Marc in Calif

I'm happy to let it go! 🥳

Your reading comprehension skills are not improving, my boy! 😘 The OP actually used the word "here"TWICE. The first one might refer to this particular board ("Someone here mentioned"), but the second clearly refers to in the Philippines ("dicks here r cut differently"). Last I heard, there's no circumcision of dicks on this board. And I think I'll continue commenting where I like. Don't you do that too? 😉

This is rich! You admit that you might have been wrong or lost track of posts. 🍷 And now you think you can limit discussion here to only those members you prefer? 🤣🤡🤣

I hope there aren't criminal syndicates of spa and go-go bar providers. 😮

Thanks for trying to backpedal now! This is an epic fail on your part for drawing this out so long without properly quoting. 🚳 You're now admitting that you do NOT know how to properly quote two different people in the same post. So your attempt at humor AND a put-down was as clear as mud -- then as well as now! 🤣

Tell the truth now -- with your suggestion for an additional t-shirt logo (with an asterisk!), you were actually quoting and replying to @vinapu , who wrote, "they should have t-shirts with such statement printed." And @vinapu was responding to MY own comment about what I do and don't do in Thailand. Peter had absolutely nothing to do with it. 🤣🤣🤣 See how confused you get when you don't read a thread carefully? 🥰

Who knows? Sexual exploitation is rife in many places in Europe as well as the rest of the world. 🌍🌏🌎

And some might say that it's gone in the right direction.

From the New York Times: ... Beginning in the 1970s, the Met greatly expanded its South and Southeast Asian galleries, and Mr. Latchford, a dealer and scholar of Khmer antiquities, was integral to that effort. Starting in 1983, he gave or sold the museum several artifacts directly, among them premiere examples of Khmer sculpture. Many of those were stolen, Cambodian officials asserted. They also said they believed he often sold many other stolen items to other donors and dealers before they ended up at the museum. Latchford was indicted in 2019 by federal prosecutors in New York, who accused him of trafficking in looted Cambodian relics and of falsifying documents. The indictment was dismissed after Latchford’s death the following year at 88....

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/7/russia-and-myanmar-start-first-maritime-exercises Myanmar and Russia have drawn closer since the February 2021 coup, which triggered a violent crisis that has killed nearly 4,200 civilians and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. Moscow, itself isolated on the global stage since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has become a major supplier of weapons and equipment to the Myanmar military. The first Myanmar-Russia Maritime Security Exercise (MARUMEX) involves ships and aircraft and is being held in seas 85 nautical miles (157 km) west of Myeik from November 7 to 9.

Yes, for you! You've now got your panties on backwards, upside down, and slightly soiled now. 😘 You didn't seem to understand the wording of my very clear post. So you added "Anymore" with an asterisk, which misrepresents what I said. And yeah, please don't deny that the * Anymore referred to me. It was pretty obvious in the context of the back-and-forth in the thread. Fourth-Grade English Lesson "Anymore" means "no longer," and that's pretty much the opposite of what I described in my post about my visits to Thailand. I know you still won't understand, but that's okay. You got it wrong.

Just as I thought. You added the word "anymore," which is a marker in English for a specific verb tense. And, as I've told you, it is NOT the tense that I used in the post that bothered you so much. 😘 This is not going well for you! 🤡

And who added the * Anymore 😉?

You pretty much either neglected to read -- or didn't understand -- the details of my response. Or maybe you just never learned about English verb tenses. But you did your cut & paste with consummate skill. 🤓

Your reading comprehension skills are a bit rusty. Try again? 😘

I visit Langkawi during my stays in Malaysia. I've never gone to Langkawi directly from Thailand. But I assume that one would get a Malaysian visa-on-arrival stamp when landing in Langkawi via ferry or plane from Thailand.

I first visited Thailand in 1971. I've been back about 10 or 12 times since then. I do visit massage spas where I'm happy to see what's on offer and make my choice. That's one massage for every trip. I don't think I've ever been to Patpong or other Silom-area amusement shops. 😎 I visit local universities to see friends and colleagues. I go to museums and temples. I go to Chiang Mai and Isaan and occasionally visit an island or two (I prefer Langkawi). I see lots of performances of Thai music and dance. I eat all over the place wherever I am. I've never been to a Foodland in Thailand. Most of my transactions and hangling take place in markets and shops. 🤓 What else can I tell you?

Thanks for defining the essence of sex tourism: the economics of lust. I'm not surprised that you see it as completely transactional.

What type of "diversity" is that precisely?

Many of these guys here are super-starved and ultra-obsessed with wringing every last drop💧every time they leave their hotel. I doubt they know much more about the cities they visit other than where the cheapest food and best ATMs are. And of course the dreary, pathetic go-go bars and saunas for "offing". I respect and admire your knowledge of Asia and your expertise in writing about your life and travels. In contrast, I merely laugh at those who describe how they go from one boy to another and then to yet another during the course of a single day. They seem to think that, with each cheap sexual encounter, they're accumulating points and miles toward their next trip. 🤡 They get absolutely no points for mocking your choices -- or anyone else's.

In this case, the assailants apparently knew the journalist they attacked. No foreign tourists were attacked. In Brazil, "everyone talks about" assailants who attack foreign tourists (and locals) whom they don't know.

Online jokes are typically accompanied by emoji. Or maybe an exclamation point. Your "joke" was a regular old sentence ending with a period... full stop. Although it might have been a "joke" in your mind, that's now how it landed.

We know that he rides horses for the same reason! 🐎

That's because you weren't living in traditional Bali. And because they knew you were a part-time visitor. And maybe because "the guys on Kuta beach" weren't all Balinese. It's not a question typically asked in Jakarta or Java or Sumatra, where lots of Indonesian "expats" in Bali come from. However, I can definitely assure you that Balinese people -- even in Kuta and Sanur -- will ask "Have you bathed yet?" (in either Balinese or Indonesian) in the late afternoons. As soon as I arrived in Bali for the first time, the hotel's Balinese cooks and houseboys knew I could speak Indonesian and Balinese and was going to be there for a period of years. Henceforth, I was invariably greeted with that question first thing in the morning as well as before dinner. Even today it's a standard greeting at the appropriate times. In Bali, I'm pretty sure that you've been asked both "Mau kemana?" and "Dari mana?" 😎

You don't seem to understand GDP. It includes manufacturing -- especially military arms and weapons, as well as all other spending on war. But how's the wartime economy doing for average Russians? Can you show that the following statements are incorrect? Facts, please. https://www.eurotopics.net/en/311865/how-is-the-russian-economy-really-faring Arms don't improve living standards Economics professor Konstantin Sonin explains in Novaya Gazeta Europe why living standards in Russia are only improving on paper: The 'GDP growth' that experts are currently discussing is a statistical fiction ... Under normal circumstances, a rise in the GDP per capita also shows how much the standards of living have improved. ... In wartime, these indicators diverge. ... This is because the tanks produced here which are burning outside Avdiivka in Ukraine or the missiles fired at Ukrainian cities are included in the GDP, but do not improve the living standards of Russians. If, instead of these things, it was computers or cars that were being manufactured, or dentists and sports coaches that were providing their services, this would actually have an impact on the standard of living. Eggs instead of chicken In a post on Facebook, journalist Anatoly Nesmiyan explains that there is a shortage of foreign currency in Russia: According to the official reports everything is fine, GDP is growing, unemployment is falling, people's incomes are going through the roof - but in real life, people are fighting over eggs, because even the cheapest chicken is no longer affordable for a considerable part of the population. You can go on lying unthinkingly for a long time, and the lies will be believed. But when the TV is switched off, everything looks the way it is. A raw materials-based economic model is risky in itself. But when the leadership has managed to break off relations with all major buyers of export goods and switch to random ones, it's no wonder that the sources of foreign currency are drying up.