Prubangboy

I've helped raise a couple, and my wife has an adult daughter -but no (thank god).

My fave teacher said that for people who don't want to meditate, a thing they might instead try is just to ask themselves a few times a day: "What the hell is going on?" Are you tense, are you tired, are you lost in some imaginary conversation? Over time, you will gain a little insight into your thought process. Said Ram Dass: "Become an educated connoisseur of your own very exquisite neurosis".

.....more to the point, try relaxation response and yogic breathing. The other stuff like detachment and patience work is accomplished by lowering your ego. Meditation is a very roundabout approach to that. Try Buddhist psychology instead. Two books: Why Buddhism is True and Buddha Brain will lay out the logic of why your ego is just a pile of nonsense. Then it would be a very slow, water on a rock process to be a little lighter.

It's very unpredictable. It's like tennis camp. Some people have a gift for it and take to it, others just find it to be a miserable slog. 99% of people who do a 10 day retreat on vacation in Asia never meditate again. Less than 1% have a daily practice. It's also very mentally grueling. For general self improvement like you are suggesting, it's not very helpful. It's a spiritual pursuit. Said my fave teacher, "It would be a shame if the 5,000 year tradition of searching for enlightenment to be of service to others got dumbed down to being a mental cocktail that just makes you feel a little bit better". Mae Hong Son has a place with no strict schedule and no silence requirement. Try 3 days there and see if you want to do more. I've done a few 30 and 90 day retreats. Do I seem particularly evolved or Dali Lama-chill to you?

True, I'm almost tempted. Sulawesi is also a cheap/unspoiled place for rain forest lodges and wildlife viewing of not seen elsewhere animals. There's a town with funny roofed houses where their way of life is based around elaborate funeral planning. Every attraction is a day's drive in between or a very fickle flight. There's enough to fill 12 days without even going to the Togean Islands. All of the islands def take some time to get to (no flights). Most people do long stays on a single island or two. The far flung Indo islands are still very untouristed. 95% of Indo-bound tourists just go to Bali. Maybe Medan for the orangutans and Lake Toba for hippies after Medan. The rest of Indo sees few whities, partic the non-beach parts. Not that cheap. Call it $60 for a passable room and the same again for someone to drive me around. But Borneo would cost double and Papua is too dangerous.

I'm going to Sulawesi in April. My friend describes it as Muslim Laos. 'Wouldn't mind a cruise of the little islands like Ambon either. Youtube shows Sulawesi as some really ugly towns with low class soup restaurants. It's like less developed Sumatra, a place you drive thru spectacular scenery to samey dumps. As far as Asian Muslims go, Indo's are my fave. If they're eating pork at every meal, they're def Allah-lite. My friend had 2 Muslim Tinder scores in Jakarta.

4 seconds of googling reveals that common law marriage is not legal in Thailand. You feel powerless, hence this paralyzing depression. You truly are largely powerless in this situation. Much empathy to you.

I'm looking out from my 9th floor condo in Chiang Mai, and I keep failing to spot the office tower that these new brainiacs would work in.

I moved here from The Blue Ridge Mountains, USA. I had every good thing of that life: a nice house, the four seasons, living in a deep forest, organic gardening, family. I now live in very touristic Nimman, Chiang Mai with one suitcase of possessions. I'm 1,000% happier. I just had to much of a mono-good thing in the states. I love this life where I can have every last thing when I want it, and have people cleaning, laundering, driving me for peanuts. To be in a place where most people you meet are either blissed out on vacation or restarting their life gives me a huge lift -partic. after being stuck in a town that was literally dying. 20% of my county RIP from Covid. Crazy ranting at me for wearing a mask in Walmart. They're now all in a grave; I feel like I was dug up from one.

I liked, but didn't love Hua Hin. Cha Am would be my next kill a week at a low key beach-place. 3K would be the top end there.

As long as I'm here, Motown Christmas Album and the James Brown Christmas record def get a yearly spin. Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson are good too. For deep trad, there's the Christmas godfather, Andy Williams. Chris Rea -unknown in the states at likewise unknown Nick Drake-levels. If people heard him, they'd love him.

A Drink With Shane McGowan pops up in used bookstores in Thailand. Super-fun read. I prefer his drunken interviews to his records, but it's all good. Saw him, the band was terrible, but he held the audience in the palm of his hand Ala Rod The Mod. -Def a loss, poss at the Tom Waits/Nick Cave-level.

Been 6 times, including twice for meditation. Prob the best vipassana teachers in the world. U Pandita literally wrote the book. Hard to spend $5 a day on that plan. Go to the market first and get a plastic chair with a back on it and a pillow; the local meditators will all be sitting on bare concrete with perfect posture. For 10 hours a day. Net impression: very depressing, very compelling. Would love to see the Himalayan section, even tho it's a very gov-vetted tourist theme park. The beachy southern part is very unspoiled. Food: Lovely -once you're in Thailand again. Except for the airport, I never had a passable local meal in Myanmar. In Chiang Mai, there are at least five 4* Myanmar restaurants within a 5 minute cab ride or even walking. Rangoon Food House is lovely and near the airport. Burmese Swan just south of the Old City is the best. Always a lot of pride taken in Myanmar places here with nice decor, lots of plants, English-speaking staff.

I do the gym in the AM, research of various stuff in the afternoon at the co-work space across the street (bond funds lately, Thai language private classes next). Then I read a bit of SEA cultural stuff, and order dinner in around six, 5 nights out of 7. A bit of Netflix (Squid Game meets minimum standards) after sushi/Pad Thai/Indian, then bed around ten. In between those bits, it's wife-time, meditation, maybe peak in here and Hotmail. I like Daily Beast, Slate, and NYMag for a news-graze. Porn? I used to like Literotica, but it went all Femme Dom. I tried to imagine that it was a guy rodgering a girl instead, but it was too much work. And they kept dressing the guy up as a woman, which I just couldn't think myself around. Reading Gay porn works better for sex-reversing. But at that point, I may as well just think something up myself. Or review my greatest sex hits, many of them even occurring within the last quarter of a century.

Ubud is def a girlfriend destination, not for solo Bogans on the make -tho, plenty of pay for play is on offer. Fear not jail for shagging, Bogans. As I understand it, a Bintang beer coozie is a deeply prized Bogan status symbol, partic when spotted along side a Bintang wife beater. For Bogan-ologists, this is prob the best place to see them frolicking in the wild, just like you might spot gorilla's in Rwanda. It's def in the top 5 most tropically beautiful places, up there with Maui or Fiji. I'd put it up there as the equal of Chiang Mai and Luang Prubang in my SEA ratings. I'd compare it to Oaxaca or Santa Fe -vaguely spiritual places, with a much-collected art aesthetic, in a gorgeous setting. If you like their new age spa/yoga thing, it's prob the best such place on earth for the money (hence the Girlfriend destination recco). The Balinese dance and gamelan shows are deep, but severely patience-testing. Maybe a third of the audience will still be in their seats 60 minutes later. I've gone about a dozen times. Reading about it and listening to a little of mod-composer Steve Reich would help you develop an ear to enjoy it. Mickey Hart, the Grateful Dead drummer, is another mega-fan and his writings are another way in. 'Went 3 times; scratched the itch, prob done. Komodo Island was the most gorgeous part of Indo (skipping the now politically incorrect big lizard show). Sumba and Ubud would be a true 5* honeymoon. 'Can't fault Despansar as a 3 day town, partic if you want to buy wood carving. If you go to an Indo restaurant where they put a million little plates on your table, anything you touch, even with your elbow, will be on your bill. The rest will be re-collected for the next punter (so go for an early lunch before that chicken sate has been out too long).

Late 50's, I got my new wife's first initial tattooed over my heart. It was very small (literally thumbnail sized) and has subsequently blurred into merely looking like a Bic pen leaked in my shirt pocket.

I went out with a woman who asked me what I thought about Astrology - she later revealed she did so to determine my open-mindedness and propensity to judgmentally lecture (In woke-speak: Mansplain). Had I tish-toshed her belief in scorpions in metaphysical heaven somehow predicting my every move, I'd have been toast. But I love me a nutter. I asked her about the kind of Astrology she liked, how it was diff from the other kinds, and then we talked a bit about astrology in art. As my Dad taught me, people are a show without a ticket price. Milk them for whatever entertainment you can. People who want you to jump through hoops from the get-go do not get any less contentious as time drags on. OTOH, nutters are hotter in bed (in the short run). So unlike perpetually furrowed browed-Ron, I'm more along the line of take that nuts-ball and run with it. If a woman is nuts AND into me, she's just gone up a letter grade.

Def. see this in Nimman. $150 hotels are hard to book. $60 hotels have plenty of rooms to rent.

He did this exact same post a year ago. I made fun of him for referencing the long (long) moribund Redcat site and laughed at him for thinking that the Kamphaeng historic site was much bigger than a small Makro car park. The Bogan asked: "Wot about the karaoke opportunities?".

Please, please, more Bogan foodie wisdom. We bought two black pepper grinders. The Kampot one is almost done, the Ponchindary one (which is still better than cheap, Bogan-level black pepper) is still three quarters full. You're lucky enough to be in a place where your chance to enjoy stuff like diff kinds of black pepper is unique.. You judge a meal by how high they pile the chips on the plate, amIright? Bogan, just throw another shrimp on the barbie and be done with it.

Guys fighting with their girlfriends.

I'm a high earner, so it's $367 a month for me for Part B. I also have Cigna here for about $450 a month(I'm 71) with a $7,500 deductible. I have a dedicated fund to cover 2 big ticket health disasters at the same time. My odds of ever going back to the states are low. But a very esteemed poster here told of being glad he kept his home country national insurance because he needed a kind of chemotherapy that was not available in Thailand. I think the odds of having his bad luck are very low, and India has a chemo-industry at discount pricing. Still, Cancer can really wipe you out financially. So I follow his example and consider my $367 a month as a second wall against a health catastrophe. But then, the guy above makes the point that going back home when near death -to a hospital where they don't know you, while staying at a motel- is probably unrealistic. The US Healthcare system is in a free fall even for people who live there and are willing and able to fight with their insurers to get their bills paid. Just hopping off a plane? Sounds tough. I've researched the various cancers that might compel me to do this and had genetic testing which rules out 99.9% of them as likely on that basis. So for me, that $367 a month is sort of overkill. It's not a 100% rational decision. Were I to toss that $4,200 a year into a health savings fund, I'd bet I do better in terms of outcomes. I also view it as a charitable contribution to the very stressed Medicare general fund back home. Let some poor dialysis patient live high on the hog on my unused $367 payment.

Why would she be in that awkward pose on the carseat -except for what she was doing right before the pic was taken?

Kevin Costner called and wants his image back.

Very funny article in Slate about how even a zillionaire becomes a drooling bonehead when in lust for a woman -Def the most unintentionally hilarious pic of the year: https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/11/jeff-bezos-and-lauren-sanchez-vogue-photoshoot.html So, would I? No, will pass on the trout pout lips. He's Jeff Bezo and he can't get a Gwyneth. Sad. Have I gone crazy simpy in my life due to lust? Def. Prob the most with my wife. Since that worked out, simping is re-defined as success.