LaosLover

Ultimately, they refused to take their own best advice: get over your dead-end anger and get on with your life. Early days, it was like Chris Rock making fun of girlfriends, with the same quality nuggets of truth. But as we used to say back in the neighborhood, they sort of got high off of their own supply and went nuts.

Median salary in Russia is about $200 a week. That means half of them make less. So you're not exactly seeing JoeBlow-Ivan chowing down on a giant prawn beach side. This may explain the rudeness; how polite are the top 1% where you come from?

When I do the math, I've actually met more Elvis Imitators* than trans people (call it 3 to 2). Going forward, I expect that ratio to hold. What would a trans person want with an old dude like me? So I'm not going to sweat it, since my response will be the same in both cases: "Love your outfit, love your hair". *Elvis imitators prefer to be known as Elvis interpreters, just to open up a new vein of political correctness.

Muslim-wise, pop down to Malaysia. I'm dodging Chiang Mai smoke in Kuala Lumpur. These are the happiest, most helpful Asian people I have ever encountered. Would live her, but no weed and no sanuk. I live in the Nimman section of Chiang Mai, prob as touristic as Suk Road or Phuket. It's like land of smiles meets valium. No complaints.

Even in the west, you can go to an Asian massage parlor and get a disinterested hand job. Therefore, true incels, don't exist. If they want to call themselves stuck with extremely subpar sex-cels, they have my sympathy. I was intrigued by the short-lived Men Go Their Own Way-movement. But at some point, you do have to eventually shuffle off and go your own way. Before their whinge-fest on Reddit was banned, all they did was moan about women.

I always part company with anyone over 75 with the advice that they not buy any green banana's. So far, no offense taken (that I know of).

Checked out the vids, thanks. I love Ubon, so will def look in on Sarin Coffee. Currently dodging the smoke in Chiang Mai in Kuala Lumpur. So far coffee is hotter than Thailand in 4 out off 4 occasions. But I just spied a Starbucks around the corner......

On recco from here, I tried an Amazon coffee, specifying make it very hot. Warm as usual. I think Non-Starbucks places don't heat the milk up. Also: foam off the charts, also room temperature. A brand new indie opened up on my corner, also blah and room temperature. There's a near-hot indie five feet away, so I say let the madcap Thai game of trial and error continue to play out while Starbucks runs over all of them all like a tank. Just by belaboring the obvious and providing hot coffee. Special mention to the terrible coffee of Roaster8 here in Chiang Mai. It has a sort of plastic taste, but at least approaches tepid+, heat-wise. The sitting area is all low, hard, backless benches. No global nomads lingering there. Chinese tourists love the hype that you pick your own coffee beans to order. Reading comprehension award goes to the guy who crows that I paid 600 baht for a coffee. Again: that's for 2 medium coffees, with extra shots, and two breakfast items. Breakfast items at Starbucks are def substandard. I remember hearing of a Pret A Manger/Starbucks merger and thinking this will rule the world. Poll: Who here eats a western breakfast out/delivered in every day? I suspect that I will eventually go to home meals for health reasons, but on my early trips over here in the 90's, I recall English people eating "all day breakfast" all day.

I had this in Japan. It tasted like regular coffee. It was $9 for a small cup.

Not a huge fan of Blue Mountain coffee outside of Jamaica, but I see it pretty regularly at Rimping. That Slow Coffee place at Chatachuk Market has it too. I like it, but I don't think its worth the premium over the choices below. It's priced about 300 baht for a small bag, like the high-end Brazilian single estate coffees. Ethiopian coffee is avail here at a discount over US prices too. So far, I haven't loved Indonesian coffee, though it is more bitter than Thai coffee.

Illy -hard to find and often incompetently prepared. Best had in an old fashioned Italian restaurant.

My coffee-collecting friend searched hard in Chiang Mai and Bangkok for Lao coffee and came up empty. Only one crafty place at the Chatachuk Market (Slow Coffee -and living up to their name) had it. If you like a gentle and smooth light finish, it's a good one.

That's for two large cappa's and two breakfast items. And we throw the Grab guy 40 baht. Some people move to Thailand for cheap sex. We moved here for cheap, delivered breakfast (would cost double+ back in the states).

Full marks as a value pick. Usual grudges of luke warmness and low grade caramel coffee mate option instead of room temperature milk remain. If cost is not an issue, do you want a coffee from 7/11 or Starbucks? I def agree that you're paying for the brand, and often the prime location. I disagree that their coffee is substandard. It sort of is the standard. Have tastes shifted to less bitter coffee? When I was younger, grapefruit was bitter-er than it is today. Do you like coffee at the level of caring where the beans are from and if they are of single origin? I had a friend visiting who brought back dozens of bags of coffee from Brazil and Africa that were 50+% off US prices.

I am grateful to see them at the airport, but no way is Black Canyon as nice a coffee as Starbucks. There's Doi-something tribal brand I see at CMX airport that I've tried to woke myself in to liking too. I'd love to prefer a local brand. You know, stick it to the man. But I like a coffee to be bracingly hot. And it is apparently against Thai health and safety rules to go above armpit temperature. I want it to be a little bitter; most local coffee is in the very middle of the mid-range on that. We have a Finland Republic chain store here (it's 6 feet away from the Starbucks), it's in the SB ballpark, but is going more for the dessert-date crowd, not the global gonads.

I live in Nimman, Chiang Mai, where there are more pretend-global nomads making YouTube then there are bums sitting in possible global nomad-seats. At the co-work space across from my condo, they might see half a dozen people willing to part with 150 baht for a day-long sit. That includes a coffee, but a bad one, like from a machine at a cheap Pattaya buffet. I see Grab delivering Starbucks there all of the time. Which proves my case: Such global nomads as actually exist love Starbucks, whether they are at the career level of a 150 baht a day outlay or not -as do the many, many people wonking about pretending to be global nomads. Global nomads -and their would-be cohorts- drink a lot of coffee, all over the world, If they vote for Starbucks, that's the equivalent of seeing Indian people eating in a curry house in Bradford. The connoiseurs have voted.

I sadly conclude that it is. The Thai copycat brands are tepid, too foamy, and bland. Roastry8 in Chiang Mai tastes like plastic. Starbucks costs more -600 delivered versus 500 in an ultra-slow Thai place around the corner. But it's a bigger serving. Their seating areas are infinitely nicer and actually draw a few mythical global nomads.

They keep having to up the ante to get the clicks: "This Nimman coffee bar tour will SHOCK you" Oh, no it won't.

In my lifetime, I have used a monopoly board to clean pot and roll joints on. Once the Bob Marley album, Burnin', came out, with it's burlap-textured cover that made for easier cleaning, that was it for the monopoly board. But Hef was clearly snorting mountains of Coke -which makes a smooth-surface monopoly board superior. I heard his early days were mainly back door and he ended up only having his limp noodle suctioned at the end.

Hanging around in a pot bar. It's closed now (pot bars are dropping like flies in CM), but the group smokes on. I have my western wife to keep me company, so I don't actively seek company out. Still, most Chiang Mai condo dwellers are escaping from/seeking something and are gagging to talk about it. Whether these elevator chats lead to some bong hits is down to the luck of the elevator frequency-draw. The guy next door who's a global nomad who's trying to give birth to Shiva is always good for a bowl. Bit of a Johnny One-Note on the Shiva thing. A Brit. Obviously. The iPhone killed the happenstance chat at the coffee bar. Once people had a socially acceptable way to block out others, they voted overwhelmingly with their feet.

There's also a broad swath of Thai men that are slightly effeminate (by USA standards). My personal trainer is def a soft and very sweet personality. He has a GF he's dodging marrying. I like that everything here is more shades of gray than in the states: religious belief, sex roles, honesty. It feels very forgiving and freeing (even tho I know its not for Thai people).

Agreed. His hysteria about trans bathrooms and school attendance requirements sounds like a rationale to stay in Thailand, like he wants to, against his wife's wishes. He -and me- sort of moved here specifically to feel estranged from our expensive, dull home lands. Why drag Trans people into it? Partic when he currently lives in Trans-central Thailand.

When I worked in a bookstore, someone asked me for The Pla-guu by Kay-Mus.

Yeah, but when you're older, you much, much more don't GAF. And then, because you're older, nobody G'sAF that you don't GAF. But then once you don't GAF about that, you win. You have left the wheel of GAF samsara.

My fave cannabis bar in Nimman is shuttering soon. They take in about 3K baht in the average very long day day -and they are doing better than most. No Thai person is paying out 900 baht for a spliff, nor are the backpackers. The Chinese tourists I see are looking for cupcakes to instagram, not weed. People expect Thailand to be cheap and balk when it's not. And people like me quickly found the wholesalers and buy pot at 70% off.