Prubangboy

Sounds like they took the get on the property ladder cheaply-advice and got on with it.

....But as long as I'm here, I have always wanted to take a Tahitian cruise. What one did you pick and why? I looked and looked at the Paul Gaughan cruise line, but have never pulled the ticket. My big Tahiti fear: I went to Kuai, the least spoiled Hawaiian island. And it was a little on the boring side. Tipping-wise, I'm going to Bhutan this smoke season. That's an expected $20 a day for the guide and $10 for the driver. Or some comically awkward attempt at dodging them when getting off the bus for the last time.

Cynthia Kane is a good one to read for quick and thoughtful overviews. Buddha's Brain, if you want an 8 hour listen and you like his style. Since you liked Think Like A Roman Emperor, take a look at his title, Resilient, which talks about the Stoic/Buddhist overlap. 10 day retreats tend to be by The Goenke organization. They focus a lot on noting body sensations. To me, a bit of a distraction, but def a reasonable way "in".

Stickman's Reader's Contribution page has a two-parter from a hilarious monger with lots of detail. https://www.stickmanbangkok.com/readers-submissions/2023/03/my-pinay-horror-story-part-1/ Yes, his pinay horror story. This, from the writer of Poems to my Pinay. How soon it can all go from winsome, reflective poems to a swirling vortex of horror. Poems to my Pinay is available as a free download -surely no takers, even from (especially from) the Pinay in question. What I recall: -Koreans are running more and more bars and that's a bad thing. -Much lamenting about the lack of old style mama sans. I've been twice. It's like Thailand meets Mexico. Just pick.

Stickman's Reader's Contribution page has a two-parter from a hilarious monger with lots of detail. https://www.stickmanbangkok.com/readers-submissions/2023/03/my-pinay-horror-story-part-1/ Yes, his pinay horror story. This, from the writer of Poems to my Pinay. How soon it can all go from winsome, reflective poems to a swirling vortex of horror. Poems to my Pinay is available as a free download -surely no takers, even from (especially from) the Pinay in question. What I recall: -Koreans are running more and more bars and that's a bad thing. -Much lamenting about the lack of old style mama sans. I've been twice. It's like Thailand meets Mexico. Just pick.

The odds of you complaining here about cruise ship corkage fees being funny or interesting are zero. Aren't cruise tips factored in at the get-go with a box you can uncheck? And as an inadvertent Alan Partridge parody, didn't you long ago uncheck that box with zesty satisfaction? Will that Fillipino indentured-slave to his family you call a bartender be anything less than over-gracious when you stiff him when he shuffles over with a propah pint of IPA?

Air BnB. Not a huge money spinner, but an agent looks after the place for a fair whack off of the rental price.

This great ol' tradition of thwacking your banana leaf with curry goo from a bucket may be gone. 'Looked for it in vain in Singapore this year, even at fabled The Banana Leaf Apollo -who provided plates and not a banana leaf, and then brought all the little bites together from a steam table at the same time. Same in Kuala Lumpur. Possibly a victim of Covid?

They have this on soi 3 in Nimman, Chiang Mai. 250 baht for unlimited bucket pouring at lunch. They charge you 200 baht for excessive leftovers to make sure you eat all of the squid. Haven't done it. At that price, it's too good to be true, like an unlimited Shabu restaurant always is.

It that you want to cling to stranger's legs on the internet to press your cheap Charlie claim -that has already been beaten to death tens of thousands of times here- that reeks of dull desperation. Short version: As a sniffy Brit, no sane service worker expects dime-one out of you.

Given the found nowhere else on earth preponderance of self-proclaimed Mensa member genius's here, I can't afford to block anyone. It's just so weird that the world's intellectual 1% all live in cheap condo's, living on less money than a postman's salary, and are dating women with 9th grade educations. It's gotta be a long game genius-thing, no? Whatever it is, I know going in that I'm not smart enough to understand it.

I never understand the math where you give someone 20K baht a month so they can assist you in getting a discount on a 20 baht pineapple. And these tales typically emanate from Issan, the land of the 10 baht pineapple to begin with. I guess there must be other services involved.

I read here about evil miscreants stealing the bottles of HP sauce that gracious restaurants supply with the breakfast that killed more Brits than Hitler. Wouldn't seeing such a small potato's thief being merrily beaten about the head and neck with a bottle of HP sauce qualify as a small and under-rated pleasure? Relatedly, Tiptree, the pricey jam people, sell an average-sized bottle of brown sauce for 3 quid. You'd have to have it on a chain. But someone would prob just bring a straw. https://www.tiptree.com/products/tiptree-brown-sauce?pr_prod_strat=e5_description&pr_rec_id=ea4998f70&pr_rec_pid=8109239435580&pr_ref_pid=8324195025212&pr_seq=uniform

There are tons of places that do this in the states, so it may be worth sending it overseas. I found a small micro-cassette tape of my deceased wife practicing Spanish and had it converted to a CD for myself and her relatives. $20 per CD. Amazon USA also sells (or sold) a duel VCR/CD machine which could dupe your cassette.

That's some brutal colon blockage for you tomorrow. Consider inserting the bum gun all the way in and having a good, long blast.

Since I got here a year ago, I have had two straight up relationship propositions from attractive Thai women in their low 40's (I am 70). While I felt affinity and affection from them what I distinctly did not feel was any groinal moisture in my direction. I fear that that is now the sole province of the few oldie whitie women who can even muster it up. Yellow? I'm their 5th choice. At best. Give me a whitie 3 who's into me over a yellow 9 who wants a lap top for their kid (not that that's a true story or anything).

If I'm out in a moo ban, what does that cost to rent? Assuming no real restaurants, what's my weekly food spend? How much will Noi want to stick around without a long face? I was talking to an old hippie who was staying by Soppong Cave for 500 baht a day, all in, including a couple of big Changs at sunset.

-Have you had sex with a white woman in Thailand? -If an attractive white woman was into you here, would you hit that?

Have I wandered in to the periodic 7/11 Toasty appreciation thread?

I'm on about 120K a month. That's for me and my western wife. We live in a great area, eat every meal out, and want for nothing. So 60K is basically me without the wife, the big apartment, and the sushi and falafel habit. Very def doable here in Chiang Mai. partic if you're willing to ride the little red bus 10 minutes further out. The guy who lives next door to me lives on 40K. He has a local GF and keeps the a/c on low. An astonishingly plush life for $300 a week. His Doi Suthep view is the same as mine (for $300 a month less).

There's a nice person here who says that his dream is to retire to Thailand and counsel whitie alcoholics who are lying face down in the gutter. My purpose in life is to laugh at that guy. Other than that, I got nothing.

Phuket is nicer Miami. Samui is like crappy Maui.

This is the threadbare consolation prize advice for failures who simply could not manage to run away from their problems. Which you can observe even a roach doing.