Re Photos. Although avatars can be downloaded here directly from a PC, they asked for an URL when I tried to put a picture in a post. It would be nice to be able to post pictures directly from one's own computer rather than having to put them onto another website host first! Is there a technical reason why they can't be uploaded directly onto this forum?

As for including other countries...it would be useful as Thailand is a major Asian travel hub and people often want to visit both LOS and a neighboring country. Perhaps just one general "Other SE Asian Countries" category to start off with? If it turns out that there's a particular demand for a certain country then you could always add new individual headings later.

Oh, BTW I find the forum pages are very slow to load most of the time...anyone else having this problem? Also I get automatically logged out after only a few minutes. What are the automatic logout time settings?