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My Thai wife has both a Thai passport and US passport. She's currently in the US and planning to return in March, but her Thai passport just expired. The US one is still good. She also as a valid Thai ID card. Will she have a problem flying back to Thailand? Will she need to enter on a US tourist visa, or does immigration let her in anyway with the old passport and current Thai ID?

I've only been in Thailand (Bangkok) for three years. Is the pollution worse now compared to say five or ten years ago? To me, it seems to get worse each year.

UPDATE 3: Rejected again. New problems: 1. I was sending packages of tea from Chiang Mai and listed them as "green tea". You are not allowed to send agricultural products. 2. I included two bags of My Chewy Taro candy and listed it on the customs form as "candy". This is too vague because candy can contain alcohol or other prohibited items. The Thai Post Office employee, who was very nice and apologetic, said if it was labeled as Matcha or Oolong, then it would go through. However, Thai Customs requires the use of their online system which does not provide Matcha or Oolong as an option. The Postal employee said she would try to take care of it and I didn't need to go in again, so I guess she is manually writing Matcha on it. According to ChatGPT, using "tea powder" might have worked because that wouldn't be considered "leaves" and so not an agricultural product. But Perplexity.AI disagrees, and says "tea powder" is more regulated and would invite higher scrutiny. It suggests the "tea infusions" because that is how tea bags work and is more precise because it doesn't sound like I'm sending a bunch of leaves. Perplexity said the online system is a simplified version of customs categories and the Thai Customs people are probably comparing my entries against the entire list of categories and thus rejecting it for vagueness. They need to fix this. What if I was a tourist and sending things back to the US for convenience?

Getting involved with the people who demand bribes scares away a lot of companies and investment. Once you pay one person off, you become part of a very dark system.

I think the payback would be good for Thailand. It would expose the corruption publicly and perhaps bring about some actual change. Big Joke for police chief.

This is all sad. The quality of the weed was getting noticeably better. It doesn't seem like actual cannabis lounges were taking off, but it was a start and they were experimenting with different set-ups. I keep hearing, many times from paid agitators, that it's just dead-beat hippies smoking it, but that isn't what I saw. It was a fun and welcoming culture, until it all got crushed by Thaksin.

This government seems desperate for money and they are turning to the poorer parts of society to collect. There is this, plus: -- the Bank of Thailand director talking about getting everyone filing taxes -- The tax department reviewing small business QR payment receipts and clamping down on underreporting All this just hurts the poor.

I don't quite understand everything here. I'd like to order a Pax Flow, but Thai customs is strict. They intercepted some cannabis seeds that I ordered from the UK, which was disappointing. How did you get it through?

That first part does match my observation - the LED lights are already less harsh.

On my street they recently installed new streetlights that flood every nook and cranny. AI tells me the brightness level and daylight setting is what is optimal for facial recognition cameras, though unpleasant for the humans squinting in the glare. I have a feeling scamming will continue despite all of this.

I've been using a Tourist SIM card for several years in Thailand. I got this message yesterday saying I would have to go to a True office and "re--identify" myself, which I think means the face scan, which I didn't have to do when I first got it. Surveillance state stuff is spreading everywhere.

They drive in tourist areas looking for a foreigner holding a cell phone and peering at each approaching car. They stop and say "Grab". Drivers did this in New Orleans and pretended to be with Uber, though something much worse than a high fare happened to the women who got in.

Is Jones Salad good? One of them just opened up near me.

I consider trans and trans surgery abusive towards emotionally ill people. A perfectly valid opinion, and a fact, but I would be prosecuted for promoting that.

Yes, and then he will go on to complete a third term.

I was in the Bangkok city center recently and stood on a corner. Every direction I turned there was a giant image of her promoting some sort of product. That girl is raking in the money. But you raise a good point - I don't know if anyone else knows who she is.

Unpretentious, down-to-earth, comfortable with bodily functions. I'm trying to keep the conversation refined.

I've only been in Danang for a week, but I liked the Vietnamese women. Didn't experience having a girlfriend, but a massage therapist asked me if I was interested in marrying her. Many of the women had an elegance to them that I found appealing. In the other countries the women are more earthy, but to each his own.

UPDATE 2: The package was rejected again by Customs. After the previous rejection I had asked the Post Office if I needed a new customs form after removing the items and they said I did not. However, the customs department rejected it and said I have to create a new one. I now need to go back to the Post Office with the new form, along with my passport.

I've been more surprised by Googling my cell phone number. That thing follows you everywhere.

I sometimes wonder if things would be better if prostitution were cheap and legal in the West. Men do such extreme and crazy things to get laid. All those Congressmen and others getting blackmailed, police corruption to look the other way - a lot of that gets addressed.

I'm a MAGA Trump guy and agree with this comment. I hope it's true that he's being sidelined. Vance makes bold and sweeping comments, but he's clearly not a deep thinker, and it makes me uncomfortable thinking of a guy like that as president. He comes across as pseudo-intellectual. That said, I do like this recent Tweet from him about DEI and in general the economy: "Older white men created a system whereby they'd be fine, but millenials and GenZ would get screwed." But I don't trust him at all to address this in a rational way.

I didn't bother renewing the card. The app just updated and put me at a 5,000 baht limit for withdrawals. I can change it from the app, but it won't accept my face id. Will have to go to the bank.

I once did a lot of cardio and was able to run in the big 5k runs they have in the US. I never felt better. But a friend needed knee surgery from the wear-and-tear and I got nervous about running on pavement and having the same thing happen. But you're right - it felt great when doing just normal, everyday stuff like stairs.

Cardless.