Assurancetourix

2 hours ago, transam said:

Diesel engine...?

of course since Isuzu only manufactures diesel engines;

it is also the world number 1;
this sedan is a Honda with an Isuzu diesel engine;
it is a factory assembly when Honda and Isuzu had an adventure in common.

54 minutes ago, transam said:

Was your Colorado here actually an Isuzu...?

And this car is a real Isuzu ;

why ?

( I remind you that Isuzu never made a sedan )

Photo shot in Khon Kaen 

13 hours ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

“How do military offers have any knowledge of tourism?”

It's bad language to write this ...
The soldiers are generally called far from their borders;
look at France, what is it doing in the Sahel in Africa? if not defend the borders of the country,?

Yes, it's true, our borders are very far ...
And the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier which is going to sail in the Pacific Ocean and returns with a third of its crew contaminated by the Covid.
And yes, you should not go down to the fiesta in Pattaya ....
I know, Pattaya is not at the edge of the Pacific ocean but they made a small detour for the "rest of the warrior" 

2 hours ago, kevin612 said:

It is impossible to end corruption because too many poor people and I believe corruption exists in most of the countries, like at least 90%.

You are absolutely right, whatever those who disapprove of you .

I will even go much further, Thailand still plays in the courtyard of kindergarten students compared to very many countries, including some in Europe such as France.

In Thailand it amounts to hundreds of millions of baht here and there.
In France it is in the tens of billions of euros;
cf, by example, the sale of the war frigates in Taiwan or the oil sniffer planes under the reign, sorry the presidency of M Giscard D'estaing

5 minutes ago, smedly said:

almost 25% of GDP is from tourism and that is likely underestimated due to off book grey employment 

Percentage which seems high to me but it is very possible.
To compare with the country which receives the most foreign visitors:

France which received more than 80 million tourists last year.
The percentage in France is around 7%.

11 hours ago, Daffy D said:

And who can forget the traditional British Transport Cafe. There were some great ones round the country where you could get a full English breakfast, big plate overflowing with double everything, couple of junks of farmhouse bread and a big mug of stewed tea.

 

At some of the family run cafes you could get real home made steak and kidney pudding and Shepard's pie and the like.  Unfortunately the motorways killed most of those places off. 

I'm not English, you all know that;
I do not remember this type of establishment.
on the other hand I always remember the "services" which were away from the motorways;
there was a part for motorists and another reserved for truckers where we ate very well for much cheaper than in the "cars" part ,with pastries to die for, they were so good.

I also remember that you could enter and cross the whole city of London with a 32 ton;
I remember a pub open in the middle of the night, I would be unable to tell you where it is or was, there were dozens of trucks, especially English but not only ( mine from France )  that half stations on the sidewalks and the street and in the establishment a crazy atmosphere

It was forty years ago; a whole different era

10 minutes ago, Yinn said:

99% Thai people NOT get money from farang.

Forgetting the millions of Thais who work in farang factories ... in Rayong or Bangkok or Ayuttaya or ... in many places in Thailand
Sex workers are nothing compared to these multinationals.

1 hour ago, Lancashirelad said:

"kg of depression" Read, kgs of brake force.

About my english ?

seven years of study until the baccalaureat then many trips to UK for pleasure and for my work as a trucker;

But as soon as you start speaking in your patois, I don't understand anything any more;
it's the same with your puns;
Fortunately Bluesofa and Colin explain your delirium to me by PM
I have a lot of friends of different nationalities and English is our common language;

It’s weird sometimes to speak in English with an Italian while I was  good in this language ........... 40 years ago ,

since I lived in the province of Modena while working as a trucker for my French boss.

With my Vietnamese friends, I generally speak French because they are almost all diplomats or french teachers  in University ( Hue's University, for example )

On this post which talks about former truck drivers, I think we all know that air brakes work in depression and not in pressure as you might think when looking at oil brakes like on my MTBike or on a car or a pickup.
It means that when there is no more air in the bottles, the brakes are tight ; it's a security.
Now on modern trucks that exist in Europe, the brakes are disc on both the tractor and the trailer.
So with a pressurized oil system.
I don't know anything about American trucks or those that we can see here in Thailand.
I would have to look into their mechanics to find out ..
There are many technological advances on European trucks; in fact those who come from F1;
carbon / ceramic brakes for example, well before it goes up on high-end sedans

Formerly, in any case when I started to do this job, there was a trailer brake which gave 7 kg of depression; that is to say too much especially if we drove empty because it blocked the wheels.
This trailer brake was removed in the early 80s and replaced by a reset brake which gave only 3 to 4 kg of depression so even when empty, the wheels did not block;

I used it very rarely because on long descents, I drove as I had been taught: never descend at a higher speed than you are climbing;
do like the Italian "centipedes" ( eight axles ) which rolled at 100/120 tonnes with engines of less than 200 HP.
In Italy, on the Bologna - Florence motorway which is in the mountains, these trucks went up in first small to 2 or 3 km / h and went down at the same speed on the same gear without ever touching the brake pedal.

With the semi trailor  that I had between 1973 and 1975, I did not respect the Law: going up and down on the same gear.
The Telma electromagnetic retarder was so efficient that I allowed myself to descend at high speed and arrive at the various stages without touching the brake pedal;

only by downshifting the speeds one by one, except of course to stop when I was driving at 4 or 5 km / h.

All of this is old, 50 years old and part of the memories.

7 hours ago, canthai55 said:

or the pup stepped out

I did not know this English expression.
With us, in France, the puppy is called a mother-in-law or a suitcase

When the suitcase is found in your cabin it is high time to pray;
other expression,: to be passed by the stepmother ..

It never happened to me;
on the first semi-trailor I drove ( 1973-1975 ) I had the Telma, the electromagnetic retarder installed on a false bridge mounted on the last axle of my semi-trailor;
usable up to 4 * stud therefore in any atmospheric conditions, rain storm, snow and even ice.

8 hours ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

I spent a week in Port Toilet ( sorry ???? ) working at British Steel ( now Tata ).

Stayed in a pub in Porthcawl ( ? ) , an old place right on the cliffs overlooking the sea. One night had a hell of a storm, shutters banging and wind howling etc, swear I thought we were gonna end up in the sea !!

I looked on Google maps where Port Toilet (Talbot) was;
I never went there even if I was not far when I went to Kingston Upon Hull to deliver apples from Plymouth
because I took the ferry at  Roscoff ;

it was in the early 80s 

when the maximum tonnage of the semi-trailer was only 32 tonnes therefore 18 tonnes of apples in the trailer

9 hours ago, Tug said:

I’m not sure I’d trust Putin’s government beeing truthfull about radioactive particles beeing picked up by the fire and inhaled or ingested not good imo

What is Putin doing in a country which is not his?

To return to the pollution, you think it will delight the people of Chiang Mai who are still under extreme pollution, even if they have just been detroned very temporarily ...

On 3/13/2020 at 9:12 AM, christophe75 said:

I agree with you. Main difference : speed.

 

Vietnamese roads are "controled" chaos. Impossible to "speed", like insane Thai drivers do.

 

Stats : 14 000 deads per year. For a population of 96 millions (!).

 

"Better" than Thailand, in any case.

 

 

In Vietnam the speed is limited to 60 km / h;
the cops are much less corruptible than in Thailand;
it certainly explains a lot
And then the fine for not wearing a helmet is important; very rare are the vietnamese who do not wear it.

4 hours ago, Mavideol said:

dirty mind you 555

My bike repairer has a short time hotel; there, he must be happy to be able to re-open it; 

With me, it's very simple, if a tool disappears or is broken or anything, I do not replace;
they manage;
at the moment we are playing a lot  cards (don't repeat it! ); the card game is of excellent quality and costs 320 baht; each time they shuffle the cards their way, that is to say nag not possible, I repeat the price to them; at the first crooked card, we will no longer be able to play; if they want to continue, they will take 320 baht out of their pocket.

The main street of Mae Hong Son;

A photo taken from the Wat at the top of the hill would help to better situate this fire.

I hope my friend Titan's bike shop is not destroyed

Is this magnificent house that was destroyed?

7 minutes ago, EvetsKram said:

I admired my grandfather.. Still do even though he died back in about 1990

Me too;

He joined in 1916 when he was 18 years old.
He was an "observer" in aviation at the time, that is to say on planes which were constructed of wood and canvas;
then he became an electrical engineer and supervised the electrical installations of the railway lines of the Sud_Ouest network in France whose head office was at Austerlitz station in Paris .

21 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The Thai government expects to conclude a capital injection plan for flagship carrier Thai Airways International

Or how to fill the barrel of Danaides