I have just joined the board. I am building (well. my local friends are building, I am paying for) a house in Ban Lao which is now nearing completion and will be finished when I get there in mid-July. I have visited the LOS including UT quite a bit, but never for more than 3-4 weeks at a time.
Now that I've retired (mostly) I will be spending more time in Ban Lao and UT with my friends, although I'll continue to call Australia home for now. I'll arrive in Mid July for a 3 month stay.
This is just to say hello really, and to say how glad I am that this board exists, a useful networking tool. It has already proved its worth in recent weeks as a source of more reliable background info about the "troubles".
Although I am an Australian, I started life as a Englishman and speak tolerable German and French, and so hope to evade the more obvious stereotyping both by me and others. I have a genuine affection for the Thai culture and am naturally moderate in my behaviour, this makes me able to hold both my liquor and my tongue. I've spent enough time in the usual fleshpots to be well over them, and have seen enough farangs of my age (and younger) behaving like spoiled simpletons not to want that going on around me.
Having said that, it's obvious from the posts here that there are some like-minded people in UT, and I look forward to meeting some of you later, perhaps I can shout you a drink (that's Ozspeak)
- is that another sexual minority group being attracted to Udon? 
