NorthernRyland

I'm not saying Korat or wherever are bad places not worth living in I'm just observing the trend of people who simply go to where the wife/GF lives and then get persuaded into building a house etc... and getting stuck there. Those are areas are hard to live in and I can see how a person could be isolated and turn to heavy drinking. I didn't think this was a controversial opinion. Compare this to Chiang Mai where I spent most my time in Thailand. The average expat visited once and decided they loved the city and wanted to stay longer, THEN they find a GF and settle in. This is totally different from meeting the isaan girl online and then when you arrive to Thailand go straight to her village and build a house. In fact there's Finnish guy on YouTube who did just this. He's 50, meets a 25 y/o from Buriram, builds a 3mil baht house in her village then after a couple years in the country realizes it kind of sucks and moved to Pattaya with the new wife and rents a condo. I bet he'd be pretty depressed if he had to stay in Buriram for the rest of his days and could start drinking etc...

yeah but I'm guessing there are lots of miserable stuck ones that didn't actually choose to live there. I really don't think many expats explored all of Thailand and decided Korat was their favorite. Pretty sure they got dragged there by some women. Right?

What's all this hyperbole about the military junta I always hear around here. In material terms what did he actually do to affect peoples happiness? What I see is Thais in the city are just the same as Americans or anyone else now. Stuck in morning rush our pissed off, working some job that stresses them out to pay for bills and debt then using their spare time to buy cheap crap from China they don't need. This is just urbanism and debt fueled consumption, nothing to do with the government. It's their own fault honestly but the entire world has gone this way. The people outside the cities are still the same as they were 20 years ago.

Buriram and Korat are places no expat seems to really want to live but they get brought there by their Thai wife. I'm sure there's a lot of really miserable sods there waiting out their end.

I actually know of a YouTube channel by a Thai woman in Norway and she talks about money issues between the family. Same crap as we deal with, it's just a Thai thing. She's pretty entertaining so yeah put your wife on that and I'd watch.

Looking forward to the Lao Kao commercials romanticizing being a drunken rice farmer in the backwoods of Isaan.

As an aside, the reason it's important to keep bashing it into peoples minds that passport doesn't equal nationality is to maintain reputations and dignity whenever possible. For example I'm an American, however in 2025 being American means virtually nothing anymore. An American could be of any race, have any religion, speak any language and even explicitly hate Americans or American traditions and the founding principles. Being American now is more like a membership card to a shopping center than anything else. With that in mind I'm well aware that literally anyone from anywhere in the world could get an American passport while at the same time have zero similarities to me except maybe speaking some dialect of English and being familiar with some media or corporations. When these Americans show up in Thailand and start causing trouble you're damn straight I'm going to call them out and remind everyone that these Americans are not the same as those other Americans. This should be obvious to any expat living aboard but it's restating I guess since we always get pushback.

They need to absolutely crush these guys and make an example of them. Utterly disrespectful and shameful behavior. Is it too much to ask for 1 year in jail?

So many irresponsible people. Thai's struggle saying no to family members and often the reasonable one in the family gets shouldered with the burden. I wouldn't get involved in this unless your wife starts coming to you for money and makes it your problem now.

Everyone gets bit all the time during most months of the year unless you never go outside. Clearly this is exceedingly rare or all of Thailand would have perished years ago

Did he seriously say that? Thai drivers think that if they made the beeping go away with an insert then that's the same as wearing the seatbelt in terms of safety? This is next level cargo-cult voodoo thinking .

but who bares the cost? they provide a service: one seat per passenger. If you exceed the one seat you're using extra services and should compensate them.

Transporting 2 seats worth of fat costs money. I don't see how people could object to this.

If they actually spent the 300 baht tax on incidents like this I would be in favor of it. Imagine being a fresh tourist in Thailand trying to cross the road and not knowing Thailand is filled with lawless drivers and the getting hit. Even worse Rama II comes down on you due to lax safety standards.

Thai's are up to their eyeballs in debts. Most of us arrived in this period where household debt has risen 40%, giving the appearance that Thailand was developing naturally. Not the case however and they appear to have reached the end of this cycle and will be treading water for a while.

Tell Peter not to forget his gas mask. Sniffing ladyboy butts is probably better for your health than what we have going on right now.

I don't disagree but seeing a woman (yes I know) get slapped back with 10x the force and falling over is quite satisfying.

They do this shuffle every year. Loosen the rules during high season then tighten them in the low season when it doesn't matter anyways. Next year come November they'll be spread wide open for Ivan, Chin and Ravi.

Nong Fa Sai. What a precious name for such a delicate angle. Tourist should have slapped it her back as hard as he could. That would be very amusing indeed.

What? I've been banned 3-4 times but I've lost count. How did you get away with it?? Hard to believe.

but don't you want to find out who contacted their local tax office and got some random information from a nobody who knows nothing?

For once we can say "pesky foreigners" and it's not a joke.

There's so much weed in the US and you can buy it openly in shops in how many states now? It's everywhere in Colorado where I'm from. I can't fathom why you'd risk Thai jail to import the stuff.

I grew up in an all white town. Guess much racial tension we had? ZERO.

It's beyond comprehension that any country would accept Somalians as immigrants. One of the most tragic countries in the world and they've clearly learned nothing. It's always very disturbing when I travel back to Colorado USA and I'm greeted with Somalians/Ethiopians manning the wheel chairs and trollies in the airport. Must some NGO sponsored program to find cheap labor.