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These days seats are difficult to come by. But I did just book Bangkok to Washington using Avianca Lifemiles on THAI and United via Zurich. 90K miles plus $100 taxes and fees for one way business class is probably about the best you can get these days on this route. The problem is that they are difficult to find. I had to book a ticket paying cash for the outbound to get to Thailand - but Kuwait Airways is starting a new route to IAD in December so they have some good deals. I booked one way business class for about $2800 connecting in Kuwait of course. ANA's program has a distance based award chart still. I think from DC to BKK is about 95K miles (business class) in their program but seats are tough to find. There is a site called awardnexus.com that allow you to do a search by airline alliance but it is very slow. This site called travelcodex has a chart that shows how many miles are required to book flights between a city pair on various programs. I am not sure how up to date the information is though. https://www.travelcodex.com/award-maximizer/ They also have "tips and tricks" https://www.travelcodex.com/tips-tricks-and-useful-tools-for-award-travel/ It's very US-centric though. There are also award booking services that will do it for you - for a fee of course. But it might be worthwhile. I know there used to be another similar site but I can't remember what it's called. Personally I just spend a lot of time searching on my own. I have a big stash of Avianca miles because they are relatively cheap to buy in bulk. But it is definitely more difficult to find seats than it used to be. I search their site for Star Alliance airlines. I search American Airlines for OneWorld flights. I search FlyingBlue/AirFrance for Skyteam, but they usually want a crazy amount of miles and lots of money for their tickets. I will also search Delta and Alaska since I have a decent number of miles in those accounts. Those of us in the US are lucky in that you can accumulate lots of transferrable credit card points which can be moved to many different programs. The various air miles blogs can be helpful. I have been reading onemileatatime for a long time. https://onemileatatime.com/guides/ I don't think there's any magic bullet. You just have to poke around doing searches in the various programs.

Twitter is full of gorgeous, ripped Chinese guys with big cocks. Almost makes me want to go there....almost. I'm not surprised that queer women would find a home in Bangkok. I see lots of Tom/Dee couples every time I am in the city.

I just have Chrome set to always translate sites into English. You may need to install the Google Translate extension for that to work automatically. Heroes has a lot more nudity on their site than most of these other places

so finally a train connection to Impact Arena and the convention center? I'll have to look at the all-line map to see how this integrates with the rest of the system

Ha! You will definitely get the questions about your marital status and whether you are traveling alone. I stayed at a nice little place near Anuradhapura that had very cute staff. One of them was quizzing me with those questions one day and I couldn't quite figure out if he was trying to tell me something. I thought he was adorable and would have definitely been interested in some hanky panky. But they probably have to be careful about fraternizing with the guests. I think the staff were all hospitality students getting experience. It's a beautiful country and I see they are getting back on their feet after their economic meltdown.

I went to Indonesia many years ago now...almost a decade I think. Contacted on Grindr as you say. Met up with one Grindr guy and completely didn't get that he was a MB until it was too late. Felt a bit sheepish afterwards. I liked Bali. Loved central Java for a variety of reasons.

I have seen some mention that the current airport is operating over capacity. But "the Thai Cement Manufacturers Association (TCMA) is set to spearhead the construction of the terminal’s first phase." makes it sound like a boondoggle for sure

At this point I believe you are only able to use contactless credit cards in Tokyo on some subway lines. So it's not universal yet. Glad I kept my Pasmo card

The best advice I see from well-informed people is to take your time when it comes to choosing a place to retire. Spend a few months first before you make a permanent decision on where to live. Do you speak Thai? Will you be planning to learn? I think it's easier to get by with English only in the more tourist-oriented places like Bangkok, Pattaya or Phuket. Songkhla might be a little more challenging.

only works on MRT not BTS. Hopefully they'll update their systems too. I don't know if there are some cards it won't work with other than the fact that is must be a contactless enabled card which most credit cards seem to be these days - at least from American banks. It's great on MRT as you can avoid the lines at the ticket machines and just walk right to through gates.

the old town of LP is a UNESCO World Heritage site and thus cannot really change much. The changes would likely be on the other sides of the rivers from the town itself.

The whole country is just waiting to be discovered. I took a fantastic trip there several years ago now. Started with my second visit to LP and then flew down to Pakse from which I boarded the Vat Phou Mekong River cruise which was excellent. Then I spent a couple of days with a guide and driver visiting various places around central Laos. Beautiful waterfalls. It could be a great ecotourism destination if it had a little more tourism infrastructure in place. It's probably better now than it was 8 years ago. And I'll put in a plug for Big Brother Mouse which is based in LP. They publish books in Lao and some tribal languages to help kids learn to read. And they have opened several schools that offer a much richer education than the regulat state-run schools. www.bigbrothermouse.com If you're in the US they have a 501c3 arm here that makes your donations tax deductible. You can sponsor a book that is ready to be published or just general help.

I know this story is several months old. So we may have already discussed it here. But apparently penises have been getting bigger over the last 30 years. I wonder if there's an element of women choosing bigger guys to reproduce with. https://www.iflscience.com/human-penises-are-getting-bigger-at-a-fast-rate-but-that-might-not-be-a-good-thing-67566

Yes, I like to use the Google flights calendar for this purpose

It's always interesting to see how things go up and down quickly. I was poking around looking at December and saw some options for flights in and out of Toronto to BKK around US$3600 in business. But now they're back up closer to $5K

I guess he can get parole in a couple of months. So he might just stay in the cushy hospital until then

It does seem notable that the PM is doing these appearances to try and win people over. No VIP treatment boarding the plane in Phuket. Visiting the market to talk to the merchants and find out what their issues are. Riding the MRT with commuters. They know that they look terrible right now. I guess it seems inevitable that they will find some way to try and get rid of MFP. The people running the show are short-term thinkers. MFP need to be recruiting and identifying the next crop of leaders. The push for a citizen-led charter rewrite is worth watching. Clearly that's the last thing the generals and powers that be want to happen.

Lufthansa is reactivating all 8 of their A380s and will base them at Munich. BKK is among the destination they'll be using the aircraft for. In a search of flights last night I did note an A380 LH flight to BKK in December. Their reasoning is the travel recovery and the further delays to the B777X program https://onemileatatime.com/news/lufthansa-airbus-a380/

You can use the Rabbit card at some stores. I believe including 7/11. And if you started eating KFC you could use it there as well. And yes, many Asian cities allow you to use their IC cards in convenience stores and restaurants. MRT's implementation of contactless payment should also be possible to implement on the others. That is spreading to systems all over the world.

I think Singapore's status as a business hub has helped them be that connection just like HKG. Certainly they've also got better management - TG has been mismanaged for a long time. TG never was able to make USA flights work since it's seen as a leisure destination and they are long flights. You can get people willing to pay more for those long flights to SIN but not to BKK. I wonder how Air Canada is doing with their BKK-YVR route

while people in our age bracket may be there mainly for young locals, some people might be flattered to be approached by a handsome man even if he's not the sort of guy they are usually looking for. Surely some are there to discuss their stamp collections and world events

Emirates will probably scoop them up if they can rehab them. Given the pilot shortage I think there's still a place for them

looks like there are lots of new "luxury" buildings that have gone up over there since I was last in town. This channel has lots of tours

I'm sure all of those fuel subsidies encourage driving as well. But at least the public transit networks keep expanding. Compared to my first visit 17 years ago the network is huge and getting huger

capping fares at 20 baht might get some vehicles off the road, but they probably need to add some capacity as well since things are so crowded at peak times already