LaosLover

Thailand is cheap for us, but not for them. I heard the same nonsense in Mexico that they loved Jesus and family and weren't so concerned about money. Funny quote from a CIA guy in the 60's: "We found it hard to motivate the Lao to fight because they'd did not seem to care much about money. However, once they got their hands on some, that quickly changed".

Romanticizing poor people as somehow more noble. Been popular since Jesus.

It wouldn't even occur to me that I was being blanked by a bartender. That Frank Sinatra record where a stolid barkeep is washing out a glass and listening to my woes has got to be 70 years ago. One for my bay-bee, and one more for the road. OP, as you get even older, interest in talking to you -such as it ever even was- will be dropping off even more sharply from now. You can't spite-review yourself out of dodging that inevitable bullet.

Reviews are increasingly worthless as quality standards converge in Thailand to a you get what you pay for-end point. A 1000 baht room, an upscale hamburger, hole in the wall pad thai place -when was the last time you were really surprised with what you got -good or bad? There are only the differences in my preferences (prefer diff burger bun, unsweet pad thai, some people want a chatty bartender), and reviews can be helpful in indicting if they will align -but can a green tea latte ever really be a 5* experience or a 1* one? "The BEST green tea latte in the history of the universe" reads as manic -and unreliable. It's one of the reasons I don't bore myself by reviewing stuff. And mostly, these short flung down verdicts bore me rigid, like this guy's petty grudge does. He didn't even review, he spewed his anger with his useless 1* and left the world not one iota more informed. He'd have to evolve a million years to be at the level of a " this pad thai needs more peanuts" ruminator on Trip Advisor.

True. I hope English people never encounter a hotel mini-bar. The....the outrage.

So little to actually say: I eat som tum. In nowheresville. That papaya pounder is my mate, I can feel it. I can see in to his soul, I know I can.

I've been here 20+ times, and have done your full list and written a book about the folk art. And yet, I still want to eat at an izakaya, just because that's a great thing to do. Even though it's not strictly Thai. It's another great thing available here at a fraction of the NYC price. It's OK to come here for women, but not for dinner? Why do I sound bored? I'm saying I want to go out and do stuff. You're the one who's replicating the same day over and over again in Ubon and Udon and whatever the next U-one is. You want to live here like I do, right? What will make that non-boring for you? The endless revelations that accrue from conversations with low education, poor people? I just left Appalachia; I've had enough of those to take me to the grave. Off to lunch. Gonna have Chinese. Spare me the 'you're not China' lecture. We have google maps on the phone if we get confused.

What's better: Read some books on Akha tribe people or have a genial short discussion with one of them? I didn't get a college degree till I was 32, so I'm a big fan of self-education. Going to Grad school (at NYU, woke should be my middle name) def made me a better thinker and expresser. Viewing all education as a scam is a typical neurosis of self-educated people and one I used to share. Citing ultra rare examples like Zuckerberg as typical is another such neurosis. Claiming -with no real life experience- that all profs are just incompetent parasites is a third. Self-education and the trad model both have their ups and downs. The most successful people do best with a bit of both.

Because Bangkok is the least boring part of Thailand. I will put up with more traffic to get less boredom. I want to visit places like Mae Hong Song for a few days, and then I want to go back to a place with a real sushi bar. I want to eat tricked up fusion-food and go to art galleries. Incredible as it may seem, I want different things than you do, like the Pattaya gym guy does too, even tho he likes the most boring band in indie-dom. When the logo is better than the band, you might just be an indie fan. As a self-help reader, you must know that boredom is the fault of the bored, not the supposedly. boring environment.

This is a typical view of people like yourself who are mostly self-educated. That's commendable, but that's always on the back foot when encountering specialists and people who went to good schools.

Prob the best option in Chiang Mai. Used bookstores are on life support.

Do you see yourself as the ultra-rare person who moves to Lampang right from the get-go, settles in and stays there? That's very unlikely. Since you come up very light in the cultural studies department, your vague claims of "studying the people" seem spurious. How deep are these sam song-lubricated discussions? Are you just feeling the love? Not seeing how that's any more meaningful than me going to the gym in Pai. And I talked to plenty of Thai people while there -can't claim any great insights from that, tho. Problem: You want to be the smartest guy in the room and you're only middling smart.

I......I...... don' unnerstannnnnd is the dopey feint of internet passive agressive saddo's the world over. Short version: the west aint dull, you just don't like the pickings there. It's not the place, it's you.

First off, Mr Star, I have shaken the hand of Alex Chilton. I looked into Pattaya (Jomtien, really) due to the availability of good gyms and restaurants. Prob not on my shortlist, but if you can tell about the gym selection there, I'd appreciate it. I want to learn about and experienc places likee Ubon, but I want to live in comfort-land. The # of guys here move to Rai Et without a romantic connection has got to be in the single digits, cumulatively to date.

Can't fault it, but happy families, nice 7/11's, the same dozen dishes (if you're lucky) for the rest of your life is a little......boring. I have a full 6 foot high bookcase full of SEA titles, and lot of it is Issan related. It's interesting to me, but for most people, Thai knowledge begins and ends with Leonardo Di Caprio on The Beach. If you didn't have a shot with the women, you'd be on Kuta Beach with the rest of your nation. Your take on Thailand is very passionate, but pretty superficial. No crime in that. You're not here for spiritual enlightenment and cultural awareness, you're here for friction. If it were PC up the wazoo and still offering that at steeply discounted prices, you'd still be swimming through flames to get here.

This aint a thread about how interesting we are, it's about how dull the world is. And again, the access to experience here is much more limited than in the west. Go into a big bookstore in Bangkok; it has one 10th the titles as in New York. You personally are sick of the west, but the west is more interesting intellectually. I picked up 100 years of Solitude at the last used book store on Khao San Road. Read it 50 years ago. Still good, but it helps to have been to Latin America to appreciate the surreal, slightly twee tone.

Nah, it's just that you like unusual things. In that oik-land you call home, what % of people have any interest in Thailand beyond pad thai? Or any interest in anything interesting at all? It's always been a tiny subgroup and always will. Speaking of free jazz, Coltrane's sidekick, Pharoah Sanders just died. Used to see him in jazz lofts in New York in the 70's. Admission: pass the hat. Crowd: maybe a dozen if it was a weekend show. On a weeknight, the entire audience might be able to share a cab home. He was a legend and a genius, he typically sold about 15,000 of an album, a rounding error for Taylor Swift. And now people are even less curious and open to new stuff. The world may or not be stupid, but they're def are on the straight and narrow middle of the mainstream on most life experiences.

Think how all-consumingly interesting the most boring place in the west would be to a tire repair shop employee in Ubon. Thailand is interesting to us because: -we have money to entertain ourselves (even if only with booze) -it's cheap and comfortable (for us, not them) -we can leave whenever we want to and we have the middle class conceit of travel as interesting and educational (they don't).

This. 2 months into my relocation, I am seriously depressed to find that AsianNow posters represent the top of brainiac food chain over here, not the broad muddy middle like I thought.

The young Thai woman at Lost Books in Chiang Mai old city (GF of the owner, I think) knew all about William Burroughs when I bought his bio. "He shot his wife in the head", she laughed, "He is a crazy man and his books are too hard to read". She likes Mark Twain. Gentlemen, please form an orderly que outside the bookstore.

There was a hilarious post here about 10 years ago that I actually posted elsewhere: An older white woman in Chiang Mai was besieged by old horn dogs at the mall -for conversation, only. She felt used in that they would pee on her if she was on fire, but that she was suddenly the belle of the ball in the Robinson's food court. Eventually, they will have female OnlyFan superstars who look ordinary enough, but have a really detailed take on Brexit. They'll be sending letters: please send money, the postmodernist oxen have died. My friend in São Paulo hit the jackpot: 26 years younger, looks like Jane Birkin, collects 60's free jazz vinyl. He'd been looking for an esoteric jazz GF forever, and found a few Japanese takers over the years. But even there, old jazz is a 97% old male thing and those women were sick of talking about Ornette Coleman with nerd time wasters. What we find attractive is a much more amorphous basket of attributes than just dress size.

Do a google for Sober Curious. Plenty of vids and websites so you don't have to buy the book. It's a less judgmental, non-12 step program approach to reducing (as you see fit) your drinking. Was helpful to me. The less I drank, the less I drank. When I do have a drink now, I enjoy it more.

We're on a diff time frame and budget than a lot of people: we will stay here 2-3 years on a budget of $4,500 (excluding $800 a month med insurance for 2). It's very hard to spend $100 a day here, so I can do whatever I want, and the money still piles up. Yesterday was a relatively expensive day: spliff (800 baht), 2 seafood meals with a cocktail (900 baht), a nice room with a pool and gym (800 baht). massage (300 baht). When my wife gets here, maybe then it's $100 a day, but that's for paying top dollar for everything over living like a local, as we eventually will. We intend to eat in every single 5* restaurant in Bangkok and have booked Gaggan for $800 for the two of us (includes tip).

And across from the CHUM restaurant, there's a Korean restaurant (lunch only) serving stinky tofu, which is not that stinky and very hard to find outside of Korea. Around the corner from Wat Yu near CHUM is a very dark wood interior, ancient vegetarian restaurant with super-cheap lunches. Best vegan Khao Soi I've had to date. The shredded tofu tastes like chicken. So you're walking from CHUM past Wat Yu, then making a right at the corner, Maybe 6-8 stores north.

Yeah, I've stayed behind Siam Square, behind the Royal Palace, and now I'm staying a bit of North Khao San Road. It's shocking how chill it can be just a km from a high traffic neighborhood in this town. I want a low-rise mix of old teak, 70's aquamarine concrete, and fake-Roman new builds with some old growth trees. This area has the most old teak I've seen so far so close in, so I'm now 50/50 on this versus Old City Chiang Mai -where there's not an awful lot of rental inventory. Plus the hipster restaurant selection here is mega. And the river is close. I'm def going to check out the other side of the river and Nonthburi. If I can get a bit more green shade -and possibly rent a teak house- and a good train connection to Bangkok, that's prob my long term choice. Having a little patch to grow some veg and flowers within the city limits seems doable. I also want to check out a few boat stops going north. The further out I go tho, the more pressing learning some Thai becomes.