GinBoy2

I think the term WW2 was coined in 1939. It was at the same time the Great War was renamed WW1, after the start of hostilities

Slightly off topic, but this made me chuckle a little. I first moved to Asia over 20 years ago and as an American I had ideas of what meals you ate at what time of the day or week. You soon realize that it doesn't matter what time of day they eat the same meals morning noon and night

You only need to watch the nightly news on TV to understand why most Thai's know little about the outside world. World War 3 could be breaking out but dashcam footage of a traffic accident, or some random guys beating each other up on CCTV would be the headline

After three pages of this, it's left even more confused about the point of any of it.

I think many of us struggle with the concept of Capital Punishment. I'll fess up I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but if it comes down to open and shut cases of murder I waiver. This one as awful as it seems, and we are yet to have a trial seems worthy of the ultimate punishment. It's so sad for that yet unborn child to have to live with this

Well this is quite the case isn't it. We've been watching the TV news and it's wall to wall coverage, and I'm sure as with Tang Mo it'll play for days, if not weeks. The woman must be a psychopath to cold bloodily kill so many many people but it is quite rare especially for a woman, and a pregnant woman at that But innocent until proven guilty but it does look pretty grim

Totally agree But at 76 he'll be lucky to get an insurance company willing to write a policy at any price. Many a poster will say 'I self insure' which translated means I'll pay it all out of pocket. I wonder how may of those when the sh$$#t hits the fan and lying in hospital start typing 'Go fund me'

I wasn't talking about moving there, I agree both of those are horribly expensive to live. But if you are going on vacation at least you know everything will work, all the time, there won't be feces floating in the water, you can drink the water, no pile of random garbage on the side of the road, I could go on. Essentially you get what you pay for, and for the Chinese it's a cheap airfare and , they get what they pay for. For Europeans, and especially North Americans, not a cheap airfare so maybe more expensive when you get there but for the reasons I mentioned before maybe an overall better deal to stay closer to home

Maybe I might tick a few folks off, but isn't it time to just admit the truth. Thailand isn't, and never will be St Tropez, Hawaii and just come to terms with the fact it's a mid level, at times scummy vacation destination and go for that. So who do you attract if that's the reality? Well it's going to be the Chinese, may not be what the Western members of this forum want to hear, but thats reality in a nutshell. The 'quality tourist' is some pie in the sky concept that looks great on a PowerPoint presentation, but so far from life on the street. So as far as I can seen, roll on the Chinese hoards

I totally get this. I'm mid 60's Mrs G mid 50's. Been together a long time over 20 years at this point and seen a lot. Neither of us are what we were 20 years ago, but here we are still together. There is a lot of focus on here about physical attraction. For most of us that have gone the distance, looks may fade but if you do actually care for someone that really doesn't matter and you become blind to it. Maybe we don't go at it like the rabbits that we were 20 years ago, but we are still into each other, which many on here just don't seem to get, that it is possible for older guys to actually sexually desire older women. I know we're all different, but I would have no desire to come home a partner young enough to be my daughter, just to bang her every night. I'm in that minority here, where sex aside, I just like to be with someone who I can watch TV with, share how our day went, and now enjoy the mutual joy of our grandkids. Boring I know to many, but hey, we are all different

What does this even mean, 'out socially' If it means engaging in normal age appropriate social activities well most of us are. If it means a 60 year old going a 'rave' with 20 somethings, well dude get a life and stop embarrassing yourself

Hmm, I have experience of this. Many years ago, not in Thailand but in San Jose CA, I was in a mall parking lot people were gathering to watch some guy beating the cra&&&p outta this girl. No one was doing anything, so idiot me decided it was time to pull him off. I'm not a big guy, but he lost his balance as I pulled him off and he fell to the ground. The next I know is the woman is wailing on ME, shouting "don't hurt him" Then the cops showed up, gave me a warning and sent me on my way. Lesson learned, never intervene!!!

I think you be also able to stock up on the gazillions of bottled water stashed away during the Y2K non-apocalypse. I'm sure there are many wanting to offload their unused 10,000 bottles stashed in their underground bunker!

As I said before, I lived in KKC a long, still have a house there, not a bad place. But it does suffer the fate of a lot of Thai cities. Blindfolded and dropped in the center of town, you could be in a hundred of other Thai cities, nothing really to distinguish between any of them. So again not a bad place, I like it, but I doubt the tourist hoards will be flocking

Friendship can be tricky. I'm a bit of an odd duck for my age and ethnicity. I'm an only child of an only child Hispanic parents. So I grew up pretty self reliant and over the decades I've had plenty of 'friends' but in reality nothing more than acquaintances, and when they were gone, never really thought about them again. In truth I can socialize with the best, but it's totally superficial. A have one real friend, a woman who started Kindergarden with me 60 years ago, God Mother to all my kids and a woman who I know would jump on a plane in a second if I needed her and vice versa

Indeed. My German friend lived through several years of this. Mom basically letting the kid run wild. It culminated one day when he hit his Mother. Torsten stepped in, trouble was a 60 year old man versus an 18 year old isn't a fair fight. Torsten was the guy in hospital with a broken jaw. He called it quits after that and left Went back to Germany, haven't spoke to him since. I think like a lot of guys when things go bad he just wanted to erase all memory of it, which I kinda get

I'm just stunned that such a low level National Guard even had access to this stuff. He's a guilty as Hell, but the folks that allowed him access to this stuff should be locked up as well

This is one of those of these way to typical stories of farangs in Isaan We have a German friend, married to a Thai with a teenage boy. Same as the OP kid totally outta control, Mom's response "You don't understand Thai" I tried talking to the kid since I speak Lao, friend doesn't, all I got back was a torrent of abuse. Never when back there again. The usual progression is it will ultimately end up bad. Drugs and the Monkey House, very common Motorcycle accident, also very common Drifting from job to job, sponging off Mom(OP) for cash to feed whatever habit he's into. It eventually gets to a point where it's time to 'cut bait' and run before it really gets ugly

Lot of the problem is how most Thai houses are built A single brick wall, so no insulated gap. On a brutal heat day I can feel my interior walls radiating heat, so AC is always going to struggle. I can contrast that to our US house where either brutally cold or brutally hot the AC or the heat isn't fighting the external walls

Apologies But you have to admit it's a small percentage of us that actually speak Thai and Lao. But you're still in for some rocky waters there, but only you can figure out how much the grief/pleasure equation works out for you. All I can say is if you tough that situation out, you're a braver man than me

To be honest, if the kid is feral by 15, it only goes down from here. Try to visualize what he will be like at 18+ I'm assuming that the OP doesn't speak Thai, so any communication with the kid is through Mom, and it's pretty clear she isn't going to do anything! Trouble is you're coming from different experiences. All teenage boys are 'messy' but for most of us I think leaving your clothes on the bedroom floor was enough to get a clip around the ear and told to 'pick up your mess'. This is way past that I have no idea how old the OP is, but if you get to the point of this kid being a feral young man, don't exclude some violence if you try to restrain his activities. Terrible situation but really not uncommon for a farang to encounter a feral male step child! I be outta there faster than I could drop a pair of dirty underwear

I kinda agree with @OneMoreFarang I travelled a lot for work, I've lived in multiple countries and spent more time away from home that I care to think about. I tried full time retirement, that didn't work for me, so I went back to work. But, I don't like to be away from home anymore. I have to go to Atlanta next week for a training course, and I hate it. I'm happy being at home with Mrs G and the cats, don't need much more nowadays

Very few of us look at 60 like we did at 30. Thai women are exactly the same as any farang woman in that respect. Love is a funny old thing. Obviously the first attraction is physical, but over time when love kicks in and really the 'looks' are secondary. If we are critiquing the picture, well Pierce isn't exactly the adonis he once was, but he has someone to grow old with. Renting may well suit many here. But don't expect anyone to hang around when you need support in your final years, that takes love not something you will get from a woman a third of your age and working on the clock

We lived in KKC for 10 years, and we still have a house there. Not a bad place, but 'tourist destination' I think not.

This is more of a question and idle musing. But is it normal to have language in travel policy that defines this scenario, in particular the helmet thing. For <deleted>z n giggles I did a quote from Allianz in the US for a fictitious trip. I read through all the T&C's and the closest I could come for an exclusion was 'activities against local regulations' Now I know thats a pretty broad exclusion, but thats a hard thing to prove in this case, I would have thought