LaosLover

I'm always amazed at how people so far away know the names and voting records of first term congress reps. One of my all time favorite posters here sits in New Zealand charting the movements of committee members when I could not even name the Prime Minister of New Zealand. I think it WAS a hot looking red headed woman, but they've moved on, am I right? Wake me up when you elect another looker. New Zealand would have to implode into the sea to make the front page of CNN. For Fox News, it would require an outer space alien invasion. Without so much as an Olivia Newton John to call its own, it is but mere cypher to us, perhaps dimly recalled as a setting for hobbit movies. Meanwhile the America obsession remains undiminished across the globe and across my lifetime - it's like America is Beyonce and the rest of the world is the Beyonce fan club.

Politics is local. If Bobart or Omar won their district, that's about that district, not any broad partisan statement. It's not even a statement about the broader place due to gerrymandering. It's down to how successful those specific people were at raising money and piling up the votes. My congress rep back home is a faith healer, actually believes in the laying on of hands to cure cancer. The vast majority of those Trump hillbillies I left behind talk a good Jesus lip service game, but do not really think that prayer can improve erectile dysfunction. But they like someone who does. Or just says they do. To protect very abstract freedom or the ol' ways. It's all very layered.

I'm half-English and lived in Suffolk for 8 years, so call me an American anglophobe. Chester is indeed unique for having the doubled-floored high street. I'd put it in the hidden gem category, not in the top 5. England has the biggest number of beautiful places in the smallest space of anywhere in the world. No way is Chester at the level of a Cornwall or a Bath. I def. don't miss England. If you're spending dollars, it's like being forced to eat out of a very expensive minibar hotel menu, all of the time. And they can't even fry French fries to anything more well done than off-white.

As long as we're sharing entertaining malingering stories, there was a case in NYC where a guy won the race up all 106 flights of stairs the Empire State Building. He was a fire fighter out on disability. It took 2 years, but the City finally threw him off of benefits. When I met him, he was selling pot.

If you need to be close to the USA and are willing to spend more for the familiarity factor, I can't fault Mexico at all. Also if you are beach person, I'd say that's a nicer beach there than here. But Chiang Mai is a lot more expat-easy and cheaper. You can even get reasonable Mexican food here. Thai food in Mex City was down to that one place with a garden in Zona Roma. I don't know about that specific mall, but the malls there were like here. They even had Mr Donut there too.

In my lifetime, my gym teacher was allowed to hit me in my face. My school principal could flog me like in an S+M show. my uncle could touch me and get away with it. Have the youth gone soft or have we all just finally become saner and kinder? What large % of PTSD claimers are for real versus a few malingerers? Has the definition of trauma stretched too far or might it yet stretch even farther as the young evolve and remake the world?

Search for Woman Prisoner's Massage in the Old City. It's a very worthy micro-charity. The massage was fine. GoodSouls excellent vegan restaurant is nearby on the same strip to make a very instagramable day of it.

I live in Nimman. It's all male Russian draft dodgers potheads, pretending to be Serbians; no pay day here. If you want backpacker bars, go to Pai, where the backpackers are at least physically existent. I did see an oldie or two squiring around a younger, hairy arm pitted Israeli lass there. Why not you? Search for my comments about it in a Pai thread I contributed to. Again, why not you?

Yeah, the writer's bar is still going strong. I went daily for the two week I stayed there recently. Very solid food option with all the Northern favorites toned down a bit for the Western palate. And a beautiful old bar that has retained its original fixtures (changed hands about 5 years ago). Def filled with oldies, a lot of whom are in house shares down side soi's that they're never going to move out of (I really wanted to rent in The Old City). Didn't see any stray white wives; would have loved that. I met an old woman there who lives on $900 a month, including a daily couple of glasses of the house red at the bar.

Tried retiring there first. Loved Polanco, like a tropical Paris. Downsides: less English spoken then you'd think, rents are at least double of here, no freely available Ganga, you really have to love a pork taco in its many variations. And the inevitable cataclysmic earth quake that will surely some day happen in that sinking lake bed of a town.

My little section of Nimman, CM is like Aspen Colorado for one tenth the money. A single lime costs a dollar where I am from. And it's not even a proper lime. I get all of the upsides of living in Thailand with practically none of the downsides a local suffers. Had it not been for Covid, I would have moved here two years earlier. With short leases, I can also see myself in Nonthburi, Ubon, and possibly even a beach place too -tho prob more like 2 month instead of 6 for the beach or a place like Chantaburi. I did a week at The Asia Hotel behind Siam Square and I could see 3-4 months there too.

Somewhat agree. Like sometimes liberals are concerned about Black people in Rwanda, but oppose having their kids go to school with the ones just down the road. Then on the other end, there's the Hillbilly Elegy guy with the coastal lawyer wife who claims to be jes' folks. Hypocrisy, not ideology, is the issue.

Worrying about distant, theoretical wokeness that has never affected your life and never will is the equivalent of deliberately sitting on a tack over and over again. You ask why, and they say, "I'm fighting the tack. Somebody has to. Oh well, back to it Damn you, tack".

I'm gonna guess 40K baht a month eating out. Yesterday, we took our real estate agent out for a lobster roll, which she had never had, at the Center Festival Mall in Chiang Mai. Verdict: a little skimpy on the Canadian lobster, but the brioche roll was properly classic. At that level of western comfort-eating, the discount over the west is still about 30% on a item like a lobster roll. Usually, it's about half of North Carolina prices for great food in a beautiful restaurant. We're here for food and culture and it's delivering. Now that we're in an apartment, latte consumption has fallen off and we eat in a bit too. But 10K baht is only $270. for 2 people to eat out very well, 7 nights in a row, that is the deal of a lifetime. Streetside papaya salad can wait. I think I'm going to raise our dinner budget to 50K a month.

I recco the book Cracker Architecture, for a deep dive into perfectly nice houses with a slightly peaked roof. You can call a white person a cracker to their face, you can't call black people the bad word. A guy in London upset about southern Cracker self esteem and hurt feelings is my laugh of the day. By the above definition, I'm pretty woke. I'm here every day talking about old records and eating out. Is it terrible?

The crackers are an ethnic group in N. Florida, famous for their lovely houses. My Mother In Law is indeed a cracker. Oddly, Cracker cuisine is devoid of salt.

We're part of a large meditation community in North Carolina and one of our more prominent teachers in it is African American -Ruth King is the name if anyone is interested in meditation as a form of racial healing and viewing her website. Ruth needed a little gas and motel money to do her good work. Fine by us. If any Trump people ever want to do a non-violence workshop, Ruth will show up for that too, and yeah, I'd be happy to write a separate check.

Youtube up Jazz flutist, Herbie Mann. He was just about the first fusion-ish jazz player across a range of international music styles and all of the albums hold up. ECM record label has astonishing mixes of world and classical music. Check out Shankar (no relation) the double violin player. Anour Brahim kills it on the oud. Anja Lechner doing the music of Gurjieff is up there in the 20+ spins club. I went through a Philip Glass phase for a few years, but sadly, his Ravi and him collaboration was a bit of a dog.

My rent is 20K and we eat out a lot in decent places. Plus health insurance. Plus Ganga Call it 80-90K a month, living large, excluding travel. But back in the US, 70K was just for our health insurance and basic on-going medical bills.

I sent $500 to Black Lives Matter to facilitate non-violence training in churches. Good idea, bad idea, or just generically, conveniently non-specific woke idea? They sent me a tee shirt. My old souther cracker Mother In Law wears it.

Sports Pub on Soi 13 is good 'un with lots of specials like a free BBQ on talent night. Very English vibe. Can't fault the Landmark Hotel Lunch Buffet for the reasonable price. If you have some $100 bills burning a hole in your pocket, the Marriot high end Sunday buffet is worth YouTubing up. Gaucho's Steakhouse is worth the money. Na Aroon, behind Bumrungrad Hospital lists itself as a 5* vegetarian restaurant, but has a full meat and fish menu too. Def one of my top 5 Thai meals. Cabbages and Condoms has superb food too and is a fun visit, If you like Korean food, the little Korean Town mall is worth it if you are of the Shabu Shabu persuasion. The higher floor restaurants offer up more of the little side dishes (banchin) to entice you up the escalator. Suk Road is legendary for Indian food options that seem even better than in India. Rang Mahal has buffet on Sunday worth a look. Most of the high end Indian places do. Charcoal was my fave brunch, but Punjabi Grill was my fave all arounder (fine brunch there too). The Sports Pub will also order you in a stellar curry from the place next door too. There's a sushi place on that side soi that abuts soi 11 that is very Tokyo-style and one of the great sushi deals in Bangkok. It's next to Narry's Tailor shop. I went 4 times in 2 weeks. Def. look at the high end hotels individually to see what seafood promotions etc. they're offering.

Was in SR and PP a month ago. SR was dead empty, maybe a couple of dozen people on pub street at 9 PM on a Sat night. Tales of $150 condo's on offer and about 75% of the hotels are still closed.. Didn't seem any cheaper than Chiang Mai except for the rent. Restaurant choice was limited. I ate at the high end place a cab takes you to after Angkor that's like a garden, but Cambo food is pretty blah compared to Thai. You can get a decent house wine by the glass in most restaurants; can't think of another advantage over Thailand. PP has been seriously ruined by traffic since my last look in half a dozen years ago. My only decent meal was at a branch of the Fuji sushi chain at the big mall (which was not much of a mall by Thai standards). Great to be completely alone in the Angkor Wat complex, but can't imagine going back for third look. PP felt like Jakarta with quainter buildings.

In Japan, a decent massage chair is $5K. Something for $20-50 is not going to last for long. Had a 40 baht massage from a chair in the Maya Lifestyle Mall (20 minutes). OK, but only half as good as a Japanese chair. If you have grinding massage gears with full body weight on them, that's a real engineering challenge for the chair.

This is why I fled political discussions here. You have a right to your opinion. And I have a right to leave you 100% alone with it.

That dog has passed on. Belonged to my mother in law (gone too), the 2nd face I saw for 2 years after my wife. Sooo nice to pop out to a pot bar for some chats with Russian draft dodgers and then have some oysters at the Why Not? Italian restaurant in Nimman. You may sweat too much tooth paste choice; we're good with 5 Japanese restaurants within a five minute walk. Nimman reminds us of Asheville, where we might take a rare weekend getaway to eat food that's not served on a bun. After 2 years on the mountain top of eating very basic southern food (for my Appalachian MIL), we're pinching ourselves. I was lucky to get a green curry a week (we grow our own Thai herbs, otherwise...) Def. put a time stamp on that simple life in the mountains plan, Globule-guy. It does get old.