.

You misread my post. I said climate refugees from neighboring countries. Climate refugees from other ASEAN countries aren't easily able to migrate to Norway or Canada because of geographic barriers (oceans, land masses, mountain ranges, etc.) Additionally, because most ASEAN countries are in the same boat from the standpoint of climate refugee risk, there would be limited motivation for someone to attempt climate change migration from, say, Laos, Cambodia, or Malaysia to Thailand.

Biggest risk is climate change migration from neighboring countries, but because of geographic obstacles and Thailand's relative ability to secure its borders, risk is comparatively low. Thailand is relatively low risk when other armageddon scenarios are contemplated as well.

Regarding cash on delivery option, I just thought I'd mention that a while back I went through a real rigamarole with Shopee trying to figure out why the internet banking option was no longer available, and people may not be aware of this. After going back and forth between Bangkok Bank and Shopee customer service umpteen times, Bangkok Bank somewhat reluctantly finally divulged that the reason I couldn't add the internet banking option was because Shopee's system had apparently had some sort of security/hacking breach and as a result Bangkok Bank (and maybe other banks as well) refuse to make their internet banking service available through Shopee. This happened at least a couple of years ago and ever since then, the only pay option (except for weird options like Shopee Pay/Shopee Wallet) available on my account has been COD. I don't know if the same is true for Lazada, but I have never been successful in adding internet banking on Lazada either, with COD being the only option on their platform as well.

The other thing I appreciated about this article is that it appears to be based on the reporter's first hand observations in the courtroom. In this age where so many news articles are little more than digests of Facebook news feeds and police reports, I found the first hand reporting made for a refreshing and enjoyable read.

Ha ha ha. I'll admit I got a laugh out of your post, but I actually enjoyed reading the descriptive details. Helped me visualize the courtroom scene as it unfolded.

But as I correctly pointed out, NO advanced dictionary or grammar book would use 'mun' as a pronunciation guide for the word man [มัน]. The fact that you have retained 'mun' for transliteration purposes suggests to me that your exposure to advanced dictionaries and grammar books which, as I said, would never use 'mun' to transliterate [มัน] may be limited. Regardless of the native tongue of the student, a transliteration guide is intended to approximate the Thai sound in the English alphabet, which is frequently only a rough approximation. As I said in my earlier post, anyone progressing past an elementary level would have quickly realized how imprecise 'mun' as a transliteration for 'man' [มัน] is, and quickly dropped its usage, if for no other reason than it makes transliteration of any words with a 'u' sound impossibly confusing.

You have posted comments on the usage of words such as 'farang' and 'man' which have implied you see yourself as a scholarly authority on the Thai language. You have also posted comments about Thai culture, Thai attitudes towards foreigners, and Thai social etiquette (pecking order, wai-ing) that further suggests you see yourself as an authority on the Thai language and culture.

This is, again, total and utter misinformation. To one and all who have bought into the ASEANOW myth that 'man' [มัน] only means 'it' and is used in a dehumanizing manner to refer to foreigners, please review the below dictionary entry from Mary Hass's Thai-English Student Dictionary. Interpretation of the entry for 'man' [มัน]: common language as opposed to elegant language. The first (most common) usage translates to: it, they or them (with NO derogatory connotation!) The second usage translates to: he, him, she, her, they, them (and can EITHER have a derogatory or intimate connotation!!! Therefore 'man' [มัน] does not have an inherently derogatory connotation!!!! A wife or girlfriend using [มัน] to refer to her husband or boyfriend or son does NOT mean she is referring to him as 'it'!!! The takeaway here is that while 'man' [มัน] can carry a derogatory connotation, it is frequently used in common language to simply refer to other people or a group of other people with absolutely no negative or derogatory connotation. I would also like to point out that this word is spelled with mai hanaghat [ั,] which is a short 'a' vowel. It never ever has a 'u' sound. While I am well aware that some beginning phrase books transliterate Thai 'a' vowel sounds into English with a 'u', (for example spelling 'man' as 'mun') in my opinion, no advanced student or anyone who has reached a high level of fluency in written Thai would ever transliterate 'man' [มัน] as 'mun' because it would make transliteration of any words with a 'u' vowel impossibly confusing. NO advanced dictionary or grammar book would ever do this. The fact that the above poster transliterated the word 'man' as 'mun' raises deep suspicions in my mind about his true level of proficiency in the Thai language.

Article reads like a young adults romance novel.

Apparently you are unaware that climate change is impacting barley and hop production, key ingredients in beer.

In the past the cool season was pretty reliably from early Nov thru late Feb. This year it seems like it didn't start until mid-Dec and ended mid-Jan. Cool season vegetable garden was fairly disappointing as a result.

Biden is over 3/4's of the way through his first term, and re-evaluations are done periodically. I don't see including him in the survey as damaging their credibility at all.

These ratings do move around as time passes, but my strong suspicion is that Trump will remain at the bottom of the barrel until the end of time. God help us if a future president were to somehow replace him at the bottom of the list.

Thai people are among the most approachable and outwardly friendly people on the planet. Unfriendly and unsmiling Westerners visitors have only themselves to blame if this most cherishable of cultural traits has been degraded over time.

You seem to take a perverse pleasure in trying to make people think Thai culture is a dark, scary, endlessly intricate minefield which only a few chosen souls like you have ever traversed without losing a limb or two. I recall you professing to have insights about how Thais secretly hold foreigners in disdain and how the word 'farang' is pejorative, neither of which, IMHO, is true either. I'm all the more struck that these comments, which seem aimed at sowing cross-cultural mistrust and resentment are coming from someone who has obtained Thai citizenship. You may be getting personal satisfaction by posturing on this forum as someone who has climbed to the top of Thailand's seven storied cultural mountain, but I think you are doing the Thai people a huge disservice by spreading misinformation about Thai culture. Anyone who has true insights into Thai culture ought to be working as an ambassador for Thailand, fostering understanding and mutual respect, not promulgating misinformation which sows insecurity, confusion, and mistrust.

One positive thing I can say is that she seems to be engaging with and having more positive interaction with locals than a lot of older foreign men do, this despite having seemingly limited Thai language skills. Some of this, no doubt, has to do with her being a younger solo female traveler, but one thing I observed is that she has a very humble and down to earth disposition which may make her more approachable from the viewpoint of Thais. Everyone's taking potshots at her lack of planning and vagabond style of travel, but in terms of generating opportunities to interact with locals, she may have stumbled onto something with her approach.