Lacessit

No experience with Honda, Makita etc. Stihl is the only brand I would consider for a brush cutter. Expensive. You get what you pay for, Stihl appliances can go for 15-20 years with minimum maintenance. OTOH, Chinese stuff will have anyone on first name terms with the repair shop owner, because they will be seeing each other quite often.

Most Thai women are sweet, it's not hard to spot the dragons.

I cook for myself when I am alone, or get takeaway. My GF cooks for me when I am in the village. As I am on a low-carb diet, I enjoy thinking up new dishes which are also tasty. This is a diet soup or puree I make, served hot. Made from sai ua ( Northern Thai sausage ) green beans, cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli.

Do they remember you too?

It's an irrigated wine from the NSW Riverina. A passable drop with a steak, a bit metallic. Made by Cranswick Wines, another bulk producer. 650 baht for 1.5 litres is actually reasonable for Thailand.

This man has come up with the perfect diet for Type 2 diabetes. I am wondering about the posting style, it is reminding me of the departed Nyezhov.

IMO they have the soil and climate. What they don't have is freedom from smoke taint, and modern technology. Every Thai wine I have tasted has been out of balance, it seems to me they can't complete fermentation of the sugars.

Assuming Tops has it, I'd say at a guess 3000 baht a bottle.

Thai rum such as Sangsom and Hong Thong is less than half the price one would pay in Australia. I don't know what the tax is here for spirits, but it's brutal in Oz.

I am willing to pay up to 500 baht for a good wine. 700 baht for a Jacob's Creek Shiraz is complete BS. I sometimes pick up a Wolf Blass blend for 400 baht. I bought the wine below at a wine cellar that dealt in upmarket wines in Australia. I told the store owner I wanted a good red that would travel well, explaining it had to endure temperature extremes of an aircraft hold and the Thai climate. About 700 baht in Oz. When we opened it last year for a friend's birthday ( one glass each ) we all agreed it was magnificent. Thanks for the names, I'll check them out.

High volumes of consumers in a lot of brands does not mean the product is great, just that it is a triumph of marketing. McDonald's, Windows and Trump are good examples. Dishwater coffee tastes as if it has been made with the leftover water from cleaning cups, plates and dishes. As Starbucks serves what it calls coffee in paper cups, I don't know where they get the water from. I've only tried their coffee once. It was so weak I felt like calling an ambulance with paramedics, to get it on life support.

It's a balancing act, too cold and the wines will not mature successfully, too hot and they are ruined as you say. My mistake, I thought you were referring to a normal refrigerator. Never needed special storage in Melbourne.

I would still like to know what you consider to be a drinkable and reasonable cost Thai wine, as I have yet to find one. McLaren Vale is just one of the good wine regions. Margaret River for whites, Rutherglen for bold reds that really smack one in the mouth. Hunter Valley, Barossa, Clare Valley, Heathcote, Warby Ranges, Mornington Peninsula. The high volume wines such as Yellowtail are drinkable, but nowhere near what one gets at some of the boutique vineyards. Although I do have to admit a few are up themselves on price/quality.

You refrigerate reds? Good grief.

I would say I partially agree with you. It's a statement of the obvious older Thai women would be looking for financial security in their senior years. Anyone would. If you object to the generalization Thai men are lazy and shiftless etc. , I can equally object to the same with Thai women. Those that work in massage shops are not all former prostitutes. I do know one of the women that works in the massage shop I go to that does head off to a short-time hotel occasionally with a client afterwards, the rest AFAIK are not on the game, or ever were because they are quite plain. I can also take you to a shop in Chiang Rai that the owner has plastered with signs stating no prostitution on these premises. IME, it's the massage shops that have good looking twenty-somethings that are providing extra services.

It baffles me why anyone would want drink dishwater coffee. I pay cash for everything, so thanks for giving me yet another reason to avoid the brand. On topic, if the OP has a Thai savings account, it's easy enough to set up a debit card with it. Doing it with a service provider in his home country could be more complex. Perhaps he could try one of the online banks.

Possibly so; however, the women have nothing to gain by lying to me.

You grew up in the Napa Valley? I have news for you, Australians regard wines from that region as only fit for cardboard cartons. Thin and insipid. I guess it depends on what one's palate gets trained for. A full-bodied Aussie Shiraz would probably overload your taste buds.

If you can show me a laboratory in Thailand capable of performing wine analysis for smoke taint guaiacols, I might start believing you. The link is to what I would call a dedicated wine analysis and winemaking supply company in Australia, which is used by about 70% of vineyards there. If Thailand has a company as state of the art as that, I'll bare my butt in Chatuchak Market. https://www.vintessential.com.au/winemaking-store/ Instead of making vague unsubstantiated assertions, please post a brand, year, varietal and price of a Thai wine you consider to be good quality.

I beg to differ, the Thai women in the massage shop I mentioned are all adamant they don't want a Thai male. Of course, they could be just telling me what they think I want to hear. However, knowing their previous history, I don't think so. The oldest woman there had an abusive Thai husband. When she was 30, he said she was not beautiful anymore, and left her, with a 5 yo daughter to support. I guess that would color one's outlook. She is quite envious of my GF.

When someone says what I am posting is irrelevant, it sounds to me like a put-down, and I am quite intolerant of people who do that. Hence my response. IMO there are not really any "better" choices, unless one is prepared to shell out 2000 - 3000 baht for decent wine. Irrigated wines such as Yellowtail fill the mouth; however, there are few nuances to them. They are reasonably balanced, without ageing subtleties. Adequate is my description of them. I suppose I am spoilt for wine, having drunk Booth's Premium Shiraz in its heyday of 1990, and Heathcote and Margaret River wines that retail for over $100 in Australia. Those were the days.

You may be right, for Thai women in their twenties and thirties. IMO it's different when they are in their forties and fifties, after they have been discarded by their Thai men for something younger. I have regular ( legit ) massages at a shop staffed by women in their forties and fifties. If I wasn't already taken, I'd stand as much chance as a honeycomb with a bear. They are always asking me if I have any farang friends that could take care of them. For women their age, it's a pretty bleak future. When they can no longer work, it's back to the village, with a government pension of 600 baht/month when they reach 60. I would spend twice that in a single day.

I am reasonably competent in Thai, I can't say I will ever master it. Same with the culture, there are some mindsets I can comprehend, others which are alien to me. I don't worry about it. Jai yenn yenn. IMO the expectation of women everywhere, not just Thailand, is the man should be a good provider. Those are pretty thin on the ground in Thailand, due to low wages, particularly in rural areas. It's hardly surprising Thai women should prefer an old foreigner on a Western pension to a Thai man their own age that is a shiftless, gambling, abusive drunk. That's not prejudice, just pragmatism.

Melatonin does absolutely nothing for me. I suppose everyone's physiology is different. I take Codiphen ( drowsy antihistamine ) once a week, which I buy very cheaply at a Chiang Mai pharmacy, 50 baht for a box of ten tablets. 8 - 9 hours of good sleep. I have also recently discovered 25 mg of THC in an edible cannabis cookie prior to bedtime acts as a sedative and pain reliever to boot.

See my post on this page 2 as to why Thai wines are bad. I have not encountered one where I could get past half a glass. It's unlikely Thai wines will improve, given xenophobia and face. I don't know if wine making is one of the occupations reserved for Thais. In any case, it's unlikely a really good vintner would up sticks and move to Thailand. Many wineries are family operations going back some generations, no compelling reason to move.