LaosLover

Back in the states, I loved to power wash. Hitting a stain from various oblique angles and pressure settings is a mini-art, like peeling sunburn is. I bring that same technique closer to home. I like to follow up with a maxi-blast right at the sphincter. I can usually coax out an extra mini-dribble. Follow that with a gentle dab without much showing on the tissue.

My neighbor is 70 and being pressured to have a 3rd kid with his 32 year old wife. She owns my condo. He bought it for her. My 25K baht a month is her mad money.

The American equivalent of this would be the last remaining Boomers left alive who still think you can't get ice in a drink in London.

Depends on if I'm going back or not. I eat at the Why Not? Italian restaurant at least once a week. The service is great. No service charge there, so I'm tossing in 10-15% on top, depending on the bills in my wallet. I like those people and they like me. Actually, I can't think of any non-service charge places where they don't kill themselves to do for me here. It's a pleasure to part with that dollar. At the unlimited dim sum lunch at the Chiang Mai Shangri-La (400 baht), they add 10 % and tax. There was a woman who was sort of the dim sum traffic co-ordinator, so four of us gave her 200 baht on top. We gave her 100 baht on the first dim sum round and then another 100 at the end. Lest any heads explode, that didn't bring our food out any faster, but it it come out a bit hotter.

A dying breed of cheap hotels that I enjoy in Thailand is the farang pub with rooms. The Wrong Way Inn in Ubon, there's a good Irishy one in Udon -the kind of place I recco'd to SparkTrader. These places serve the few male travelers like him or me who might have the inclination to spend 2 nights in Buriram, just because. But now a new build-boutique hotel costs about the same, so they're days are numbered. CNN has good article today about how crowded and expensive Europe is going to be this year. A lot of those cheap dumps are currently housing Ukranians.

Thanks for this. It's my fave kind of place: the former hippie dump given a bright paint job and remarketed as a boutique hotel. Let poor old Chumphon squeeze out a few more baht. I def think that European people have more familiarity and affinity for lower cost lodgings than Americans do. There's a whole range of things like cheap B+B's, pensions, pub rooms, and tiny Ibis hotel rooms that doesn't really exist in the States. You can still stay in a room with a bed, a sink, and a shared toilet in London. That hasn't been true of New York for 50 years.

Alternative theory: Hotel prices over here are so ga-ga cheap compared to the States that staying in a Dusit or Shangri La property is not much off staying in Holiday Inn Express Motel in a pricey tourist town in the states. Even a stay in a place like London or Paris is heavily discounted compared to in the states. 90% of my 4* hotel memories take place in Thailand. Even poorer nearby countries don't offer up such plush hotels at such super discounts. A 5* Hotel in Angkor Wat costs the same as a 5* hotel in Phuket. I do agree with the poster that N. Americans are more likely to purchase something crafty like a Hmong textile or a celadon vase compared to Europeans, but he seems to think that's a negative thing, and I think it's a great thing that keeps these items alive.

Smith Residence is heavily favored over at r/Chiang Mai in a thread called Best Hotel for an affordable long term stay. Half a dozen other options listed too.

I did 9K for a month at Dozy last August. But I negotiated it in person. And that was peak-slump. Lanna Moon is another good cheapie. No phone, you have to just show up. 10 baht per shared kitchen use for gas. Worth a google. The area by Lanna Moon has a few other cheapies. Outside of a guest house, not a lot of by month places in CM these days. It's gotten harder to get a lease as short as 6 months. Most places want a year. Air BnB is your best bet, but you won't like the prices. The people I know who are paying in your range are all on a year lease.

10 baht on a 40 baht meal is a 25% tip. That's Manhattan rates. So for two of us, that's 20 baht. That's a green coconut for somebody. Only a westerner is tipping in a plastic stool kind of restaurant. Like the other guy said 6 times, it's a round it up calculation. If I don't have a 50 baht bill for that 40 baht meal, 3 twenties left at the till is by no means out of the question. I'm more interested in your view that ME tipping is somehow hurting YOU, in some kind of karmic long run of "spoiling the locals". English people are always telling me this. I need an actual example. I read a sociology text about Thai village life and the drift was that stuff just comes and goes for them and they're lighter than us in the ongoing expectations department. They're happy for my princely 10 baht to drop from the sky, they don't connect it to you at all. Only you alone do.

Dozy House in the north part of the Old City had good rates and scalding hot water.

At least he was out and about with his selfie stick. A lot of these soul-searching, who cares? navel gazing sessions are filmed in their bedsits. With them sitting stock still.

......So we had grab delivery from the justly famous Ginger Kitchen restaurant and it came to 880 baht. Tossed the delivery guy 1,000 baht. Will some English person be carrying a grudge forever about that like the McDonald's story -in which an implausibly overly effusive tipping quote seems to be over-egging the pudding?

I think I'm not allowed to recco a specific agent here. But they're in Nimman, near the corner of a single digit soi off on Nimman Road. Google maps is your friend. Or just PM me. I went to them for a 30 day re-up. They told me about the bank branch without charging me further. I don't think they called ahead on my behalf.

I opened a savings acct at Bangkok Bank, Suthep Road branch, with just a TM 30 and a passport 2 months ago. My visa agent sent me there. The Bangkok Bank across the street from me had sent me away. Apparently, there are soft touch branches and then others that are not.

In a no service charge place, I give 10%. When I lived in Kyoto, there was a goofball myth that Japanese servers would chase you down the street to return a tip. Suffice it to say that this never happened a single time in the history of the universe. I'll put a snooty, easily insulted som tum pounder in the same unicorn category.

There's no way I'm not dropping a blue 50 baht note for a 40 baht pad see eew. These nice people are like gasping fish after covid. If you think my tipping is in any way making your own life worse, I'll toss you 10 baht if I ever meet you.

I was listening to an early blues guitar distorter, Pat Hare, today. He wrote "I'm Going To Murder My Baby". And then he did actually murder his baby. So what?

Wow, I forgot about the water. I'm leaving behind a couple of big jugs from 7/11 too. Dreams do come true.

I had some month+ stays in Laos. Love it, but if you get sick, you'd want to head to Udon for medical treatment. It's why Vientiane, not gorgeous but remote Luang Prubang is where the few oldie expats live.

All of that is prepaid; laundry, even. My neighbors change daily. My friend (the non-whore one) has had an intense year working in refugee services. To be able to R+R in this shady soi with a pool and street food nearby is a great thing. Not everyone is a jerk. The Infinity Night Club is 5 minutes away. Might have a peek if I can stay up late enough,.

I'm a total pothead too.

The condo is in the Nimman section of Chiang Mai. I personally resent the insinuation that being "just" a pothead is a bad thing. But if anyone fits the definition of just a pothead, it's this guy. He'll only be in the condo for six weeks and he wants to also travel around the north a bit; preferably with a. new GF, on a motor bike, which he never rode before. I told him to get Cigna Insurance. How much depravity can he dig himself into as a shy guy with a couple of minders? As a Red Pill advocate, he want to remain stoically aloof at the same time that he wallows in new girlfriend-dom.

He wants to go on dates that are not really dates. Not dismember women in the bathroom and then stick me with the cleaning bill. I hope this doesn't de-rail into a lot of dull finger-wagging and look before you leap-posturing. As bored shut-ins, you should be praying for a disaster. It's no biggie to let an OK-ish person be in the condo. I live 5 minutes away. I told the agent. She said it's better just to do it than ask permission. In the lobby, there are giant signs saying Air BnB renting is forbidden. I never see the same people in the elevator twice. I see a lot of rolling luggage coming and going. I too have found a bed with people I only knew second hand. It's a global nomad kind of thing. I've been a bit of a global nomad/couch surfer since 1990 but didn't know it.

True. I will be binning the mattress pad after he leaves. We've been emailing. He has a good job at a uni and is a total pothead. My friend will drift over at some point and stay in the condo too. My condo is 85% Air BnB. It's not like anyone will notice they're there.