tuktuktuk

Our 2022 Fortuner 2.8l 4X4 auto gets 12 running at 110kph with the cruise set and in Power mode. Wife won't use the cruise and gets under 11 also in Power mode - similar speed, but with more variation in speed. Unless it's primarily city driving your 7 to 8 seems low. Do you have stock tires? Do they have the right pressure? Are you often heavily loaded?

Okay, you win.

It’s all in how we assess the risks. I’m more concerned about losing my passport than I am about being forced to produce it. I never book a return flight. It’s pointless. I don’t know when I’m returning home and there’s generally a cost to change it. It’s not required when applying for a non immigrant O visa. I never carry cash when traveling by air and tell visitors not to either. ATM’s work just fine and all the essentials can be procured with a credit card. Cash is too easily stolen or confiscated.

I’ve spent almost half of the last 11 years here. I always carry a photocopy of my passport and relevant visa pages in the glove compartment of the car and on my smartphone too. For the last five years I’ve had a Thai driver’s license and ID card. We drive all over Thailand (50 k most years) and I do at least 90% of the driving. My passport was requested once at a checkpoint back before I had a license. The paper copy of the passport and the international license was fine. Was stopped for speeding once. No ID or license was requested. He got straight to the point - 200 baht. I’ve never been asked to show a passport at a hotel. My Thai wife always does the check in, but I’m always around. They don’t care. Since I got my license I’ve never been asked for it. My passport stays in the safe at home in Chaiyaphum unless we’re leaving the country or going to immigration for an extension.

We stayed at Woraburi Sukhumvit Hotel & Resort about five years ago. It was an easy walk to the embassy. Hotel was fine and inexpensive. Nothing 5 star, but we don't do that.

The problem with articles like this one is that they imply we can change our ways today, right the ship, return to normal temperatures and avert the oncoming changes before 2100. The truth is it's already far too late for that to happen. Even if the entire planet went net zero today it would take two to three hundred years before we would return to pre-industrial greenhouse gas levels. A reduction in global temperatures could follow that. How soon will the planet be net zero? The best thing we could do is to prepare for the inevitable. We can migrate from coastal areas and adapt to higher temperatures. It's quite apparent that ancient civilizations did that over and over. I'm afraid we'll use all the investment that requires on a fruitless attempt to convert to a low carbon but high cost energy scheme. It won't matter much to me. I've only got 20 or 30 years left.

You'll never be stopped. Have entered maybe 30 times. Only forced through the x-ray machine once and by people who really didn't seem to be paying attention.

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2023-01-26/abrams-tanks-ukraine-russia-pentagon-8900716.html

Latest on this is the Pentagon says the US doesn't have 31 it can spare. They'll order and ship new tanks resulting in months of delay. Some speculate that could take up to a year.