Prubangboy

3 hours ago, Lorry said:

 

Zero chance to get decent pain management outside a few hospitals. 

 

 

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.

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

38 minutes ago, RSD1 said:

I meant it figuratively 

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. 

3 minutes ago, RSD1 said:

a certain kind of denizen

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?

5 minutes ago, HugoFastor said:

Lots on Lazada. 

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.

56 minutes ago, susanlea said:

better people. 

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.

11 hours ago, Elkski said:

How often do you dine out?  What is your typical dinner bill?  

You make me want to add a week stay in CM next trip.  But you did forget the deadly, life shortening ,air quality 2 months out of 12. 

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.

6 hours ago, susanlea said:

What's so good about Nimman? Traffic is horrendous. 

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.

On 7/1/2024 at 4:37 PM, RSD1 said:

But still not as good as other such captivating topics as toothpaste caps, 

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.

I have been harshly judged my whole life. Whatever.

On the upside, my many judgers forget my very existence whenever I leave the room. They just find a new target.

You don't see that whole shelf of protein drinks by the yogurt?

Or are you going to play retard-gotcha by proclaiming that they're not really "shakes"?

3 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

 Made at home you can control the roast, oil, sugar, salt content. 

Not as long as I have 200 baht and can frontload 3 jars at a time.

What is the point of being Thai-Warren Buffet if I have to fiddle around with roasting my own nuts?

RDS: 4 women on one butt? I hope that's a Hollywood King-sized bed. Maybe do two on each body-side.

I just had a mussaman curry crepe and two coffee's. Stuffed for the day, 360 baht. I'll do a beverage reload at 7/11. Like 450 baht for a week. I'm still not even near 1,000 baht, let alone 2.

And we had so much sushi yesterday at Sushi Cafe at Jing Jai Market that we went home with some. 1,200 baht. For 3 people. With the cab, I still ended up with 600 baht left over from my 2K daily allotment. Just toss it back on to the pile. I still have 2 full jars of peanut butter so I didn't bother.

Maybe I should get a young student girlfriend to soak up 500 baht a day. She could also function as the third sushi eater. A menage au tempura. Thai people love tempura, when they can get it.

I tried blender peanut butter. Very hard to get the consistency right.  

At my affluence level, I want professionally blended peanut butter.

49 minutes ago, RSD1 said:

 

If I can do four then you should be able to do two. If not, buy a bigger booty, money is no object, right?

I mean them doing me. No way am I putting my mouth on a hooker's you-know-what.

I think two hookers back there is the very definition of diminishing returns.

As Chris Rock said of a three-way, "grab a ball and make yourself useful" They call it kiss el negro there, by the way.

Peanut Butter: Health food store in the back of Jing Jai Market. 

On 6/28/2024 at 9:23 AM, pluto72 said:

The server explained that I needed to take a ticket and give it to the attendant.

Why not save yourself stress by simply assuming that you're always in the wrong and don't know what's what?

It will be true 98% of the time.

As to the other 2%, you live like an Aztec God compared to these sweet, poor people. You fly in a chair through the sky whenever you want to (thank you, Louis CK). Tip well, be nice.

Thanks,  but I really need to burn through the grab cab 150 baht round trip to get the 200 baht peanut butter.

I have too much money too. And very simple tastes.

I allow myself 2K a day to blow, usually come in at at around 600-800, mostly eating out. It just piles up.

I don't want to eat at a Ginger Kitchen-level restaurant every day. It just gets onerous. However, I do pop in for a crab meat omelette once a week.

But some days the main meal is a peanut butter sandwich and a protein shake from 7/11. Hard to get good health food style peanut butter here. But a big jar lasts a month. Like 200 baht?

I started buying my wife perfume a lot. Chanel #5 has been helpful towards my surplus reduction. But soon she will be glutted. I bought half a dozen high-end colognes for myself at duty-free. They will likely take me to my grave.

A car? No, Grab Cab has spoiled me for life. I was way out from Chiang Mai on a farming course. On the last day, someone drove all the way out there and back to Nimman for 200 baht. So no car.

Travel is no fun without her, and she's hard to pry out of Nimman. 'Don't want to eat in a 5* restaurant or stay in a nice hotel alone. A solo trip to Bangkok costs a third of going with her.

We splurge on a meal in Nimman in the 1,500-2,500 range about once a week. Oysters and Omakase are helpful money-burners. But after that, it's typically another peanut butter sandwich day for me.

The last time I felt, like, wow, I'm spending a lot of money was $100 at Asia Books a month ago. And that's about 4 months worth of books. I'm afraid to get a Kindle. I need hardcover books to meet my spending quota.

I have an upcoming buddy trip to São Paulo. Hard to spend $100 a day there. A deathbed-level steak is $20. A good room in Little Japan is $35. Premium economy for the 24 hour flight added only $600.

You can get booty licking action for $50. I wonder if two heads can fit back there.