garyinhuahin

Outside the American community, Thanksgiving doesn't have much resonance here. Heck, I'm an American and I don't observe it. Just another day.

I am exceedingly dubious of these statistics. There's a long history of 'non-profit' foundations inventing frightening numbers to pump up their funding, and Thailand is a favorite target. Usually it turns out the numbers were just pulled from thin air.

Yeah. Half-a-million. Sounds good. Let's go with it, but make it a little less round...

Malays don't cut down every tree in sight!! This is great. They like to leave them up for shade

Malay girls can be beautiful, but they tend to be very conservative. Red light districts I saw (very few) were dismal.

Chinese girls are nice and they dress like Thais, meaning they like to show skin, which is nice. They are much less conservative.

Not so long ago flew into KL. Plane had to make a big circle before landing. Perhaps 100 sq km of countryside, not one tree visible that wasn't an oil palm. Frightening.

If you want a good time in Malaysia, visit a 'health club'. True scenario from my first ever visit around 1995. Some dialog paraphrased. At the hotel health club.

"Good evening. May we help you?"

"Yes, I'd like to exercise."

"What! Are you some kind of sicko? This is a health club!"

"Oh. Well, what can I do here?"

"You can have a massage."

"Okay. I'll have a massage."

"Chinese or Malay"

"The massage?"

"No, no, no. Your girl!"

You can imagine the rest.

Indian food is excellent, but be ready for rather more authenticity than in Thailand..

Penang is rather a unique place within Malaysia, with a history as a direct British colony. Some of the comments here clearly refer to the larger country and not to Penang itself. Go and visit and make your own judgments. It's not like it's hard to get there.

I'm told that traditionally, such a relationship is considered quite equitable, each party providing what they have the most of: Youth and beauty in the one case and money and worldly savvy at the other. I'm going to guess that your wealthy Thai lady not only got property from her lover, but coaching on how to parly it into yet more property.

Likewise, Thais think it's perfectly natural that an older person would wish the company of a younger person and that a younger person might take an older lover for the financial and other benefits, and that people might have relationships outside a marriage without sacrificing the marriage itself.

We'll see how the NLD actually does in 2015. Last time I went to Myanmar, it seemed that only old folks still had a thing for them and ASSK. The younger folks (who make up most of the country now) seemed to feel she (and they) were well past their best-used-by-dates and not really relevant today.

But what do I know...

A lot of Thai wives skim. Had a friend who proudly showed me the townhome he was renting for 8,000 baht a month, with his wife handling the negotiation and all payments with the landlord. I later rented (and then bought) from the same folks and we became friendly. I eventually learned that the unit in question had actually been rented for $5,000, with wifey pocketing $3,000/mo. They were there about 4 years, so....

Got stalked by a gay Thai cop for a period of nearly 2 years. Never physically threatening but awfully uncomfortable. Finally got rid of him when he sent me some explicit gay porn (anonymously. Like I didn't know exactly where it came from). I promised that if he ever bothered me again, I would give the pictures and a full account of his behavior to his superiors and the local press. That finally got through to him.

If his is successful how long before the next step landing a maned space craft on a comet

Bravo for sure

Quite a long time, I'm sure. It took Rosetta 10 years to chase and match speed with the comet. We have nothing like the technology to keep humans alive in space for anything like that length of time. Not to mention that Rosetta doesn't have to make a return journey.

Unmanned craft are incredibly productive and cost-effective for exploring the solar system. imho, we should be deploying more of them and worrying less about humans in space. We've been pursuing that for half-a-century, have spent incredible amounts of money on it, and are still limited (except briefly in the late 60s) to low Earth orbit.

Not illegal to my knowledge. But my dead friend would advise that it's generally not wise....

Oh, and I actually walked a couple of miles in the snow to get it.

First experience was a KIM-1 'evaluation board' for the 6502 microprocessor (same one as Apple II). 1K of RAM, hand assembly only, 6 digit display and storage only to cassette tape. But the keyboard monitor that ran it was brilliant. 30 minutes after powering it up I understood precisely how microprocessors work!

Yes, he claimed GOD (whichever one you like) appeared to him and told him it was okay to have a slew of wives BUT it was a sin to drink Alcohol, Tea or Coffee.

God (whichever one you like) obviously didn't understand that a "Wife can Drive You To Drink" and had no concept, of what 40 of them could do to you.

Actually according to the Mormon polygamists (there are still quite a few around, excommunication or no), the more wives the better the man is in the eyes of God.

Try Florida, it sounds like you would fit in much better there.

..

Are you joking? Florida is a horribly dangerous place compared to Thailand!

Re #5 (Single motherhood). This varies from country to country and with the communities within countries.

It's still ordinary in many places, that pregnant single girls get sent on a long 'vacation' to somewhere they are not known and the child is given up for adoption. Mother comes home and life goes on....

In US, if the mother elects to keep the child there will be very limited benefits available from the government and these carry their own shame.

Some other countries will support mother and child more generously, with no shame is attached to either the motherhood or the government benefits.

In other words, we may all look alike but we don't all have the same customs.

Years ago, an older 1st gen Chinese-American gentleman of my acquaintance mentioned to me that 'most' of his old friends in China had liver cancer from eating instant noodles.

Never heard more about it, and I've enjoyed some myself. But I always thought best not to make it a staple.

Really interested to see how high season stacks up this year. Euro really down against the baht, military government, lots of bad publicity, and the government deliberately destroying some popular attraction such as the Princess Cave.

Keep trying, amigo. You'll get there yet!

Bit difficult for harmless snakes here. I've killed more than one, only to find out It was no threat at all.

As a side note, a lot of the snakes that really are perfectly harmless to us and deadly poisonous to they're prey, having fangs set far back in the jaws and a weak (relatively) venom. In recent years, it's been found that quite a few lizards (and maybe some snakes?) that were thought to be non-poisonous in fact have venom of one strength or another. It seems the evolution of venom goes back to well before snake and lizard ancestries split.

I'm sure you wanted to know that....

I always heard it was the diving. I wouldn't expect much of the islands themselves

Personally speaking, the doggie casserole I was served in Shanghai was excellent! Arf!