What Changes Would Greg Make if He Was in Charge of Bangkok? [S8.E24]

Greg 00:00:05 On this episode, we finish our series on what we'd do if we were in charge of Bangkok for a day.

Ed 00:00:11 So if you've ever wondered what the city would look like if Greg were in charge, you'll dig this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg 00:00:32 So this is the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Bangkok in 2001 on a mission to hoard those sweet, sweet 50 bought notes and open a grey market bank that only gives change in 50s. And I'm still hoarding.

Ed 00:00:48 Man 50 are they are like gold.

Greg 00:00:51 Going right here. See that? See that?

Ed 00:00:53 Love it. Love it.

Greg 00:00:54 Love it.

Ed 00:00:55 And I made Knuth an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 25 years ago, I fell in love with trying to come up with theories to explain why you couldn't buy alcohol. Between the hours of 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. in Thailand. So I never left.

Greg 00:01:10 Well, now they've repealed the law. I guess you don't have to worry about it.

Greg 00:01:12 You can go home.

Ed 00:01:13 It's still a mystery. So the mystery. Why? Why you were never able to buy booze between 2 and 5. But yes, today, as we talked about on the bonus show, today is the very first day where they repealed this 50 year old law. So good riddance. I say.

Greg 00:01:30 Guess what I'm doing tomorrow between the hours of two and five?

Ed 00:01:33 There you go. You're going to go to 7-Eleven. You're going to buy booze.

Greg 00:01:36 Now. I'll be sitting in front of computer at work, typing away. But after that, goodbye booze.

Ed 00:01:41 All right. We want to give a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics on this week's bonus show.

Ed 00:02:07 We chatted about the sudden but very welcome change, nay, abolishment, of the five decade old law prohibiting buying alcohol between the hours of two and five. A report on Greg's visit to the Syrian Elephant Festival last week. A check in and our health status before both of us attempt the vertical marathon on December 14th. And a very queasy news of the weird that just so happened to be something that I experienced myself. To learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff. Plus full access to over 800 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.

Greg 00:02:46 That's right. And like we always say, if you have a comment to show idea or just want to say hi, head to Bangkok Podcast. Click the little microphone button on the bottom right and leave us a voicemail. We'll play that on the show. And also, don't forget if you are out and about in Bangkok and see a CA Bangkok podcast sticker. Take a picture. Send us three pictures of three different stickers and we will send you a pretty nice gift if I do say so myself.

Greg 00:03:07 We got a comment from our pal B.K. Vuk on Discord, who's saying, by the way, I still haven't seen a sticker around town and I.

Ed 00:03:13 Haven't even seen one.

Greg 00:03:15 Haven't even seen one. And I tell him I'm well, you gotta get around more, man. I've been putting him up all over the place.

Ed 00:03:19 Gotta keep looking. You just gotta keep looking.

Greg 00:03:21 All right, well, in this episode, we are doing the sequel to episode 54 of season seven. On that episode, way back in January of 2025, Ed pondered what he'd do if he was in charge of Thailand, whether by some legal loophole or straight up magic. He came up with some ideas that, in his opinion, would make life a little bit easier for everyone who lives here. And now, just under a year later, it is my turn. So I've put together eight things that have caught my eye over the past little while that I think would be a big step forward in everything from city living to the environment, to giving people what they want massages.

Greg 00:03:57 So you got that right. This is a good idea of yours. And it's funny. If we could snap our fingers and be in charge for a day, what we would change. And, I mean, of course I would put $1 billion in my bank account first, but that's not what we're focusing on. We want to drill down a little bit and talk specifically about changes we'd make to Bangkok.

Ed 00:04:18 I can't even remember. What. I can't even remember what mine were now. Now, did you know. Did you copy any of mine?

Greg 00:04:25 No. Actually, you know what, I didn't. I'm too lazy. I didn't have time to go back and listen to the episode. I don't remember, you did. I don't remember either. But I'm sure they all made sense out there.

Ed 00:04:34 Genius. I'm sure, I'm sure.

Greg 00:04:36 But listeners, if you want to go back and listen to that episode, like I said, episode 54 of season seven, which was in January, I think of 2025.

Greg 00:04:44 So, yeah, I've got eight things. And, you know, not all of them are earthshaking. None of them are going to change the world. But I would like to see these implemented in some shape or form. And I'm just going to go through the list and add, you're going to give me your feedback and tell me if I'm right or even more right. Sure. Yeah. All right. Well, this is something that I've wanted to do for a long time, and it would be a significant investment, but I think it would really, really help a lot of people. I think that they should put bike lanes underneath all of the BTS and electric train lines. Elevated train lines.

Ed 00:05:19 Okay. What do you mean? What do you mean, under the BTS? You don't mean on the ground, you mean so an elevated bike lane?

Greg 00:05:24 Well, that's why it would be a significant investment. Because once you get further out of town, some of the train lines go over like dirt roads or even just grass or something like that.

Greg 00:05:34 So those can be on the ground. But obviously once you get in town, you wouldn't be able to do it over every, every single kilometer of the train line, but where you can. I think it's unused real estate. Why not put a two lane bike path underneath the footprint of the.

Ed 00:05:50 I think it would be awesome. I, I, I totally agree with this. Obviously in certain places, in many places downtown you have walkways under the BTS. So if you can have walkways, you could have bike lanes. so I agree, you know, I feel like the city very slowly gets more friendly for bikers. Both you and I are bikers. I'm not quite as avid as you are, but, I like it. I like making the city more bike friendly because it basically, it's it's very dangerous for bicycles in the city because there are not great bike lanes everywhere. Like I said, it's getting better. The green mile, the Green Mile is now opening up, to to have a longer straight bike path.

Ed 00:06:36 There's been some change. There's been some changes to the bike lanes along, Khlong San SAP. but yeah, man, if they put them under the BTS, that would be sweet. I, I say I vote yes.

Greg 00:06:49 Yeah, I think so too. And you know, they every every few years some politician comes out with a big push to make Bike Bangkok more bike friendly. But none of it matters if they still restrict the hours with which within which you can take the trains, with which you can take the bikes on the train. And right now you can take bikes on the train. It's ridiculous. It's like between 6 and 8 a.m. and like nine and 11 p.m. or something like it doesn't make any sense at all. It's totally useless. It might as well not even exist. So until they change those laws, there's got to be something else. And I figure since we're not allowed to take our bikes on the trains, why not take them underneath the trains?

Ed 00:07:25 I'm with you, man.

Ed 00:07:25 I'm with you right now.

Greg 00:07:27 The second one. I don't know, this is just an idea I have. This would probably take a lot of time and effort to implement, but I think that a percentage of revenue from ticketing for traffic and civil violations would go into police to go back into police department budgets for equipment, road safety programs and community education, but never into an officer's salary. What do you think of that?

Ed 00:07:54 I like it, I, I've always hated. you know, this happens in the States, too, where the police sometimes get a windfall. You know, like if they bust a bunch of drug dealers and seize money, sometimes that local department gets a windfall from that, and I it's never been clear to me if officers are compensated, like, I don't think officers should get bonuses for that. But like you said, if they could use the revenue to improve facilities, improve training and improve education, I would agree with that. But I wonder if they you know, this actually doesn't sound like that of an extreme idea.

Ed 00:08:34 Are you sure they don't do some of this already? I mean, where does the revenue go from traffic tickets? Maybe. Maybe it already goes into the police budget.

Greg 00:08:43 That's a that's a very good point. And it may very well do that. I might just be speaking out of my ass here, but. But originally I thought that because, two things. Two things are true here. First of all, is that, like, you know, in Canada, if you break the law and a cop sees you, he'll stop you. It doesn't matter what his beat is. He's a law enforcement officer, and he's right here. It's like a traffic cop is not going to stop someone for like, you know, you know, they're not they're not going to stray outside of their boundaries. They're their main, you know, they're only a traffic cop. And the second thing is that police are very underpaid here. So originally I thought we should put the revenue generated from ticketing back into the policeman salary.

Greg 00:09:23 But then I thought about it a bit more and I was like, nah, that's just ripe for corruption. Yeah, but I did a little bit of digging. And there are countries like Canada, Singapore and Korea are three standouts. So what they do is they basically put the money back into budgets for improving the city. And ChatGPT gave me this sentence. It says this creates an incentive to enforce laws properly without encouraging predatory behavior. Police rewards are tied to metrics like fewer accidents, increased response times and perceived safety by people in their neighborhoods, but not by how many tickets are issued. So if you tie these these rewards to good measurements, then that's the incentive for police to be sort of more on the ball.

Ed 00:10:11 Right. It's a little bit too risky to make it a volume business, because then then they're going to be ticky tacky about it. And, and, you know, like, like you said, predatory, which you don't want that.

Greg 00:10:24 Right. Exactly, exactly. And that's funny as as I was talking back and forth with ChatGPT about this, it was like flashing red warning, warning, warning never tie police bonuses to the number of tickets issued.

Greg 00:10:36 This is bad, bad, bad. Yes. Yeah.

Ed 00:10:40 No, I like it, I like it. I, I think there's a chance Thailand could be doing it, but if not, it does sound like a good idea.

Greg 00:10:47 Yeah, it may very well already be in place. And maybe it's an even better system than what I came up with. So if it is, then bonus. the third one is very similar, but it's for polluters now. I put this list together over the past few months, and I put in a similar system for polluters where if you're caught polluting the environment based on several factors, then you have to pay a fine, which then gets put back into things like, you know, beautification projects, tree planting, park upkeep and stuff like that. But funnily enough, this sort of just happened with Thailand's Clean Air Bill, which came into effect in November of 2025, which was just last month. And it's there's still some some dickering and some dithering back and forth over how it's going to be implemented and how powerfully and things like that.

Greg 00:11:36 But the bill prescribes civil, criminal and administrative penalties, with fines as high as 50 million baht.

Ed 00:11:44 So basically they already they already took your advice.

Greg 00:11:48 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And they implemented it in a much more professional way. And, and it says that alternative disputes and compensation mechanisms are also built in to reduce litigation delays. So that's good. And you know, in previous shows I think we've had Kuwana from the Thailand Clean Air Network on two times. That's right. And she was heavily involved in this. Maybe we'll have her back on.

Ed 00:12:10 No, this sounds like a great. Sounds like a great idea. This is this is also kind of a no brainer.

Greg 00:12:14 Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. Like, if you're a polluter, then you have to pay for. And it's not just paying a fine because, you know, if you're a giant company and you're fined, you know, $5 million, then $5 million just becomes the fee for breaking those laws, you know?

Ed 00:12:28 Right.

Ed 00:12:28 That's exactly right. Sure.

Greg 00:12:29 You know, but if the fee, the fee becomes higher and it's pushed back into city beautification projects. Win, win.

Ed 00:12:37 Agreed? Agreed.

Greg 00:12:38 Yeah. The fourth one is a huge investment in Bangkok's sidewalks.

Ed 00:12:46 Okay, before we get into this. So my immediate thought is, is there really enough space, like on many streets, that there's almost no sidewalks? But what can you do about that? If there's no if there's literally no space?

Greg 00:13:02 Yeah, that's a good point. Like, you know, I remember when we did our neighborhood focused episodes, we were talking about re where I used to live. And sometimes there's, there's no sidewalks. It's just like your shoulders rubbing a brick wall and cars are flying by your other shoulder, you know.

Ed 00:13:16 Right. so that's also true in, you know, the hip. What is it? Song. What? The song. What neighborhood? It's super narrow, super narrow sidewalks there. And so it's just packed with people, but it's all single file, so I'm not sure.

Ed 00:13:30 I'm not sure there's much you can do with that, but. But you're right. Even in areas where there's enough space for sidewalks, they're often in pretty bad, like disrepair.

Greg 00:13:41 Right. And it never used to bother me, honestly. But now I'm getting a little bit older, a little bit more frail in my old age. you know, I can easily roll an ankle. I actually, one of my colleagues just rolled her ankle the other day, and she's been on, you know, hobbling around the office for a week.

Ed 00:13:56 Just it happens to me. it happens to me once or twice a year. I haven't had a really bad one, but like a minor ankle twist that happens to me once or twice a year.

Greg 00:14:06 Right now, the interesting thing is, is that, our buddy James Clark at Future Southeast Asia, former guest on the show, and a good friend of mine, he's written a whole series of articles about the benefits that an expansive, reliable sidewalk network brings to a city.

Greg 00:14:23 And he was talking in his blog posts about how it's not a quick fix, it's a multi-year or even, he said, a generational improvement. So it's like a long term strategy. Very cool.

Ed 00:14:34 Yeah, well, anything that made, you know, the thing about sidewalks, obviously, is they create more neighborhoods or allows people to walk more easily, which which is just make things more, community driven.

Greg 00:14:50 Exactly. And so I went through some of his newsletters and I, and I summed it up and I said, sidewalks signal a city that values people, not just cars. They promote human interaction, exploration, and time spent exploring more than just passing through. They increase economic activity, safety, inclusive access and are a low cost way to improve overall quality of life.

Ed 00:15:13 Agreed. Great idea.

Greg 00:15:14 I think it's good. number five, I know you're going to have a lot to say about this. Pretty easy. Just get rid of the Saturn. The coins.

Ed 00:15:22 Agree 100%. This is great.

Ed 00:15:24 I mean, where all these ideas are good and I feel. Did I mention this song? Like, I hate the US penny? I remember, I remember when I was in law school, basically 30 years ago, I was arguing with, with my fellow students about how the US should get rid of the penny. I was I was on that bandwagon 30 years ago. The Saturn is is is so small and it's basically worthless.

Greg 00:15:52 Yeah. there's for those that don't know, there's two coins, there's two Saturn coins, there's a 0.5 bot and a 0.25 bot.

Ed 00:15:58 That's at one point they both need to be eliminated.

Greg 00:16:02 Yeah, 0.25 bot that wouldn't even buy you like a shoelace. Like it's.

Ed 00:16:06 It's.

Greg 00:16:06 Just such a tiny amount of money I don't understand. Yeah. Get rid of it. Get rid of them.

Ed 00:16:11 Get rid of them.

Greg 00:16:12 And number six is something that I've wanted for a long time. And I'm really sensitive to this. And my son actually is especially sensitive to this kind of stuff, which is funny.

Greg 00:16:20 He's like Wolverine in this regard. But if we if we call a taxi or a grab or if I'd call a taxi or grab and I open the door and the guy has just put out a cigarette like I hate, it reeks, stinks. So I would like to put a no smoking option in the grab app or on any taxi hailing apps.

Ed 00:16:41 Interesting. I've got a buddy who is super sensitive to smoke as well. I think because I grew up with two parents who smoked in the house. Yeah, that I developed. I, you probably probably shaved ten years off my life, but it doesn't particularly. It doesn't particularly bother me. But you're certainly right on principle, and there are a lot of sensitive people out there.

Greg 00:17:04 Yeah, me included. And it doesn't it doesn't, like, affect me like in my allergies. Don't act up or anything. I just think it's reeks. Like you might as well just let a rip or fart go before someone gets in the car. It's the same effect.

Greg 00:17:14 Like, I just I get in and I'm like, oh God, it just stinks so bad. And then it gets on my clothes and stuff. Like, the guy doesn't even have to be smoking, but it's very, very noticeable. So I would.

Ed 00:17:24 You would.

Greg 00:17:24 Think it'd be like poop.

Ed 00:17:26 I think you should make a suggestion. I mean, this seems it seems common sense to me.

Greg 00:17:31 Yeah, I think so. You can grab you can ask for a female driver, can't you?

Ed 00:17:36 I think that's right. I think you can.

Greg 00:17:38 Yeah. Little side note. Years ago, when I was taking the buses to get to to get to work every day, I was standing on the side of waiting for a bus one time, and a bus pulls up my bus and I get on, and the guy pushed me off and I was like, oh, what the hell? I'm like, what is this racist bullshit, right? Like immediately went to that, right? And so I got all mad and I was talking to someone and they're like, oh, it was probably a women only bus.

Ed 00:18:02 I didn't even know they had that.

Greg 00:18:03 I don't know if they do still. But back. This was this was 20 years ago. Like back then they did. And I saw the same bus again. And there was a sign on the front that I didn't even notice the first time, and it said Lady Bus.

Ed 00:18:14 Oh, wow. Yeah. I didn't I've never I've actually never seen that. That's funny.

Greg 00:18:18 Yeah, I just I stepped on the guy. I was like, nope. And pushed me off. Or the woman, I guess there was no man on the bus.

Ed 00:18:23 So they're not racist. They're not racist. They just hate men.

Greg 00:18:27 Yeah, that's better, isn't it?

Ed 00:18:29 It was a radical feminist bus.

Greg 00:18:31 We probably deserved it anyway. No smoking in grab or taxi healings. man, we're going through these quite quick. number seven, free or very cheap massage chairs in shopping malls.

Ed 00:18:46 Well, I'm, I love massages. I like massage chairs, but what would be the incentive? So obviously this is a good thing.

Ed 00:18:53 You know, it's a good thing. But what's the incentive to to give this way? Why does it matter?

Greg 00:18:58 Well, I put this in here for a few reasons. First of all, I think Thailand's public spaces really lack places to sit BTS stations, subway stations, malls. And if they do have places to sit, there's not enough of them. And they're usually crappy hard plastic chairs.

Ed 00:19:14 So yeah, I think that's true. A lot of the malls, obviously they have seating, they'll have seating in the food court, but basically almost nowhere else. So this happens to me in the in a mall, if I'm tired, if I want to sit down or I have to message someone and it's you're right, it's hard to find a place to sit down, right?

Greg 00:19:30 And I'm a fairly I wouldn't say I'm fit, but I'm I'm an active overweight guy. But I'm but I've got I've got back problems. I've got disc problems in my back and I can I can walk all day.

Greg 00:19:42 But one thing that really kills my back is standing. If I stand for 30 minutes, I'm in a lot of pain without moving. And what What eases that is sitting down. I sit down for five, five, ten minutes and I'm fine. I'm good to go. But a lot of times I'm. I'm walking around malls. I'm standing waiting for my wife or my son or whatever, and my back is killing me and there's just no places to sit.

Ed 00:20:06 Agreed.

Greg 00:20:06 Now that, plus the fact that I'm not a big massage guy, but I do love a good massage chair. And I figured that if you put free.

Ed 00:20:17 So you like the chair, you like the chairs more than a physical massage by a person.

Greg 00:20:22 Yeah. Because for me it's twofold. A like it lets me sit down and take the weight off my back and also it, it's, it, it's it's a nice relaxing massage which I enjoy. I don't enjoy the real massages for some reason, but but anyway, so I think that malls should see this as an investment.

Greg 00:20:40 And I again I put this into ChatGPT and I said what benefit would this bring to a mall? And summarizing what it replied, it said it would let people relax and spend more time in the mall. It brings people into lesser trafficked areas of the mall, increases feelings of hospitality, and adds a lifestyle and health element to a mall visit while taking care of seniors and those with mobility issues, which sadly probably includes me for standing room.

Ed 00:21:05 I like it, I'm a huge massage guy, so I couldn't argue with free or cheap massage chairs.

Greg 00:21:11 Yeah, like I said, mall should think of it as an investment in keeping its patrons comfortable and in general longer where they can spend more money.

Ed 00:21:18 That's right. And Thais do love malls.

Greg 00:21:20 Another win win. And my last one is something that occurred to me while I was up at the Elephant Festival. And, you know, we've all seen elephants in zoos. We've seen elephants in Thailand. They're a bit easier to find here. But, I mean, if Thailand is really serious about promoting its soft power around the world, they should put a lot of emphasis onto a national program of tree planting specifically to rehabilitate wild elephant habitats.

Ed 00:21:52 I don't know much. I know they have wild elephant habitats. But you think there's a shortage of these or there's not enough?

Greg 00:21:59 I'm sure they do. And I'm sure there are people who are promoting that. And maybe they are even initiatives in place to rebuild wild elephants habitats, which is which is a great thing, but I just think it should be a bit more structured and a bit more focused on the soft power thing, because they want to do the soft power thing. You use elephants, man, like they used to be on our favourite Thai flag. Right? The elephant is, you know.

Ed 00:22:22 It's funny. It's funny you brought this up, because obviously it's a good thing that there are not elephants in the city anymore. Like there were back in the day when we got here. So there's no doubt that's a there's no doubt that's a good thing, but it does actually take them out of your mind. You know, it's like you have to go fairly far outside the city. You know, it's not like it's just I don't think about them as much anymore.

Ed 00:22:49 So you're right. If they had more elephant habitats. Elephant like refuge. And like, even if they were just, like, outside of Bangkok. But you could go see elephants like you saw in Surin, right? That would be cool. obviously, there's a lot of elephant conservation, and Thai people love elephants. but I do feel like they've kind of receded into the background to some extent.

Greg 00:23:15 Oh, that's an interesting take. Yeah, I never thought of that. Out of sight. Out of mind. Right.

Ed 00:23:19 Yeah. so. But you're right. It is. It is a type of soft power.

Greg 00:23:24 Yeah, I think so. And it would be good for the elephants. It'd be good for the environment. It'd be good for tourism dollars. It would. It would make Thailand look great. Like, who doesn't love a country investing in natural habitats to, you know, prop up the environments of their national animal?

Ed 00:23:38 So I agree with all eight of these things. We just need about $10 billion to do it.

Greg 00:23:44 Yeah. And of course me in charge, which are.

Ed 00:23:47 Two.

Greg 00:23:48 Two fairly significant barriers. I do have one last bonus point that I want to talk about. And again, this is utilizing the Pts and the elevator train systems. I think that they should put some money into painting the underside of the train tracks.

Ed 00:24:07 I think we have mentioned this before. I like graffiti and I realize graffiti and and kind of urban art. It does have to be regulated. It can be. It can be out of control. It can be foul. It can be rude. So it would have to be regulated. And, I think you for it to be a real community thing, you would have to have some. I'm not sure you want to have things like. Part of it is that you want it to be recycled or have new artists do stuff. So you'd have to you'd have to come up with some kind of system, but there's so much blank space. Yeah, it's really on all of those.

Ed 00:24:47 You're right. It's just solid cement. Gray cement.

Greg 00:24:50 Right. Miles of gray cement where nothing grows underneath because it's blocking off those just cement over top of dirt.

Ed 00:24:58 That's right.

Greg 00:24:59 Or a bike path. But I figure, like, while these pieces are at the construction yard or whatever, waiting to be installed or put into place, have some kind of program where you get notable artists or graffiti artists and come out for sure, and they can do it. And once they're put in place, it's not like like some random street tagger can get a ladder and climb 30m up to the bottom of it and paint over it like.

Ed 00:25:21 Yeah, I see your point. I was thinking, yeah, I get your point. they are actually pretty hard to access. So you maybe you would have to. Maybe you would have to paint them, as part of the construction process. But it would it would definitely make the city look a lot better.

Greg 00:25:36 Right. I'm not saying it would be super beautiful, but it would at least be a bit more colorful and a bit more.

Greg 00:25:42 Yeah, just take a bit. It's like an anti drab measure.

Ed 00:25:47 I like that anti drop. That's that. That can be your slogan. If you become a politician.

Greg 00:25:52 Greg I like to drop the anti drab governor.

Ed 00:25:57 That's great dude. these ideas are I don't I, I almost, I almost said they're better than I thought they would be. Thanks, mate. but no, really, these are these are all good ideas.

Greg 00:26:11 Yeah. All right, well, I will start my election campaign as soon as that citizenship comes through and we'll get started.

Ed 00:26:16 That's right. I think in my memory, I think mine were more political. Didn't I talk about stuff like building prisons and stuff? I think I mentioned building prisons.

Greg 00:26:25 Oh, God, yes, I remember that was one to all. Also, all great suggestions.

Ed 00:26:29 All right, well, maybe we can, we can basically the Bangkok Podcast. Maybe it'll be one of those. Governor for a month. The Bangkok Podcast will take over the Bangkok governorship for a month.

Ed 00:26:39 Will be a team governors.

Greg 00:26:42 Oh, nice. Alright. Our theme song could be Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. We were born to read. All right, let's do something we call. Would you rather wear one of us picks? Two contrasting situations tied to Thailand to debate and choose which one we'd prefer. And I'm going to ask you something pretty straightforward this week. Now you're from Ohio, which is pretty close to Canada. Does it touch Canada?

Ed 00:27:04 Well, there's a lake in between, so Lake Erie is in between. So cross the lake. So if you got on a boat and went across the lake, then it would touch. So it touches water that touches Canada.

Greg 00:27:16 Right. But half way at the Canadian border, the water immediately turns into ice. So you'd have to.

Ed 00:27:20 That's right. And people are playing hockey and drinking maple syrup. It's really weird.

Greg 00:27:24 So you know what a cold winter is like I do. Yeah. And I do two of Canada and it ain't fun.

Greg 00:27:30 I still have PTSD about getting out of the shower and putting my foot onto some cold tiles and starting up your car, and it goes, oh, it just sucks. Anyway, so in Canada and Ohio, I imagine there's probably several weeks of the year, maybe even longer, where it's just really unsafe to be outside for any stretch of time. The mirror to that is that right now in Bangkok, the air quality is not very good. It's also generally considered unsafe to be outside or being exercising outside for any stretch of time. So my question is, would you rather live in an environment where you are are encouraged to stay inside because of cold, or encouraged to stay inside because of pollution?

Ed 00:28:14 Oh wow. This is actually a tough one because I've mentioned before that I've gotten totally used to living in warm weather, and last year when I was back in December, I had a great time. The snow was beautiful, but I hated the cold. Like, I've just become a I become a wimp, you know, like like someone who grew up in Florida.

Ed 00:28:33 That's how I feel now. but I also have bad allergies. And the last couple of days, the air quality has been horrible and my nose has been running. So this is a tough call. I think I would probably choose the cold only because I, I fear, I fear that Bangkok pollution is is shaving years off my life. You know what it's like.

Greg 00:28:58 Yeah.

Ed 00:28:59 I'm afraid. I'm just afraid. I'm breathing in smog and pollutants and PM 2.5. And so I definitely enjoy being here better, even if the pollution is bad. I hate the cold now, but but it's just the the air pollution. I think it it's it's poison, man. We're breathing in poison.

Greg 00:29:21 Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I can't argue with that. But it's also like all of the associated things that come with like, even if you are breathing in poison, you can still live life normally, like all that's right. All the activities, all the social events, everything they all take, most of them take place indoors and it all continues as normal.

Ed 00:29:39 So we're going to live a shorter life. But it will be more fun here, right?

Greg 00:29:43 But all the associated knock on effects of winter. Like traffic accidents, it takes you longer to get anywhere. True that you can't go outside as well.

Ed 00:29:52 I mean, I have I have voted with my feet. So I do live here and I don't want to go back there. There was like like during that, the, the air pollution apocalypse, whenever that was like 6 or 7 years ago. Right. It almost got so bad in Bangkok that I thought I might have to leave, but luckily it's gone. Yeah, luckily it's gotten a little bit better since then, but man, we've been in a bad spell the last, last few days.

Greg 00:30:17 This one's really hard for me. Actually, I would probably choose to live in cold as well because you just switch to your winter mode and life can continue, but it's less enjoyable and then less easy to avoid.

Ed 00:30:32 Yeah. I mean, you know, yeah, it's really an impossible question.

Ed 00:30:35 I mean, I'm, I've, I've basically by living here, I've already I've already voted for warm weather and I've been putting up with I'm putting up with air pollution. But air pollution is just it's where air pollution is worse than cold weather. But. But living. Living in cold weather, with all the stuff that you've mentioned is definitely worse than being in Bangkok.

Greg 00:30:56 This is a real. This is a real coin flip. This one.

Ed 00:30:59 Yeah.

Greg 00:31:00 Nice.

Ed 00:31:01 but I would probably choose the cold for health. For health reasons.

Greg 00:31:04 Yeah, yeah, probably me too. But I wouldn't like it.

Ed 00:31:07 That's right. Alrighty. A final thanks to our patrons who support the show patrons. Got a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. Where Bangkok podcast on social media Bangkok podcast. Com on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages.

Greg 00:31:33 That's right. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website that will feature on the show. Find me on blue Sky VK. Greg. Thank you for listening folks, and we will see you back here next week.

Ed 00:31:44 No doubt. A boom baby. And I'm watching The Beatles Anthology, which is an old documentary that got refurbished and the audio cleaned up by Peter Jackson. And it's pretty. It's pretty damn good. I thought, you know, I think I saw it in the 90s, but it's been rereleased and upgraded. It's great.

Greg 00:32:35 You know, this is par for the course for me, and you're probably going to think I'm an ignoramus, a troglodyte even. But beyond there, there hits. I don't really get the Beatles. I understand why they are important, but they don't really appeal to me. I don't see any genius there.

Ed 00:32:52 I, there are some stars that I don't think they deserve the fame. And I might have gone through a phase like that with the Beatles, but I'm now I'm now on the Beatles bandwagon, you know, now, because I watched, you know, Peter Jackson did, another documentary about them that, you know, was a new one, I think, called Get Back that I loved.

Ed 00:33:16 And then so now I'm now I'm rewatching anthology. I think they deserve it. I think they're there. You know, Elvis, you can make a better argument is overrated. Just because he didn't write. I don't think he wrote any of his songs. so he's more of Elvis, really. Elvis is more of a a look and a character. But the Beatles were crazy good musicians and songwriters,

Greg 00:33:44 Even Ringo.

Ed 00:33:44 Ringo. he didn't write a lot of songs, but he wrote some. But he could sing. They all could sing. George Harrison wrote, something, you know, something in the way she moves. Which which a lot of it. A lot of people consider that their favorite Beatles song was about George Harrison, really. And like, the sheer number of hits they have is is shocking. I mean, they have they have.

Greg 00:34:09 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Ed 00:34:10 30 like, totally memorable songs that everyone on planet Earth knows. Like 30.

Greg 00:34:18 Sure. Twist and shout is one of my all my favorite songs.

Greg 00:34:22 And, you know, a couple of those really love Hey Jude and a few others. But beyond that, I'm just kind of shrugging at them.

Ed 00:34:28 Okay. You are a Philistine, but that's.

Greg 00:34:31 Yeah, Philistine. Yeah, it's from the same guy that shrugs his shoulders at The Godfather and Big Lebowski as well. So my track record is not great. All right.