cm das

Have a sit on a Police Boxer it is the same frame,same plastics and the same feel altogether. And i am certain if you asked a Police Man to have a sit on his bike he'd be ok. I know it was fine where i live and i was even allowed to testride it.

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Yeah, I'm sure many policemen would be willing to let me have a sit or even a ride. There are some Boxer 250 owners in Chiang Mai who would let me do the same. The issue for me is not access to a real bike, it's the dealer's attitude. Why would I buy a bike from a guy who won't let me see one? And now matter how good Khun Pariya's service is (and by all accounts it's excellent), it seems silly to me to rely on sales & service from Samut Prakhan when I live in Chiang Mai.

As for rentals, it would be nice if Tigers were available to rent so we could get a feel for them over the course of a day or two. I mean, Pop & other rental shops in Chiang Mai, in addition to their regular tourist business, effectively serve as test ride centers for Kawasakis. The problem is, most rental agencies are geared towards tourists & I doubt many of them have ever heard of Tiger. Those few of us who live here & are interested in renting a Tiger specifically are likely too few to run a business off of. Not to mention the difficulty of getting those rental bikes serviced given the state of the dealers in town.

actually most Tiger Boxer 250RS's are made to order and with 12 additional special colors and a variety of accesories available which one would the dealer have to stock?

I guess the red one .

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Forget about accessories & colors - any bike that you could actually look at and sit on would be fine (I wouldn't presume to ask for a test ride!). The fact that the dealer told me I'd have to order a Boxer 250 before I could actually see one completely turned me off. But this has been covered before...

Never seen a Boxer at any of the rental shops in Chiang Mai & I highly doubt that any are available. Hell, the Tiger dealers don't even stock them here.

I do need to purchase formula for my daughter and I keep good track of all her expenses. Sure I may be a little off but hardly "egregious" or "way out of touch". And even if some folks on here are spending 2000 baht or more per month on formula, I still doubt that parents in Thailand on average spend nearly as much as the article claims.

I'm going to play a little devil's advocate. Of course, breast milk is best. I just don't see the situation as that dire. When my daughter was born in Chiang Mai, the doctors & nurses discussed both breastfeeding & bottle (formula) with my wife. The nursery certainly favored a certain brand of baby formula, but I can't say it was pushed on us. In fact, the first question the doctor asked at checkups was whether my wife was still breastfeeding (she was). I feel that marketers of baby milk products should definitely not have direct, personal access to new mothers. But going so far as to say that these companies cannot advertise at all is taking things too far. If they are producing a legal product, one for which there is a medical need in some cases, they should be able to advertise. It's up to doctors and public health officials to educate new parents. And we should always mistrust the health claims of huge agribusiness corporations. Lastly, I highly doubt some of the figures in the original article. Where is the source for the claim that "most mothers" use formula? And that "on average, parents spend about Bt20,000 a year on baby milk products"? That's an awful lot of money for a great many Thai parents, and even for those who can afford it that means spending almost 1700 Baht per month on formula. Even if my daughter drank formula exclusively, she couldn't drink that much.

I've been living in Chiang Mai for 7 years & done plenty of riding around the north in that time. A couple years ago there was a brief period of time when the police in town were very interested in bikes w/o plates - many were impounded. Haven't heard of anything like that recently. The vast majority of times I've come across checkpoints in the north, I'm simply waved through (I always raise my visor in advance so the police can see my white face. Often they seem too shy to bother speaking with me.) A few times I've been asked to show my license. Only once that I can remember were they interested in looking at my plate & tax sticker. That was in the city.

On some back roads very close to the Burmese border I've had to stop & register my passport number with army checkpoints, but in my experience these guys are very freindly & couldn't care less about bike registration, etc.

Aussie Dream Rice Milk spotted at Rimping Meechok today, but only about 4 or 5 boxes left.

Rimping Meechok used to have rice milk - I think the brand was Aussie Dream. Once when they ran out & failed to restock I put in a request & a few weeks later they had it again. Haven't seen it there for a while though.

Wat Doi Kham sits atop a small hill above Ratchapreuk (Royal Flora Exposition). It has a giant sitting Buddha and an unassuming but attractive, old-style viharn. There's also a great view over the valley on a clear day.

Just to clarify, the 2nd floor of Kad Suan Kaew has both Super Sports (inside Central department store) and Sports World. Check both places, but for backpacks I think Sports World is a better bet.

The best selection of backpacks that I've seen in Chiang Mai is at Sports World on the 2nd floor of Kad Suan Kaew (Huay Kaew Road, just off the northwest corner of the moat). A truly waterproof cover might be hard to find around here - I always just always pack my stuff in plastic bags inside the pack.

Bangkok's 12th International Festival of Dance and Music is running for another 10 days or so. I saw a ballet performance there last month - very impressive and a nice change from what's available in Chiang Mai (not to knock Chiang Mai - I like the scene here but it's definitely limited).

http://www.bangkokfestivals.com/Programme/2010/index.shtml

"Not usual" does not equal stupid or incorrect. According to my wife, who is also Thai, it may not be common but in some circumstances there is nothing wrong, strange, incorrect, or whatever about referring to yourself as Khun.

Have you ever noticed that many Thais will answer a question by telling you exactly whatever it is that they think that you want to hear?

Yes, I've noticed that. And I've also noticed that many foreigners, when they can't prevail using clear reason, will resort to false equivalences & ad hominem statements to bolster their arguments.

Anyway, illuminating though it's been, I'll say goodbye to this topic now and gladly yield the last word.

I do not care if thais call themselves something stupid in English either, but that does not mean that what they are saying is correct.

"Not usual" does not equal stupid or incorrect. According to my wife, who is also Thai, it may not be common but in some circumstances there is nothing wrong, strange, incorrect, or whatever about referring to yourself as Khun. (I can hear the response now: "Yeah, like those circumstances where the speaker is a tosser!") I specifically asked her if she could give me examples of when she's heard Thais using Khun this way and she didn't have trouble coming up with a couple.

My takeaway from this long thread:

Some foreigners, overeager to adapt to the ways of their adopted home, fail to catch all the fine points of Thai, especially as regards its social niceties, and speak in ways that may be awkward but are certainly harmless. Other foreigners, overestimating their expertise and flaunting their years of "experience", are too quick to make blanket statements about a culture that is not theirs and condemn others for disagreeing, even if those others have their own experience or the testimony of Thais to back them up.

Of the high end places I've been in Chiang Mai, you certainly could dress up at any of them and not feel out of place. But I've yet to see a place where it was required or expected. Smart casual seems to be the norm for a meal at a nice restaurant. Of course, private functions are a different story.

Out of interest are you speaking Thai or English with them?

I speak Thai about half the time with my wife, and all the time with most of the family. When speaking English with my wife and her one cousin who can, I use English pronouns as I would with any other English speaker.

As for whether it's proper to refer to yourself as khun or ajarn, I follow what I see from the Thais I know. When I was teaching at a university, if a Thai teacher wanted to refer to him or herself when speaking with a student, it would either be as "Ajarn" followed by their name, or simply "Ajarn". With a friend or acquaintance outside the univeristy, of course it would be different.

In my opinion, the social implications of Thai forms of address are much more subtle than those of English. What seems awkward or artificial in one situation might be normal in another. I agree that calling my self khun or ajarn with a stranger or a friend would be silly, but in other situations if it's good enough for Thais it's good enough for me, regardless of what another foreigner thinks.

All the Thais I know hardly ever use pronouns in their regular speech. They refer to themselves by name. My wife and her family all call me Khun Paul. So, following their model, that's how I refer to myself when speaking with them. In fact, at first I felt self-conscious but my wife assured me it sounded completely normal to her and her family. I would never answer the phone that way, but I think a blanket statement like the OP's is a little off.

They closed the airport for fear that a passenger plane would collide with a UFO, thereby forcing the planes to circle the airport. Am I missing something here? Wouldn't keeping the planes in the air, in the area, only increase the chance of a collision?

The Shangri-La has a very nice buffet... but the above picture is not of the Kad Cafe, where the buffet is. Maybe this is a picture of one of the hotel's ballrooms?

The way I understand it, jiaogulan or any of the tonic chinese herbs are meant to be used as part of a balanced, healthy approach to life, ideally in conjunction with proper diet, exercise, some kind of meditation, etc. Taken alone, i.e without these other elements, jiaogulan is unlikely to have much of an effect. Even with all of the above, the effect is going to be subtle in that it supports wellness rather than delivering it.

It's interesting - I drank jiaogulan tea regularly for a couple of years and then stopped for a while. Only last week I thought about starting up again. And here's this topic. Cosmic.

Have you driven this route?  Just wondering whether it's quicker to drive down to Tak, then cut across to Phitsanulok on hwy 12?  I need to drive to Friendship bridge next month, so open to suggestions.   How is hwy 11 now?  It's an extra 100km via Tak, but "superhighway".

In early August, hwy 11 from Chiang Mai to P-lok was is much better shape than hwy 1 to Tak. Both had some construction but the road was smoother and the traffic lighter on 11 (I drove both a few days apart). I did the 11-12-2 route from Chiang Mai to Nong Khai in March 09. It took me about 12 hours including 2 meal stops. East from P-lok over the mountains through Petchabun was indeed very beautiful.

I havne't been for about a year, but Gap's House down the soi behind AUA has had a long running evening vegetarian buffet. The selection is limited and hasn't changed in the 7 years or so since I first went, but the food is good and it's a very nice garden setting. Buffet opens at 7, I think.

Last one was a Phillips & it died after about 9 years (battery would no longer hold any charge at all).

Whoops, that should read 4 years. 9 would be pretty impressive.

The restaurant/bar business is a tough racket anywhere, no matter who your target customers are. But leininger's point #2 is still a very good one. No matter how omnipresent we foreigners seem to be in Chiang Mai & despite delusions of grandeur regarding our spending power, we are a very small slice of the pie here. Add in uncertainties with foreign exchange rates, tourist numbers, etc. & it seems to me that opening a foreigner-oriented business here is a recipe for trouble. Of course there are exceptions to the rule.