LaosLover

Back in the Lonely Planet days, they were always exhorting you not to rub a monk's bald head. I have spent 25 years+ trying to come up with a scenario where that might come up. Also: 25+ with a nagging desire to really, really rub a monk's bald head -once they put the possibility in my head.

The forum-concept with some regulars that show up regularly has been dead as a door nail for at least half a dozen years. This little watering hole where a few posting, cynical wildebeasts still congregate is a thing of small beauty. I only joined in January, and I notice it's slowed down a bit since then. My landlord used to look in a few times a day here; now he says that the front page barely changes from week to week. So be be grateful for what you still find here, and put up or respond to something yourself. I'm borrrred, entertaiiiin me is not a good look. I went Ko Phangan and. before I went, I asked about it and got good advice on that branch. Then I followed up and told about my trip to pay it back a bit. Whatever your Thai experience is, someone else would benefit from hearing about it.

No, I think porn addiction and sex addiction at the level of requiring a 12 steps program is very rare. Parsing out these bad habits as significant contributors to life-misery (as opposed to the vague may contribute) would be hard work. A person who's depressed, fails at relationships, and prob has a few other vices is never going to be the foundation of a rom-com plot. Like pot, porn is for the idle and the slack. If those traits are proof of mental illness, I should be in a straight jacket by now.

Yeah, the Zen Beach area has nothing below 5K baht a night as far as the eye can see. Not a lot of inventory to begin with, with many long stayers who booked early not budging. Had Rin Beach has devolved into being one of the tourist hell-beach scenes in the movie, The Beach. Caveat: I was last there in '99. Still a fair few vacant store fronts from covid, including an empty 7/11. It looks like they're still gamely trying to sell off the shop-worn, pre-pandemic day glo orange tee shirts. I'm not who it's for; I expected the full moon party to be more mixed ages, it was 90% under 25. Warning: they now want 200 baht to enter the beach during the FMP. Glad I went, def a one and done. About half the young people has been in Thailand less than 3 days before heading down to the beach. So great to be among their blissed out energy. Stayed at the bog standard Phangan Pearl, a decent option to be just far away enough from the noise, but close to the little strip of restaurants. Happy Crab was the only repeat dining option, the other restaurants are mainly of the choose a curry, choose a protein variety. Inflation watch: No more shrimp pad thai, now it's mixed seafood pad thai.

No. I meant $5,000 DOLLARS. A year. In the states, with my income, my health insurance with a higher deductible was about $9,000 (DOLLARS). A year.

The bum gun has literally blasted away a lot of the rationale for wearing underwear.

I've been hearing about the imminent, oncoming disaster of porn-based mental illness my whole life. For me, this is like the pot argument: Does it make you a loser, or do losers just really love pot? -Signed, Guy Who Really Loves Pot (and who would watch more porn if it had a story line.)

accidental double post, please delete.

Thanks, but the last time I actively wanted to sleep in a tent, I was a boy scout and Nixon was president. A visiting friend booked The Phangan Pearl Hotel months ago for the full moon party and told me we were going to Khao Yai National Park instead. Imagine my relief. I'm a recent transplant to Chiang Mai who's feeling smoked out. I'm weighing just sitting it out here mostly indoors. I love my condo and my gym and the malls could extend my bubble further. I'm not particularly a beach person, so maybe just leave it to the Russian hordes who are gagging for it and call it a day. I guess I'll go to KP when Hunter Biden's lap top declares the war to be over. I'll def report back on what I see there. I'm spending a few days on either side of the full moon party.

I just found that I am attending that Full Moon Party on 7/3 (long story). In Had Rin Beach, no less To book a cab to drive me around for 2-3 hours -how much and where to book? I am assuming that this is fairly fixed-price situation like in Phuket. Thanks one and all for your generosity and I will update this for other's benefit when I get back.

Can't speak to the quality of this insurance, but it says that if you get in now you can RENEW up to age 85. https://www.thaihealth.co.th/en/simply-healthy-2/ Not dissing you, but Google is your friend. Spend 10 minutes. Allay your fears.

Thanks for your prompt and sympathetic reply. If I want a one bedroom a/c, walkable to the walking street in say 5-10 minutes, what might that cost for 3 weeks?

Looking at Agoda for Zen Beach and the one next to it to be near the yoga and gyms, I'm not seeing a lot of vacancies. My budget is up to 2,500 baht a night. Beach front is not a requirement. If I just turn up, will I likely find a 3 week rental around March 15th? What's a reasonable discount to ask for for a 3 week stay?

You have shown great diplomacy and are a true friend. Your work is done.

I go with victimless crime. They're binning everything at the end of the buffet every day. His tiny bit of hard cantaloupe, room temperature noodles, and eggs fried hours before amounts to nothing. But I had worse breakfast buffet conundrum on the other side of things recently. I booked a room for a friend and paid extra for the breakfast since he's always skint. He didn't like it at all, being a PIA from way back. He asked the desk clerk if he could donate his breakfast buffet every day to someone else "who needed it". And then he hounded the desk clerk every afternoon to see if this noble wish had been carried out. Diplomatic response from the front desk: "I think so. But I don't know."

I prefer Farang: -No secret cultural code to crack -No relatives wanting money -Can talk about various stuff and agree that Somtum is goot -at the same time -more mental in bed Caveat: The kind of Thai women who would fill the bill above, I could not get. The intra-Asian competition would squash me like like like a bug. I had an arty, slightly intellectual GF prospect over here for like an hour and half. And I blew it.

This is where I ended up too, but it took a lifetime and the right woman. My wife is going back to the states for 6 weeks to rent out our house there. I'll miss her, she's my joy, but part of me can't wait to see the back of her. It's bad to be too into your own head (aloneness), but never having solo mental space wears you down just as much. It's hard to get any level of inner distance and silence with them in the room. All of the time. In Country Music terms, the song title would be, "How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?".

I am a free speech absolutist. I don't believe that any hate speech should be illegal, or penalized. I bought a DVD at Speakers Corner in London that had Islamic beheadings of white people in it. If that is allowed, then this dull grandstander with his very confused point is allowed. That said, his dragging poor old Pence and his no lunch with vagina-owners rule into it was desperation personified.

I def miss the days when liberals were more along the line of Free Speech For Nazi's as a matter of principle. The prob: Republicans are now quietly in bed with actual, self-admitted Nazi's. Being Free Speech For Nazi's sort of morphed into being a turkey voting for Christmas. I am no audience for old white dudes wallowing in implausible victimhood. But as an old-line Free Speech for Nazi's-liberal, I don't think this unfunny dullard should have had his career taken away for having an unpopular (though really fatuous) opinion. I recall Elvis Costello saying considerably worse and being forgiven and let to have his career. I'd like to punch Eric Clapton in the face for this and that. People have a right to be wrong.

Agreed. Truly tireless.

Me and my wife are health insurance/health cost refugees from the states. What we save here more than covers all of our costs, including health insurance. North Carolina was basically throwing us a $100 bill+ a day (plus no more NC state tax) to get the hell out of dodge. We eventually took the hint. We meditate in the Thai Vipassana style. Ajahn Chah of Ubon was a teacher of my teacher in the states (Joseph Goldstein). We really like being in a place where most people have done a bit of that, but we know as westerners we are on a fairly diff spiritual wave length from these devout, reincarnation-believing, merit accumulating wat-goers. There's a good article on Slate about how nuts Asian buddhists think American Buddhists are (tho we identify as Buddhist meditators, not as Buddhists),

And an on there fly restaurant review: After GoodSoul's in The Old City, Free Bird Cafe is the2nd best vegan in town. In any other city on earth, it would be a starred Time Out listing. To many, vegan restaurants = Pai, the sequel. But we like Pai too.

Thanks so much for this. I keep meaning to get back there, and you have woo'd me away from White Sands Beach. On White Sands Beach, there's still a restaurant called Thor's Palace. Thor was one of the first "famous" (then called) lady boys that I recall, with a huge customer base of straight people repeat patrons. Did you happen to pop in there?

Ah, you know my corner. Free Bird Cafe, that anarchist-hippie-very solid charity is mere feet away from the Lotus. I saw a guy who looked like Jesus doing a tarot card reading there. Very much a bring your own yoga mat venue. Maybe Jack Tripper could rent on that block for a whiff of the old days. I see some signs up. We'd be happy to meet him. We're at Free Bird at least once a week. We may volunteer to teach English there. We love us some Nimman.

Def true. On my corner, there's a Japanese toast restaurant, a donut restaurant, a cafe with a lot of stuffed animals, an instragram landmark brunch place (weeping flower vines), A roaster8 coffee bar (they won a latte award in Vienna), and I'm Your Vegan, which has veggie dips in neon colors. Chiang Mai caters to the Asians who are their main market now. It's always had a slightly inflated cultural aura, only a tiny % of visitors here will pop into a few wats. Most visitors to Florence likewise visit more gelato stands than great art. It's always been "ruined". You could ruin it a few hundred more percent and it would still fill up. A friend I met from this board called it the Thai-est part of Thai-land that Westerners can enjoy without it being too Thai (inconvenient). As to rents, I'm in a large condo on a hot corner and I'm paying the same 20K as Jim Tripper used to.