tutsiwarrior

sometime in the past I mentioned a supermarket in the Hanoi old town area on the west side of the lake where you could get avocados and everything else for regular supermarket prices...I went by there today and the place is a now a building site for a new european franchise luxury hotel, the supermarket was in an old building and ripe for 'redevelopment' in that prime lakeside location, was there last 2 years ago...

otherwise quite chilly today, light jacket weather...now they block off the road circling the lake and the whole place becomes a promenade on a Sunday, quite nice with families, etc...me bein' a doddering old dude these days and unsteady on my feet I had to watch out for small children running between my legs...nice promenading eye candy...

On 2/12/2019 at 6:48 AM, scotinsiam said:

Guys - just to let you know Vietnam now do an E visa. I have not used it yet but it is $25 for a month an easy I am told. I do not know if it can be extended in the country yet or not?

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/trang-chu-ttdt

be aware that for the e visa there are restrictions on the file size and format of the photos that one is required to upload with their application (<2.0mB and .jpeg, .jpg, .jif no .pdf allowed)...to accommodate the restrictions I uploaded a photo from the laptop camera (most phone cameras are > 2.8mB with better resolution) that was a bit blurry and then was rejected after the 3 day processing time, went to a photography shop to get things right, resubmitted and the processing re started from day one...it was then too late to travel so I got a quick visa on arrival instead, just barely...they must still use windows xp for the processing...

so give yerself plenty of time for the e visa application...

44 minutes ago, wayned said:

Last week I realized that I had forgot to mail in my 90 day report and it was the 7th day past due so I drove the 100 kilometers to Nakhon Sawan to avoid the 2000 baht fine.  I stopped in Makro and they had Hass avocados at 69 baht each so I bought a couple.  I also found the Miso, not with the noodles in the refrigerator section but with the big packages of salad dressing, also refrigerated.

 

gotta find that miso where ye can geddit...I was at makro once and couldn't find the miso, got the step daughter involved who got the store assistant involved...and then she shifted a bag of salad cream aside to reveal the bags of miso behind and then I shouted 'arrrghhh!!!' and the store assistant started laughing uncontrollably 'dese falangs are such foolish creatures...' the step daughter had seen it all before and was exasperated...

but at least I got my miso...been drinkin' all night and a bowl of miso soup right now would really hit the spot...

was at the local makro and found zucchini (courgettes), celery, nice bell peppers (capsicums) and nice lemons...but no avocados also at the big tesco where I found some nice haas a couple of months ago...goin' to Hanoi next week and now I'm afraid that avocados are out of season...avocados and fresh baguettes are a highlight of any visit to VN

go to the supermarket and get 2 kilos of fruit and then stop at the bakery for some fresh bread and then later the hotel room cleaners would find me passed out naked on the bed from an avocado and fresh baguette OD...'mistuh, mistuh, you all right mistuh? (shaking me gently to see if I was dead)' 'eh?! who are you and whaddaya doin' here? where's my avocados???!!!'...

just made a stew with the courgettes, capsicum, potatoes, fresh toms and garlic and onions, out of this world using 'italian spices" (oregano, thyme, rosemary but no basil or marjoram) hadta make do with some toasted farmhouse slices rather than a nice crusty loaf but ye can't have everything I reckon...

anyone been to VN recently and seen any avocados in the supermarket? usually at the end of an aisle in a large bin in the vegetable section...

the food in Nicaragua is typical of central america, street food 'gallo pinto' which is a mixture of beans and fried rice and maybe some fried cheese served on a banana leaf and in the restaurants some 'tacos al pastor' with a caldo if yer lucky...where I worked in Managua was across from the post office/communications center and I'd get a piece of cornbread and an orange gaseosa for brekkie from the vendor women out front...fried plantain and some tough meat fer lunch served with the ubiquitous gallo pinto...lost about 20lbs when I was there and got down to my high school weight...

down south in Bolivia and Chile a parrilla was considered to be haute cuisine, basically some beef gristle and organs grilled at the table, the chilenos had a predilection for avocados 'palta' and you could always get a nice sliced avocado salad dressed simply with oil and vinegar, nice with the local wine...

in Cochabamba indigenous women would sell anticucho (grilled marinated beef hearts) sandwiches on fresh bread to drunks in the middle of the night at the bridge to Cala Cala and they were quite nice...and I always liked the empanadas and saltenas (available only on Sunday mornings)

8 hours ago, marcusarelus said:

My big one is about 18 inches long.  Big girl.  The females are quiet.  The males make all of the noise.  The dog has a scorpion bark, poisonous snake bark, green flying snake bark, tookay bark.  All different.  The dog ignores big toads/bullfrogs.  So I don't know why she is freaked by tookays.  There was a Thai horror movie about them which apparently scared all of the kids.  They do poop a lot and it needs to be cleaned.  I had one trained to poop on a paper but my wife kept throwing away the paper and not replacing it.

that centipede would scare the pants offa me more than the tokay...

Tokay: an inexpensive fortified wine favored by skid road bums in metro areas of cities on the west coast of the USA...

an old favorite...lyrics simple and easy to remember...later wid some girl in Bolivia who was 5 years older (21 to his 16), as he was intoning the lyrics he didn't realise what he was gettin' into...'I'm pregnant...' 'uh, well...I suppose that we could get married...' 'HAR, HAR, HAR!!!' (as in 'what a ridiculous concept')

I had a coupla pals from Colombia in high school in Nashville where I had just arrived after 2 years in Bolivia...and I was fluent in spanish but I had a hard time understanding these guys who were from the caribbean coast...later I was working with some cubans in Nicaragua and had the same difficulty, they were nearly impossible to understand...then I found myself having a chat in spanish with a colombian woman from Bogota in the UK somewhere and remarked that her spanish was quite different from the caribbean spanish and she sighed and said that the caribbeans 'se comen las palabras'...gotta be careful where you choose to learn the language if you settle there...

had a lot of the same difficulty with the locals in Santiago in Chile...I didn't understand as everyone could understand me OK but couldn't place my accent 'y de donde es usted?' 'me? I'm from Los Angeles...'

11 hours ago, bannork said:

 

and who's that old guy sittin' at the table watching bemusedly?..

my sister had an appalachian dulcimer when we were teenagers and we useta play and sing together...she never got her head around the guitar but took piano lessons and had some training, one of our favorites

and now 'I hate you you bastard! mom and dad always loved you more than me!...' 'b.b.but I was firstborn and a boy and they were traditional, whaddaya expect???'...and then she upends the table 'take yer vodka and yer goddam chewin' tobacco and get T F outta my house!!!'... a scene that's been repeated continually over the past 45 years...

can't win fer losin'...

the selection of the oil to use for cooking has a lot to do with the food that yer preparing...for recipes that call for a 'neutral' flavored oil (like most curries) I always go with safflower, a bit more expensive but available everywhere...other preparations call for olive oil (regular, not extra virgin that doesn't handle the heat well, better for dressings and the like) and then there is sesame oil which is popular in a lot of asian cuisine but ye gotta be careful not to use too much as then the entire thing tastes of sesame, best used in a mixture...not sure about he nutritional benefit of sesame oil...

when in doubt use butter, always a good result...

remember that to register the vehicle in your name you will need an acceptable proof of residence from somewhere, yellow house book, driver's license, certificate from your local immigration, etc...when I bought a new pickup 5 years ago I used my US Embassy income affidavit for my retirement extension where you declare your place of residence in Thailand along with your income...

13 hours ago, champers said:

Get me a crocodile sandwich ... and make it snappy!!

'would you like grilled onions with that, monsieur?'

when you have checked for any flow obstructions local to the heater unit (inlet filter, shower head, etc) think about any other demand on the water supply upstream of the heater unit, other showers in the house, etc...our house is at the end of a municipal water distribution system and I usually shower between 10pm and 3am as that's when I'm sure that most neighbors upstream will be asleep with all the taps off so that there's plenty of flow to my house...the water flow cools the heating unit and if it's not sufficient it won't work...the arrangement protects against heating element material failure from overheating...

On 3/7/2019 at 6:14 PM, wreckingcountry said:

Lived there year and a half 6 years ago working in the centre old city.Pretty quiet and boring other than the many stray dogs ! Knew of many who got bitten, I would not go out far at night and then only with a thick piece of wood prepared to scare off aggressive packs ! And the other negative is heat ! It’s sub central Thailand and at sea level, no breeze and stifling heat from April to June !

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

 

 

yeah, I live next door in south Suphanburi and the heat can be miserable with little or no breeze...

one thing to consider is that during the flood season the excess from the Chao Phraya river gets diverted to the local farmland in the interest of saving BKK downstream from the associated unpleasantness...even with the water diversion a lot of muang Ayudtthaya near the river is inundated, roads are impassable, etc...we get a lot of the runoff in the farmland near where we live and we're a considerable distance from the river...lots of tributaries and big canals in that area, flat as a pancake...

12 hours ago, Mukdahanman said:

Saw a whole family in their home yesterday, all sleeping comfortably on the tiled floor - there was an empty bed right next to them.

yeah same at my house...I got an expensive imported bed (very nice with no extra mattress covering) and everyone else sleeps on the tiled floor next to a bed in their rooms...the adults start off on the bed then gravitate to the floor and then the kids follow them and they end up in a dog pile...it's all about ghosts, yesee...beds are a western thing sorta like toilet paper...a falang intrusion...

my dearly beloved wife said once when we were in her daughter's room 'I'd like a bed in here...' 'what for? they'll end up sleeping on the floor anyway...' I believe that she thought of the bed in terms of a room decoration...

12 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Nicaragua these days is off all the mainstream lists. Political violence. Wait and see. Last time I checked the lowest level pension requirement for retirement visas in Latin America, maybe globally. 

not surprised, nica is the most miserable place in LA after Haiti and not much has changed since I was there in the 80s except that there's no contra war now like then...a lot of similarity between the chavistas in Venezuela and the sandinistas and neither will be giving up soon...

Esteli and Matagalpa were charming little towns back then as I remember...a big relief from the heat and squalor of Managua...Esteli had a timber industry and Matagalpa was the main coffee growing center...

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

OK, that's cool for a gonzo investing topic but that's different than MOVING there any time soon. I've said a similar thing about Nicaragua. In recent times, expats have fled. I think expats will come back someday so might be a good time to scoop up some prime buildings in Grenada if you can afford the risk and have the time to wait. 

I heard that a lot of expats in Nicaragua live in Esteli and Matagalpa both of which are mountainous and cooler than Grenada that has the same climate as Managua which is not nice...quite miserable actually...Grenada has the colonial architecture which is nice and the other places are more rustic with fewer facilities for expats...but the property is is probably significantly cheaper...

On 3/8/2019 at 12:06 AM, StreetCowboy said:

This is the right place for theological discussion, right?

 

I ain't a sinner, I never sinned

 

Well, Jesus ain't yer pal, ye can maik yer ain way tae hevin; 

Jesus came to save the the humble sinner, the repentant, not the arrogant and self-righteous.

 

Who's next for criticising?

It's all the same to me

 

 

I'm a sinner, but a well intentioned one...but worse is that I'm not a believer, to be consigned to everlasting hellfire...but this one is OK

I like it better than the Byrd's version, sounds a bit more...californian...

from soi 8 scoot along the sub soi past Lolitas thru the passageway to soi 6 and there's a cafe on the ground floor of the Dynasty Grande hotel facing the street with a terrace...no buffet but a reasonably priced a la carte western breakfast is available with excellent coffee...lotsa other nice western stuff on the menu as well for later, excellent pork chop with mash and gravy...

2 hours ago, medvedev1088 said:

Does anyone know where to buy cottage cheese in Bangkok? I used to buy Bulla low-fat in Villa Market / BigC / Tops / Foodland, but it seems now it's not imported anymore. Can't find any other brand except Thai cottage cheese mixed with cream 30%. cc @tutsiwarrior @rotchi @powderpuff

I haven't been able to find any packaged cottage cheese in Thailand, Knudsen's full fat small curd useta be a favorite in California, make cottage cheese tacos with fresh corn tortillas and a dollop of La Victoria salsa Ranchera...

the the middle east where I was working it was hit and miss, lots more western food products out there...sometimes you could find it in bulk at the supermarket deli counter and usually quite good, sometimes could find Knudsen's in the dairy cabinet with the packaged yogurt, make cottage cheese tacos with fresh arabic bread, quite nice...westerners go crazy for the stuff...try looking at the deli counter at villa and foodland, usually in big gallon tubs...

re: thai police reports for immigration purposes, I applied for a temp VN residence permit in Hanoi in 2010 and the thai embassy there was very helpful in assisting me in obtaining a police report from BKK for that purpose, hadta fill out a few forms that were sent to BKK...might wanna investigate to see if the same assistance is available from thai embassies in latin america...

I havta admit that the embassy staff in Hanoi were very eager to offer assistance that may be an anomaly as far as thai embassy staff go in general...one dude gave me his personal mobile number so that I could call him and check to see if the police report from BKK had arrived...

since Win 10 has been available I do a weekly Win Defender advanced scan followed by a malwarebytes scan and no problems thus far...nothing detected by defender followed by nothing detected by malwarebytes then I figure that I'm OK...

14 hours ago, dddave said:

Just an example.  Two years ago, I needed new progressive lenses.  Price quotes for brand name, high index lenses in the US ranged from $400-600. In Bangkok, I went to about 10 different  optical shops in the Sukhumvit/Pratunam areas and no quote was less than B25,000, about $775) 

Got a pair from Zenni Optical, online, about $150 all in.  Still wearing them two years later, no signs of wear, lenses have held up well.

 

+1 for Zenni...been wearing my progressives for 2 years now and very pleased...didn't even wanna think what they would cost in Thailand...but ye need to get a prescription first for them to do the lenses which is a separate expense (about thb1800 with extra diabetes testing) which I got from the Rutnin eye hospital in BKK...also included a lengthy and very informative chat with one of their ophthalmologists...

3 hours ago, wayned said:

Went to the walking market this morning and bought 2 kilos of beef brisket with the intention of curing it for 2 weeks and making corned beef.  When I got home at 0630 I kept thinking of the brisket and decided to cut it in half and cook it today.  Out came the crock pot, a can of chopped tomatoes, followed by a 3/4 can of red wine and a can of chicken broth, onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, whorchester sauce and a large diakon radish cut in large chunks..  Put it all in the crock pot along with the beef and cooked it on high for 5 hours.  It came out wonderful and I just pigged out on a very large plateful with seconds and I have enough leftovers for 1 or 2 more meals.  I almost forgot what good beef tasted like.

sounds great!...I bought a kilo of frozen brisket from makro a month ago and I guess that I was careless with the preparation, it was my first brisket and I used any old recipe from the internet and it was a disappointment, barely edible...I'll try the next time with your'n, ain't got no crock pot but just simmer on low for 5 hours in the soup pot with the other ingredients minus the wine and thyme that I ain't got...

I useta do a good pot au feu when I lived in Vietnam but the beef quality was much better there...and had a colleague who was a frenchman and we useta discuss recipes and even went together to the supermarket once...'I don't understand, no garlic in the pot au feu???' 'jamais!...' or maybe he was talkin' about the ratatouille...'hmmm, dese are some very nice peppers...'