LaosLover

1 hour ago, Gecko123 said:

so there too you can save money. Instead of paying for a gym membership, you end up doing push ups and sit ups and riding your bike on back country roads, which saves a lot of money as well. 

 

This is like, Don't go to Italy, just eat at The Olive Garden.

Like I said, I lived in the actual sticks (30 minutes to Walmart/McDonalds). I doubt I will again.

But tales of rural bliss are interesting to me and I am very grateful for your generous and information-rich reply.

1 minute ago, bignok said:

Longan is upper class?

Who knows? I just had my first glass of longan juice ever.

Brought one home to enjoy with some Old Monk Rum, which I found at Maya Mall Rimping. That's a 900 baht rum for 575 (from India, supposedly 7 years old.

4 minutes ago, bignok said:

30 or 35 baht watermelon

Watermelon, over-ripe pineapple, so-so banana -this is the breakfast buffet trio at a 600 baht a night hard mattress place. Aim higher.

I just left a dozen years on top of a Blue Ridge Mountain. It's great to hear from people here living the equivalent, Thai-style. But it will take a long time for me to want that.

I just bought a big fresh Longan Juice next to the Nimman1 Mall. It was 40 baht.

Price in Udon? Availability?

This thread is for educational, not trolling purposes. No way am I moving to Udon to save $1,000 a month. Or even $2,000, if it came down to it.

I'd prefer to be in Silom spending more than in Nimman, but my wife will be impossible to pry out of here.

Endless vegan restaurant choice is now a quality of life-must have for her. We had Japanese fermented food twice last week. Of course, we could pop a head of broccoli into the microwave and then baggie it up with a little rice wine vinegar ourselves

Off to Sushi Umai. Ta-ta.

Not a diss to call it the sticks.

There's a famous show biz headline about rural audiences rejecting country-themed movies:

Hix Nix Stix Pix.

In NYC, they tried charging for chips and salsa in a Mex place, under the libertarian logic that if you didn't want chips and salsa, you shouldn't have to subsidize those who do.

Libertarian problem: No price diff between free salsa places and libertarian fantasy model places, as always.

Today: Free Chips and Salsa in 95% of restaurants. 

If you want to charge for something that is customarily provided for free, it has to be super-premium.

I'd pay extra for small-batch ketchup that been aged in a barrel or something.

In the UK, Pubs offer premium tonic in a little bottle to go with your gin. In Manhattan, you can spend $20 for a very nice bowl of bar nuts -we're talking only 35% peanuts. It's nearly impossible to find a Mex place that doesn't want to do table-side guacamole for you.

Up-charge options seem popular with the young. And restaurant margins are tight. This is the future.

33 minutes ago, NextG said:

Rich as he sounds? What is that exactly? How rich does he ‘sound’ to you?

I worked in private banking. He could call someone up and find this out. Too much non-specific detail to not be a troll. And laying it on too thick with the nannies bit. Please think of the nannies.

As to the other troll, too much posturing and ultra-light on the details. A ton of red herring nonsense about Dengue. He could give information.....Eff off.

Just terrible. I take the time to give my actual experience as a good intention and it's just for drunks and liars.

5 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

One can live fairly well on $2,000 a month here. Not a life of luxury, but a good life. As long as you are single. 

If my rent, utilities, phone, internet, and health insurance take $1,100, then I'm on 1,000 baht a day, not including visa's. I would call that more of a good but not great life, with not much margin for problems.

23 hours ago, JCauto said:

Around 98% of statistics randomly written down as graffiti are completely made up including this!

 

Despite my reasonable and generous intentions, I have wandered into a love spat between 2 retard trolls:

Pretend-Elon Musk and Pretend-Laos Expert with no facts.

22 hours ago, JCauto said:

 

 

simply pay an agent or company to do all the necessary things for you.

 

 

There is no such thing as a visa agent in Vientiane. I asked. 

How would this person make a living, given the tiny amount of people who want such services?

No agent to help you with your Thai visa either.

Only one travel agent in town to help you book the train. 

I just read a lot of pub bore, old hand poetry about romantic ghost towns (VT is seriously shut down) and sniffy waving away about mosquito abatement. He never caught dengue fever, therefore YOU are safe.

Only if I found the right kind of super-powerful amulet to go with it.

I wonder why you never see an amulet on a gold chain. Maybe it's a man of the people kind of thing.

bliss residence soi 31. nice gym, partic the dumbell set.

Just back from Vientiane, a total ghost town. The part of Vt that you might enjoy is about 6 short streets. If you're at the tax shelter level, you will find the amenities lacking.

Med-wise, Bangkok Hospital has opened a branch there. Because of Chinese interest, rents are similar to Chiang Mai for a lot less quality.

Residency means a business visa. You'll def be paying some key money for your visa. Nannies? No prob. Teachers? Plenty of qualified old whities to do the job.

These poorer countries have really cut back on mosquito abatement due to less tourists. My wife caught dengue fever in Luang Prubang.

As per my name, I'm in love with the culture of the place. But you're not, and should give it a wide miss.

22 hours ago, bignok said:

Ubon is a dive.

'Spent a week there and then extended. It has a little bit of a low-traffic downtown to wander in and that lovely park with the temple in the middle of the pond.

One of the only places where the night market food is as good as going to a restaurant. They still have the guesthouse above the bar-concept going, a solo travel plus.

Above average mix of Thai-ophile white people. Anyone doing muay thai there instead of in Pattaya is def a Thai-ophile. Some meditators due to the Achan Chah connection.

I was surprised at the number of whities there who were NOT there just to placate Noi. 

Your reading versus mine of Ubon is like the old Buddhist joke:

Wherever you go, there you are.

In Thailand, only a very drunken man walks around with his head up.

When I was healing from a broken ankle, I asked the doctor if I could finally take off the ace bandage. He said, "Yes, but wait until you move on from Sukhamvit Road first".

I love the proliferation of small, wheeled barriers that businesses just plunk down with no fear of the law. They want to grill up some chicken thighs and that lane is going out of service for a few meters. Random traffic cones are a thing a beauty too.

These decisions are consensus'd by the street dwellers and conceded by the government.

2 hours ago, bignok said:

Paid 50 baht small cup. Seemed cheap. Who knows for sure its the real rat crap.

2 hours ago, bignok said:

Paid 50 baht small cup. Seemed cheap. Who knows for sure its the real rat crap.

You were faked. It's at least $12 a small cup. Mine was $20, 20 years ago.

Prob more civet-style. Whatever that means. Wagyu beef is another highly elastic descriptor here. Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee and Hawaii-anything are also over-rated.

'Have not yet found a Thai coffee that tastes as good as a Starbucks or Lilly netspresso pod yet.

Reading between the lines, prob $3k-ish in my building. Maybe $4K if they like to take a lot of trips and have hot and cold running girlfriends. I'm the middle due to eating out a lot.

1 hour ago, NextG said:

So for this experience, it’s natural to tip generously

That settles it.

I wouldn't do it, but I occasionally pop into a tin shack place and I see it being done a bit. No one seems to care. I saw this happen at a Shan noodle dive too.

Tip them like it's a corkage fee. I'd toss them a hundred, what to you throw them?

Like a more rounded Columbian. Not worth the premium price.

Had it in the famous place in Kyoto. A lot of theatre with them reverse osmosing it up through a chemists globe.

If you like that, try coffee from The Bolivan Plateau in Laos. Very similar, lots of crema. Hard to find outside of Laos.

The Slow Coffee Bar at the weekend market in BKK will do you up a big cup for 50 baht.

3 hours ago, georgegeorgia said:

he misses his weekly Bingo in Australia and his Lawn bowls 

 

If this is ever me, please put to gun at the base of my skull and take me out, execution-style.

-Or....or have I wandered amiss of the true spirit of Are You OK-Day?

When you get older, you get more solitary. You have to build inner resiliency for that.

And have a plan to be less lonely. Pot bars are good for me. As a non -judgmental, non-sex creepy boomer, my knowledge of the classic rock era is actually a help, not a hinderance. They like Pink Floyd but never heard of Steely Dan? Let's YouTube that up. Traffic in an 18 minute jam is also popular.

We need to hear more about the bookstore cafe owner who survived through Covid instead of Mr Mope. Is he OK? Please ask on my behalf.

I thought "I ate Buffalo" was a euphemism for being bi.

2 hours ago, DfD057 said:

 

 

Thanks everyone! ????

Toby and Gwen: Do you want to meet up and smoke pot today?

7 minutes ago, herfiehandbag said:

Perhaps returning to the original intention of the OP? My daughter is "Look"Krung", or as she describes herself "hasip hasip falang Thai". She is now 18, and in her final year at school. She looks far more Western than Thai, although fortunately for her has not inherited my rugged good looks.

 

There have been occasional problems with bullying at school. By and large I have kept out of the way ( I was a teacher in the same school) although there was one episode when she was fourteen when a couple of boys were making life difficult for her - I had a quiet word with them and explained that unless they stopped I would make them my "personal project".  Most of the time she and her friends (she is pretty and quite popular) sorted it out.

 

A bigger problem was some of the more "nationalistic inclined" teachers - the "yellow underpants brigade"! My daughter is a keen singer and dancer, she is good and regularly wins medals and competitions - a couple did their very best to stop her from taking part, claiming it was inappropriate. Matters rather came to a head when we had a new Bishop installed - it is a Catholic school attached to the Cathedral here in Chiang Rai, the school dance group were to welcome the Apostolic Nuncio and other clerical signatories. She was deemed unacceptable. I was furious, not least because she was the only Catholic girl in the group! I went to see the Principal (a nun) and the Director (a priest) and had that stopped. 

 

One of the teachers - a vile harridan who really belonged in 1930s NAZI Germany, kept telling her she should dye her slightly auburn hair black to "fit in"!

 

The "yellow underpants brigade" all left together to join another school when she was three years into her secondary education, and her behaviour improved noticeably.

 

She was also humiliated by the oaf in charge of the Army Cadet detachment. He started his recruiting presentation to her year group when they became eligible by announcing that she (identified by name) could not join as she was foreign - she is of course a Thai national! I subsequently had an intense little talk with him about that

 

 

Lucy actually got her own revenge. I keep my medals, cap badges, photos and so forth, momentous of a long and not particularly glorious career in the British Army, in a case stached in the booze cupboard.. she got me to explain what each one was for - and then (unbeknown to me) used them to illustrate a talk given at school on her family! She finished her presentation (I didn't see it) by quoting her daddy that, whilst he didn't have as many medals or badges as the "galloping major" his didn't come from Disneyland, and the parachute badge ("lightbulb") was for jumping from an aircraft not off a wall! By all accounts the teachers were in fits of laughter - even the Principal, an austere nun, was giggling.

 

Anyway, in summary, the normal "teenage angst" was perhaps made slightly worse by this sort of bullying but she came out at the end as a sweet, kind girl.  No great academic, but she has got herself a place at University next year to study dance and drama, (Bank of Daddy will hurt!) and has recently started a quite well paid part time job as a waitress in a western orientated restaurant here - they love having a "Western girl" as a waitress and she does very well for tips!

-Will give this a proper read, but great writing. Lived, social history writing here is a gift of this board

Thanks for your comment. 

Here in Chiang Mai, the mixed race American returnees are new competition to older tourist monopolies. With a smaller tourist money pie, I'd expect friction. But so far, I see none.