wolf81

I'm doing fine here at 41, but YMMV ????

One thing to realise is that there's pretty much a monopoly on produces of glasses and frames. Hence the crazy prices in shops are possible. All the different brands of designers frames pretty much build by a single company. Some more background info here: https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-why-are-eyeglasses-so-expensive-20190122-story.html Buying online you will be able to find much more reasonable prices. I bought my last set of glasses (with frame) online for around 1.000 THB. With such cheap glasses, it can actually be a good idea to buy multiple sets. Also, there's some research done that using slightly less strong glasses than the current requirements of your eyes, might help recover vision (rinse and repeat over a long period of time). With cheap glasses this approach is more reasonable to try.

He just thought with the little head, not the big one. Ah, the power of the pussy ????

Looking at the election posters, it seems his daughter is the hottest candidate by a landslide. Dunno if that would help getting votes. Of course she also promises to double the minimum wage, so that might help a bit more. Then again, my Thai ain't great, but it seems other candidates make similar promises.

burning rubbers, perhaps

In the past I liked oil massage, but I don’t enjoy it anymore really. Now I prefer Thai massage. Helps me relax my muscles, which is nice due to my desk job. Sometimes stiff back, neck, etc… I don’t like massage from young girls, cause I doubt their skills. Ladies 30+ can do well from my experience. I do appreciate a happy ending afterwards, so it’s best if the masseuse is a bit of a beauty.

To be honest, I kinda hope so. I am originally from The Netherlands and I despise the EU. Want as little to do with them as possible. I suspect EU (Germany) would very much like to sell car brands like Mercedes and BMW in Thailand without the huge import duty, to increase sales. Because it seems it's harder to grow sales in EU now: https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/car-registrations This would likely be one of the main points of negotiation, since the car industry is of huge importance to Germany.

I think one possible solution could be if Thailand would use trucks to retrieve leaves and such for farmers, perhaps even give a small amount of money in return. The leaves could then be used to make compost, perhaps even reselling the end product. Might offset the cost of all the sickness caused by the dust. Basically looking at the problem in a more pro-active way, instead of just telling farmers to stop burning, which they will likely ignore anyways ...

Some people (Deists for example) believe in a creator, but not necessarily in a personal God as in Christianity or many other religions. I am kinda in that camp after reading the book The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. I don't believe the universe was created by coincidence, but at the same time I am not really sure if a personal God exists. However, I am also not going to rule it out. Here's some interesting argumentation in favour of Intelligent Design:

There's such a thing as a bad dog though.

Lets just hope he will never crack down on massage parlours then ...

It's not clear from the Bria lab website, but do you know if one can visit an office of this company in CM for a health check-up? The website seems to suggest their clinic is in Bangkok.

Yes, but aren't we all? What makes this hansum man different from the rest here? Perhaps the lady has dark skin - that might give her an inferiority complex and less status in Thai society, while Westerners might find it quite striking. Anyway, without a photo or more info, we can only guess.

Since I'm 40 years old, I feel it's prudent to do a yearly health check-up, both for me and my girlfriend. It seems many people thought Sriphat hospital in Chiang Mai is of good quality, so I wanted to check the prices of health check-up there. But I was kinda shocked to see that for age group 40-50 years old the recommended check-up costs about 13.000 THB for men & 16.000 THB for women, see here: https://sriphat.med.cmu.ac.th/th/package/detail/26 (sadly page not available in English) I wonder, do people think this price is reasonable for what you get? Any other recommendations for hospitals and clinics in Chiang Mai that can do a good health check-up? I guess my main concern would be to detect blood clots (since my father, grandfather & aunt all had strokes) and early cancer detection - not too concerned about the rest. My girlfriend actually recently discovered a little lump in her breast, but according to the doctor in the village hospital it's not a concern. Still, it seems good for her to do the mammogram from now on yearly. Any advise is welcome.

In Chiang Mai there's not been much rain last couple of weeks, at least not in our amphur (Chaiprakarn). Perhaps during rainy season in Chon Buri it's a good idea to temporarily relocate if you can afford it and if the weather bothers you so much? I only lived in 2016 in Chon Buri, but I kinda liked the occasionally heavy rain pouring. Usually it lasted for only a short time, say half and hour and then it'd be gone. Made the air nice cool just after the rain. No idea if the rain you're experiencing now is different (e.g. pouring all day or something like that).

Cash provides privacy, a little inconvenience can be a good trade off. Don't need to have governments looking out for every small payments you do (e.g. a bonus for a massage lady or a gift to your children). I also don't really believe the argument that electronic payments increase economic activity. More money in people's wallets will increase economic activity, but electronic payments by themselves will not add money to people's wallets.

When I wear my relaxing shorts outside, my gf sometimes complains that people might get a hit of my package size. I think it's no big deal - certainly it's just normal shorts from a European perspective. I think people can hardly see anything, but perhaps there's more to it ... I might be more careful with what I wear outside the home, judging by these comments.

Thailand has plenty of nice plots of land. I think it's wiser to look elsewhere.

When I went to Koh Chang last year, didn't experience any itching. Staff also didn't give us any protective oil, so perhaps it's seasonal. We were at the beach of the Centara Grand resort there.

Well, me, my GF and daughter got COVID 2 times. Yeah, it's a bit like a bad flu, lasting longer, but we survived. First time none of us had vaccination. Second time my girlfriend had 2x Pfizer. I think she recovered a bit more quickly than me, but I think in general she's a bit healthier than me anyway (me working indoors behind desk and she working often outdoors on the farm).

Still have to wear the st*pid mask in too many places.

Be careful what masks you and your loved ones use. It seems (at least in EU and I doubt in Thailand it's much better) that many masks actually contain too much titanium dioxide particles (up to 5x the safe limit) which is known to be carcinogenic. You don't want your child to breath this stuff in and out each day at school. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-06605-w If I understand the paper correctly, cotton masks seem to be generally safer than masks made with polyester.

And many doctors (and some nurses probably) run a clinic or pharmacy as side business. I know the lady that delivered our daughter has a children's clinic that she works at, after finishing her work at the government hospital. It's probably great business. Many parents that had their babies delivered by her will probably visit her clinic when the child is sick. We do this anyways. Clinic provides quicker service than the hospital, so we prefer to visit her clinic if it's no emergency (since clinic opens every day 16:30 or so).

The Netherlands used to have a large company dedicated to production and export of cocaine, heroin & morphine in the early 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandsche_Cocaïnefabriek

We're in the process of building a pool. Not huge, 15 x 2.5 x 1.5 meter, but good enough for a bit of daily exercise. A few years ago when I lived in Pattaya, I would use the condo pool pretty much every day. It was a really nice pool (VT5) - I felt great. I've missed having a pool ever since moving to the sticks. So I am quite sure once we have the pool, gonna use it 1-2 times every day. Actually I am building my home office next to it, so I can just relax a bit in the pool if I am bored with my work or need some thinking.