Prubangboy

Other popular and useless Nimman businesses: expensive straw hat stores, 150 baht durian ice cream cones, bakeries selling only one thing like chocolate chip cookies, toast restaurants, aroma therapy. The weed stores will be replaced with something like that. Not much stays vacant here for long.

Gaslighting is very overused. Rather than it being an intentional manipulation, it's now used for any mild disagreement. Same with cancel culture. "You say we eat sushi a lot? I think you're gaslighting me". You disagree with me? Stop cancelling me". I don't think these terms will be with us much longer. Ghosting will have a long conversational life because it is so vivid -and something that people actually do/have happened to them. I recall around 1970 hearing the term "rip off" for the first time and thinking it was very funny. Rip off is still with us.

Tons of restaurants and Chinese tourists. Weed shops four to the block. Chinese love weed. No women, but there are handjob places.

Some truth to this. Back home, we used to order something called Thai Mixed Spice from Amazon: lemongrass, galangal, coriander, garlic, chili. It did make even a simple omelette taste like Thai food.

Nimman, Chiang Mai, is heaving. There's never an off-season here.

I tossed you the red heart out of sympathy.

I smoked a ton of drugs in the north of Laos when I was doing my historic preservation work. Top tip: bring some Bic lighters, colorful ones (the band KISS is a favorite) -quite a luxury in dollar a day-wage hill tribe-land. And bring some Lao Lao moonshine. They prefer booze. Not really for pain relief. Just a bit of buzzy euphoria that goes away in 2 minutes when you stand up.

I know someone who gets a morphine shot daily here in Chiang Mai. A bit dubious: he's been in the clear for bowel cancer for 7 years -and he has a medical visa.

English muffins are called that because a baker named John English invented them (in America).

Pai. Plenty of solo women there and a mellow hippie vibe

Laos is too corrupt, and you can find yourself truly up the proverb-creek with no recourse. I am legal to live there due to some historic preservation links. I will never live there. But it is gorgeous, that island in the Mekong near Champasak. You are def putting me in the mood for spending my next smoke season month down there.

If I ever come into contact with pert nipples again (unlikely), I will be gentle and adoring. Pert nipple abuse is all I further need to know about this miscreant.

What you need is a sense of humor transplant. On average, do you think that tourists here are worse than tourists elsewhere. I don't. Even on Suk road, I see a lot of couples and shoppers.

Are there ever any high class denizens or is being a denizen always sub par? Are you or have you ever been a denizen? Me? I'd like to think not. But if I were a denizen, would I even know?

Yeah, but we're talking about what tourists buy. How often are they ordering stuff on Lazada? In MBK Mall, I don't see any bootlegs anymore. But then again, I don't have the radar-like clairvoyance of a vacationing factory worker from Kumming. I def miss bootleg DVD's. 'Used to be fun to bring home current films like it was an illicit one up. I live in Chiang Mai. People are indeed here for all the positives listed (except the beach) and only indulge in one so-called vice: tattoos. Chiang Mai is known for cheap, good tattoo's. I really don't get why the OP rates tattoos as a vice on par with hookers. Nor the wayward sin of "low cost alcohol". But this board needs more Mormon representation.

Not sold openly, only Chinese people can find them = largely gone. I bought La Coste Polo shirts that I think were real in Vientiene once. Otherwise, bootleg polo shirts have been a 20 wash cycle downer.

How, as someone just passing thru, can you really assess the general quality of the people (which is largely the same the world over)?

Haven't seen counterfeit goods in quite some time.

Oud -now the number one scent in the world and therefore another eco-catastrophe- is like say, single malt whiskey. You're in the realm of impassioned connoisseurs with many opinions and slighter gradations of quality as you go up in price. One way of grading oud is how much the smell changes over time. Good oud starts out floral, turns to leather, and ends up smelling like brass. Great oud has more levels. And lasts longer. I smell my expensive oud on myself even after 2 showers. I wear oud most days and get a lot of compliments from Thai people. Anything to cover up the whitie smell, I guess.

I bought some oud (agarwood) there from Cambodia to burn as incense. Cambodian Oud is in the top 3 ouds in the world. For stuff like that (sandalwood, frankencence, perfume) it's cheaper than most places in the world. I was in Oman where a lot of aromatics come from recently, and Soi 4 costs the same. These rare woods are under climate and poaching threat. Enjoy them while you can. For a pile of roast meat, it's probably the cheapest good dining in town.

We eat out pretty much every meal. Like 300-400 baht for my daily meal alone. 1,500-2,000 for a splurge meal with my wife, about 1.5 times a week. We're going to China Kitchen at The Shangri-La on Friday; that's 4000 baht to eat it all and have a couple of drinks. Life is too short not to order the big prawn if you have the money. Yesterday was duck noodles and dim sum for us at the mall for 600. We like to order in breakfast and that can be 600 baht for two people eating avocado toast and ordering double cappuccinos. This makes a lot of people (means: brits) mad, but if the question is what do you spend, answering it is hardly bragging. The long trend for us is towards healthy eating. If you can eat virtually anything under the sun -there's a Japanese fermented food place near Wat Umong, for example- you quickly default down to premium protein and veg. Tempura is my cheat meal. Maybe the Meat Loaf at Dukes once a month. French fries? Seldom. My wife loves vegan food and there are 3 great places within 5 minutes walk. I eat at least a third of my lunches at Healthy Junk. We order in a hummus and mezz platter from Hummus Chiang Mai about once a week. It was recently cited in the inflight Air Asia magazine as a must-do in Chiang Mai. I agree. For 2 months of the year, we get out of Dodge. We do a beach and then travel separately. Her back to The Blue Ridge Mountains for family, me checking off my Asia addiction.

On either side of Nimman road is a grid of very low traffic streets, practically pedestrianized. Add in the mix of old growth trees, specialty shops and endless restaurants, and I favor Nimman above Soho England or The French Quarter, NO as a party zone. Tons of old Thai restaurants and street food on the side soi's. I eat at a Thai Chinese place with a strong, old Lonely Planet vibe twice a week. It's between a French creperie and a $100 a plate omakase restaurant. Walk another 20 feet and you can eat Chinese noodles or in a 4* Indian restaurant. And there's 10 soi's just like mine. People of all ages and ethnicities mixing is another attraction. I live across from the Yellow Work Space. Always something going on; the weekly meetup buffet sells out. Nimman also has a ton of yoga, qi gong, pilates and gyms that don't cost 69 baht a day. Most condo's have pools. I'd be in the Old City if I could rent there, but this is a great consolation prize (and 8 minutes away). If you want to be near a bunch of great restaurants anywhere in the world, you have to be where the tourists are. We do, so we're here. And we will be very hard to entice elsewhere. This is a great place to visit, and a great place to live. How many places can meet those two bench marks. Some people live in Thailand for cheap luxury. Not for women or the beach.

A Nimman Chiang Mai subspecies: Backpacker pretending to be a global nomad.

Why not use the brains that God gave you and toss up a topic yourself? I haven't looked in on the toothpaste debate. I have nothing to say, but I don't diss it. I allow 2 hours a day for pointless scrolling (I'm on another forum too). Some threads are best read after they run their course. This one has a lot juicy opinions on thai dating -which I am very unlikely to ever do, but enjoy reading about. Call this a 4 look-in thread.

Like $5K US a month. * includes expensive health insurance, separate apartment for my wife, and eating out in foodie Nimman 1-2 meals a day, and regular trips to Bangkok.