jamesbrock

I'm not sure how many Anzac Day services there are in Thailand, but possibly the only one that is an official commemoration is held every year at Hellfire Pass (Chong Khao Kad) in Kanchanaburi province, about 100km west of Kanchanaburi on the road to the Three Pagodas Pass border with Myanmar. The second part of the commemoration takes place at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetary in Kanchanaburi city later on the same morning (11am). The dawn service begins around 5.15am and is followed by a so-called "gunfire breakfast" which consists of a coffee with a shot of whiskey.

The Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce (AustCham) who I used to work for organises the event and they do it very well. It's a very meaningful event, which starts on the 24th in the morning with a trip that starts in Bangkok and heads over to a local school not far from Hellfire Pass, where the Chamber organises some events, provides gifts and organises a lunch. This is followed by checking-in to a local hotel, then free at leisure until dinner. On the morning of the 25th, the bus takes visitors and those taking part in the Anzac Day dawn service to the pass, a few km away. After the end of the event and the breakfast mentioned above, visitors will have breakfast at their hotel followed by the journey to the War Graves Cemetary for the Commemoration Ceremony there. Lunch is held near the Bridge over the River Kwai followed by return to Bangkok.

I think it is well worth attending this ceremony and for those interested, they should contact the Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce should they wish to attend next year's service.

Thanks, that's great information.

As a first generation Aussie (my parents emigrated from England), I have grown up with ANZAC day, and always get lumps in my throat when at the services, or listening to the stories (and watching the grief) of the diggers. I can still remember when the last ANZAC digger died almost 10 years ago. This should be a day when politics do not matter, and when we should all give thanks for the sacrifices of all the men and women in all the conflicts that our countries have served in. Lest we forget. (I spent six years in a relationship with a Kiwi girl, and her attitude towards this day certainly did not match gamini's.)

<snip>The new Click is 125 the same as the new Nouvo, so they have to be in direct competion, probably with the new Mio as well. I'm gonna discount the new Mio though, coz frankly it looks awful compared to last years model.

Again, they are completely distinct designs and construction; they can not compete in the same market space. It's like comparing a PCX 150 to a CBR 150; they might be similar size, with the same engine displacement, but they are completely distinct frame designs. (yes, yes, I know only one's an auto...)

So would you buy the new 125 Nouvo or new 125 Click?

Most (some?) would buy the physically bigger Nouvo based on the knowledge that it has a larger, stronger, more rigid, and better balanced frame (because of its totally different underbone design) than the Click.

Oh and comparing a Nouvo to a PCX is a joke. Some Nouvo buyers may look at the PCX too but that doesnt make them comparable. I bet most PCX owners didnt even consider a Nouvo.

Agreed, yet they are consistently compared to each other, while the Hayate and Airblade rarely get included in the same sentence.

Fact is: PCX and Nouvo SX are no competitors, period.

Wait, what?!? Are you saying that the Nouvo SX and PCX 150 are no competitors to each other???

Or, are you saying that the Nouvo SX and PCX 150 are not competitors to the Airblade and the Hayate?

<snip> I'd like to throw in (again) the new Honda Click-i 125<snip>

There's no getting around the fact that the Click 125-i is technically a scooter, whereas the Nouvo/Hayate/Airblade are all underbone construction (with most the inherent benefits this design typically brings). This is what separates the three types of motorbike - scooters, underbones (stepthroughs), and full frame 'big' bikes. Physical size and engine displacement is not enough move a particular bike from one type to another.

Suzuki here in the N. has only a small following as a percent of bikes, and the Hayate Fi-125 is rarely shown on the official company dealer's floor. My '11 is v. lively in town, but I cannot brag about high speed, as it only tugs along my streamlined (whale-like) body at 92 GPS (102 indicated). This too is a repeat, sorry, but factoids are factoids.

Same here on Samui, although there are at least three new Hayates in the local Suzuki dealer.

Pleasure.

As far as I see it, the automatic scooter market generally has three entries for each manufacturer:

Honda = Scoopy - Click - Airblade

Yamaha = Fino - Mio - Nouvo

Suzuki = Jelato - Skydrive - Hayate

In my opinion, as the market is now, both the Spacy and the PCX 150 are adjunct to this market, as neither has any direct competitor. You can argue till you're blue in the face about how refined the Nouvo may be (while completely ignoring the existence of the other two), but that does not put it in the same class as the PCX 150. No way. No how.

wrong again

Yamaha have

a nano spark 110cc (still in the big C at around 36k )

a liquid coooled semi auto spark 135cc

a filano

a ttx

as well as the mio ,fino and carbed elegance which seems in plentiful stock

so its hard to know if its discontinued or not yet

Again?

ok, so I left out the Spark/Smash/Wave hoping that specifying 'automatic' would alert the reader to such, and a few other models (which you don't seem to know the competition's entries), hoping that the use of the term 'generally' would alert the reader that I really CBF going through every singled model produced; but my main premise is still sound (in my opinion).

wrong again

Yamaha have...

and what's about the Fiore FI?

The Fiore is really a great little bike (for girls/women).

Never seen such a large underseat storage in this class before.

Are you going to argue that Honda has two entries in the same large-framed underbone-design segment of the market, or are you both going to nitpick because I didn't want to stray off topic too much and missed several models?

Ones hopes that as the business ethics in China is very different to most of the world (although happily it is the same as Thailands) I hope the good disgruntled people from Scope say who received the tea money, hookers, elaborate gifts to get so far in this process before Thailand took back all their potential profit by charging them import tax. Guess they worked out that even paying tea money to get around that element, it would not be worth the effort.

Re the poster; I thought I saw this one or maybe my subconscious read it as such.

What happened to # 4?

This is the Plan B poster; Plan A couldn't be delivered in time.

Sadly this is as expected and right on schedule for the delay to put things off schedule.

"1 tablet per child."

No ,ore like :

'All Children Left Behind.'

"All children kept behind."

Pleasure.

As far as I see it, the automatic scooter market generally has three entries for each manufacturer:

Honda = Scoopy - Click - Airblade

Yamaha = Fino - Mio - Nouvo

Suzuki = Jelato - Skydrive - Hayate

In my opinion, as the market is now, both the Spacy and the PCX 150 are adjunct to this market, as neither has any direct competitor. You can argue till you're blue in the face about how refined the Nouvo may be (while completely ignoring the existence of the other two), but that does not put it in the same class as the PCX 150. No way. No how.

Correct me if I am wrong

Happy to!

but the Airblade is out of production for how many years?

Zero years. Still in production. Still being sold.

The Hayate is a ~5 years old bike with a nearly unchanged design over the years.

Explain the difference between "nearly unchanged" and 'slightly updated'?

The last Hayate, I drove (a 2010 model), had still the old, noisy and air-cooled "Suzuki-Step" engine, pimped with a FI.

Does Suzuki still sell it new?

Yes.

You really do make it too easy.

None of the Aussie pubs are doing anything? Surely one of them would be doing something - maybe not a service per se, but at least some kind of recognition.

Power at the rear of Lamai has been up and down most of the day. Not fully stopped as yet, just enough to run the router.

Where is the "rear" of Lamai?

Not where I am, which I would call 'middle of Lamai'; power has been on solid all day.

Hayate and Airblade are the direct competitors to the Nuovo. ~ JB

For size and storage. But the Airblade has never had more than 110cc, unless I'm wrong again?

Nope, you're not wrong.

Edit: there's a 125 Airblade in Vietnam, which is where this guy must have got his from... Unless we're both wrong!

@jackcorbett

It seems, you (and your friends) are Yamaha "fanboys", but I don't want to argue with you (too hot).

Never mind, I own a Yammie too, Mio 125cc in my case. A good bike too, but unspectacular.

Nobody said, the new SX isn't a good bike, but it's no revolution, just "business as usual" with no "wow-effect"

Also no technical highlights, worth a discussion, just a decrease of engine displacement to 125cc.

And the changed cyl. head cooling? Who cares?

An increase too 150-160cc, well.. . But so?

And again, no you can't compare it with the PCX

Size/engine size/features and at least the price of the PCX, are playing in another league.

Edit: I am not sure, what other bike is comparable to the new SX?

Click/Spacy/Mio etc. doesn't have this "underbone style" frame, Honda Wave AT? No, not really.

The SX and also the PCX are the only bikes in their class.

Hayate and Airblade are the direct competitors to the Nuovo.

Edit: Even though I didn't agree with you about the PCX now being in a class of its own in post #124, I do now.

There is nothing about any of the three (Nouvo, Hayate, Airblade) that is remotely comparable to the PCX as the four of them are now, save the underbone design.

I will call those figures B/S.

Yep, they certainly don't gel with anyone's estimates; but they are straight off the Department of Provincial Administration's (DOPA) website.

Of course I could be a total idiot, and present the wrong figures!

The "correct" official figures are here: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=th&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fstat.dopa.go.th%2Fxstat%2Fp5484_01.html&act=url

8605 Males

9628 Females

18,233 Total

5476 Dwellings.

On a completely unrelated matter: my Thai isn't coming along as well as I thought.

If both the population figure (54,113) and the qualifying figure (50,000) are correct, there must be some other requirement(s) that are preventing Koh Samui from achieving City status. One may well be the population density that was mentioned previously.

Of course, we can't rule out that it could just be the apparent inability of anyone in any government department to follow any of their set rules and/or processes unless or until it benefits them to do so... (and I'm not just targeting the Thai government here)

According to this page from the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA), as at December 2011 (2554), the official population of Samui is 54,113.

http://stat.dopa.go.th/xstat/pop53_1.html

(If you see Roman character gibberish instead of Thai script, you will need to manually switch from Western encoding view to the Thai encoding under the View menu of your browser.)

26,452 Males

27,661 Females

54,113

16,773 dwellings. Presumably this number only includes dwellings where the above numbers are registered at, and not any dwellings occupied by unregistered Thais or foreign residents.

Interestingly, the official figure only increased by 317 from December 2010 to December 2011...

Trust me - you do need nerves of steel to ride around the ring road! I normally set of from Lamai at 7:00am, going clockwise, which means I'm riding back from Chaweng around 9:00am - at that time the traffic's not too bad, but any later and it can be terrifying! (It's not only the traffic that's the issue, but the state of the roads - one reason we go clockwise is to avoid the majority of treacherous drainage covers, but even then there are a number of randomly distributed steel grate covers between Maenam and Bophut that are oriented in line with the road, if your front tyre goes into one of them...)

As for filling the potholes, around Wednesday they filled the many little potholes around the bottom of Big Rock - now there are many little raised lumps of bitumen around that corner! Great job there! On Thursday, we passed a grader attempting to scrape the dried concrete off the side of the road a bit further along (where it all falls out of the cement mixers at that point due to the grade) - yesterday, I noted that that had only managed to scrape off a few raised peaks and left them spread across the road; the shoulder there is still unusable). Yet another great job! That all being said, both pieces of work were on the opposite side of the road that the triathletes will be riding on.

I have a daily appointment at the hospital in Chaweng, and I suggested to my gf and driver that we not go on Sunday - their response was much the same as your wife's.

I fear it will just turn into a farce, with people everywhere simply going about their business as usual. Especially on the ring road. I really can't see the organisers recruiting enough manpower to enforce the closures at that many intersections for that length of time. I actually feel sorry of the competitors, who come here believing the road closures will keep them safe.

I have 2 brand new 16GB WiFi iPad 3s in black selling for THB20,000 each and a brand new unlocked 16GB WiFi + 4G iPad 3 also in black for THB25,000, and an orginal dark grey cover for THB1,300. All are in original packaging and available in either Bangkok or Pattaya. see my ad in Thai Visa

I bet some late sellers are kicking themselves too!

Both my gf's Thai passport and her ID card only have the year; she's 40.

NVM.

I've been following this thread with amusement since it started with a whinge from some newcomer who obviously didn't like it there. The way everyone jumped in to condemn them for their "100% illegal" activity - without bothering to find out whether they actually had written, paid and officially signed permits - has been hilarious! One guy writes up a fairly whiny post, with any number of exaggerations in it, and every one is on the warpath!

I actually wanted to jump in to defend the Ark Bar against these baseless unqualified "it's illegal" comments (all of which were based solely on the original whining post, and no first-hand knowledge or observation), and the farcical suggestion that the owners of the Ark Bar should have a little more respect for the king than to "wantonly disregard the one small concession that is asked by the royal family of beachfront owners regarding public access to the beach" (again, based solely on the original whining post, and no first-hand knowledge or observation whatsoever), but the conversation got a little less hysterical after that, and turned to the foreign drinks issue...

I'd like to say, good on you Terry for coming on here to confront these people.

I'm interested now, however, if those unqualified accusations of illegality, and the ridiculous accusation of disrespect for the king and disregard for the royal family, are going to be taken back now; now that it turns out that they do in fact have written, paid and officially signed permits for placing furniture on the beach? Perhaps even apologised for?

Disclaimer: I like the Ark Bar. The Ark Bar was the first place I stayed when I first came to Samui last July, and, had it not been for the fantastic time I had during the two weeks I was there, I probably wouldn't be living in Samui now. It was also the place I stayed for the first two weeks when I moved here in September, before finding that Lamai was more to my taste. Friends & I regularly go there for dinner and/or drinks. I am not being paid for my post.

"Association of Koh Samui"?

Yep, the not-so-secret-yet-anonymous committee that to sets the prices.

Good question. This sheet was in a taxi that's normally based in Lamai.

All taxis have the same laminated A4 sheet with fixed prices from one location to another, so there must be some organisation to get that out!

I never take taxis, so can you liberate one and scan it?

Organization? Like the Roman Catholic Church or like a taxi driver who happens to have a copy machine, and a lot of driver friends? Like a chain letter, maybe?

Is a photo of one good enough?