faranglaw

What about Win? What will he do?

said Pierre Trudeau after being insulted by Richard Nixon.

Sorry. What is an H shop?

I once asked a Thai friend what he thought of Sauna Mania and he was quite dismissive: “Office girls!” he sniffed.

Well! The boy who happily accepted 1200 last year now wants 2,000 and will bargain down to 1700. I guess Trump will fix it.

I started getting in fast track at 70

This may not work for you or be off topic, but what worked for me was diving into fun and challenging hobbies. For me it was bridge, which I’m good at; and lawn bowling, which I’m not. I also got a digital piano to mess around with.

What does “soft only” mean?

Hello everyone, Can anyone recommend medical insurance for longer term (more than a month) travelers to Thailand? I go every year for 3-4 months and have the first thirty days covered. In the past I haven’t covered the rest of my time but as I age I’m thinking I should stop taking chances. Any recommendations gratefully appreciated, faranglaw

Thanks Vinapu!

And mature people filter their thoughts. If I expressed every thought that comes into my head you would think I’m a psychopath. So…filter.

Maybe I’m the only contrarian grump here, but I find the whole bar scene tiresome with the noise, the fake smiles, the crowd. It’s a huge time suck to me. So I go onto Hornet and find perfectly decent fun for about 1,000 baht. 1200-1500 in Bangkok. In November I will return with DH (Dear Husband) for the winter and now have four guys in Bangkok to meet. One a massage guy, and the other three met through Hornet. All delicious and reliable.

Then the sons took their turns.

“Male stuffed places?” What do they stuff them with? 🤣

Oh don’t be ridiculous. The Democrats would be considered centre right in Australia They can’t even agree on voting rights, minimum wage, or universal healthcare. The socialist tag is absurd.

I am flying from Vancouver to bkk next week, too early for the new non-stop. But in February Dear Husband and I will return on the non-stop with some friends who live in Vancouver, a little gay party in Premium Economy. 🥳

These days hotel prices are so low that there seems little point in a short time hotel, as I discovered last night. I stayed at the Quarter on z909’s recommendation and thank you! It was perfect. Nice breakfast, no hassle bringing boys in (ahem, twice!—Hornet sure is busy around there!). $21 Cdn (about 500 baht) for the whole night. I’ll be back.

Thanks everyone! Great blog and helpful guys. I appreciate it. z909 you are right. Quarter is almost as cheap as a love hotel. About $20 Canadian. So I’ve booked there. I will let you know how it went.

Hello gentlemen, I realize I have been around this blog (this block) for awhile, but strangely enough, I don’t know of any nice, or nice enough, short time hotels in the Silom area (near Sala Daeng). Can anyone enlighten me? I am meeting a boy with a wide smile tomorrow evening. Thanks in advance! faranglaw

Thanks Reader for the info and encouragement. I fly out today. I think it will be fine.

Thanks everyone! So I have booked a flight tomorrow from Boston to Phuket, actually three flights, the second of which, NY to Singapore, is said to be the longest flight scheduled in the world, at 18 hours and 40 minutes. Economy Premium so it might be bearable as long as the pilots don’t nod off somewhere over the Arctic. The process turned out to be complicated and anxiety producing. For some reason both the hotel and the testing company would only take something called OTP which I think means One Time Password. They wanted me to have a local phone number to send passwords to, which I didn't have. Without that local contact, neither my American nor Canadian credit cards worked for payment. Aaargh! But Dear Husband is still in Bangkok, and he was able to go into the woods and shake fairy dust on the sleeping leprechaun, or whatever one does, and miraculously produce for me proof of my hotel stay and my COVID test schedule, both of which I need to board the plane. I don’t know how I would have navigated all this without a Thai contact within Thailand. But then, there’s a reason he is Dear Husband. So I leave on Monday and arrive on Wednesday. Hotel staff assure me that once the first test comes back negative, I am free to roam the island. Dear Husband arrives on Thursday with my summer wear and speedos. See you soon! It’s 4:11pm here, which means it’s 4:11am there.

It seems to me that the chatter about power mad politicians and bureaucrats is a bit too fearful in the opposite direction. There are so many variables with this disease and the decisions public health authorities must make are still life and death. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. I had some experience in my union being on the executive, and many decisions we had to make led to accusations of being overly controlling, power mad, etc. Not really true but some of our members let their emotions run away with them. Here’s an article on the current situation with Omicron, from the New Yorker. We can see that there are still many unanswered questions and it is not at all clear how and where and when countries and economies should open up. This leaves me with considerable empathy for the people making these decisions, and also a feeling of gratefulness that it’s not me making them. Omicron by the Numbers https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/24/do-the-omicron-numbers-mean-what-we-think-they-mean?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_011622&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_recirc&bxid=5be9c79a24c17c6adf38ceb9&cndid=49338263&hasha=d8197887bc61ba75b03a39936ec68ff0&hashb=b5c5ac9a21955ee3cb29f1de63c473536955a688&hashc=532810e5334f61be3659e870f74e0064f6d9b0376f350eed40fceecdd149fbfb&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&mbid=CRMNYR062419