n8sail

We sailed to Koh Larn and back on Sunday, about 20nm total distance sailed. I have never seen so much floating trash in my 10+ years sailing these waters. Absolute miracle we didn't foul the keel, propeller or rudder. Multiple times had to make evasive maneuvers around huge bundles of trash. Jim above has it right; it is the change in the season and high tides in some of the early mornings floating this stuff out of rivers and khlongs, combined with the consistent daytime Southwesterlies we've been having pushing all the crap from the middle of the gulf on shore.

It was almost certainly "Fixed". Not sure what anyone would need that amount of 500 and 100 baht bills for 10 days before an election... https://en.thairath.co.th/scoop/theissue/2910949 https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/3185190/bot-flags-suspicious-cash-withdrawals-largest-case-hits-b250m

There is a new one called "Home by the Lake", I think construction complete now. Not sure if it has a lift or not, I just drive by it sometimes. 4 stories, appears to have covered parking on part of first floor. These look to be "higher end" apartments that local workers might rent, doubt they are more than 25m rooms. They would be pretty 'low end' for most westerners in that area. Hopefully you're okay with the annoyance of constant traffic noise and motocys from dek-wans racing up and down rt. 4095. It does look right out over the lake facing west, so sunsets will be very nice, although afternoon sun will be roasting hot. You could ride bicycle or walk straight across the road onto the bike/running path. https://maps.app.goo.gl/bXTXFdTvEtfB1P5EA Why not rent a house? Loads of nice ones there, sometimes about same as crappy apartments downtown.

Unfortunately for PP, it is very likely they won't get majority of parliament. Forty-four of their lawmakers are awaiting crucifixion by the almighty Supreme Court, which is completely controlled by dinosaurs. They are accused of ethics breaches for their signing of a pact to amend section 112 of the criminal code in 2021. This case has not yet been heard, but you can bet a lot of Baht that if they win majority on Sunday that it will be heard within days of election results. Both the first and second choice PP Prime Ministerial candidates are included in this group. The third one has a PhD from Cambridge, so perhaps we can pin our hopes on him. You reap what you sew, Thailand. This is Loong Tu's legacy. I've worked here 13 years and our company has been directly negatively impacted by his policies to centralize power and allow the fattest dinosaurs at the top eat as much from the trough as possible. If it weren't for the fact that I work in a very niche factory that happens to exist here in Thailand, we would not be here. China would be the next stop for me, for better or for worse.

If you can, from a boat is the best way to watch. Took my own last year, went on neighbor's large power catamaran this year. There are a number of charter boats in Ocean Marina that offer packages from ~2000 baht pp on up to silly amounts of baht for the evening. Another option for probably cheaper is one of the Thai wooden dive boats from a local dive shop. Downside is Ao Pattaya can be a very rough anchorage, so take your Stugeron or have a strong stomach. This year was no different, wind stayed out of NNW and swell coming straight into the bay. A few people praying over the side to Neptune on our boat. A little bit of a circus heading home afterwards, but it's all part of the fun.

Doi Ang Khang, about 135km west of Chiang Rai by car, is technically a National Park. However, you do not have to pay to drive in, only have to pay if camping. At least not when I went there about 6 years ago. There is only a checkpoint looking for border-crossers. I camped there for New Years Eve at that time and because it was so mobbed with people we didn't have to pay as we didn't even get a site in the camping area. I suspect at normal times it's quite empty. Anyways, this seems to be what you're after. You can drive right up, sit and chill, literally and figuratively, only steps from your car. Sunrise was well worth the effort. It was down to 3 degrees Celsius on that New Years Eve. I imagine it is regularly at single digit temps during December to January as it's above 1700m elevation. https://maps.app.goo.gl/w9CGdRJkghP5uPDs9

The "U-turn Spaghetti" is really NOT that hard guys and gals... It's simply a rotary junction compressed into a figure of 8 shape so that the 3191 truck traffic can cross over via flyover straight into Map Ta Phut Industrial area without disturbing traffic needing to turn or U-Turn. Looking forward to seeing the new office soon! The amount of Chinese completely filling up and screaming and yelling across the waiting area in the old one over the past 2 years has worn the nerves a bit... Note that as usual with Thais and maps, the 'official' location is incorrect. "Immigration Rayong neu" is the correct location. Nice work, government officials!

He was actually moved on Monday the 15th. What boggles my mind is that there is nothing in BKK Post about this, and only just now showed up on here. Bit weird, last time the whole country was up in arms, now they seem to be sweeping it under the rug.

I have a nice core i7 Lenovo Yoga notebook, about 6 years old now. in January, WInblows 11 started throttling my network interfaces. Only getting about 20mbps down and 2 up, on a 200+mbps internet connection. Okay, time for a full re-install... 6 or so hours later and I've got a brandy-new Winblows 11 install, all drivers working blah blah. STILL throttled the connection!! Tried back version drivers of both the hard-wired NIC on the USB-c dock and the WIFI adapter. No beans. Something deep in the network stack in Winblows must be responsible. Been playing with Linux since about 1999, was never patient enough to do it full time on a work computer, though. Exasperated with W11, I downloaded current version of Ubuntu onto a USB drive. Boots nearly instantly. Network interface full speed, no drivers, no nothing, wired and Wifi. After a week, I formatted the SSD and did a full install. I'm not that good with command prompts, know only a few BASH commands. However, nowadays, you just type into any search engine what you want to do and instanly have copy-past BASH commands for just about anything. Literally everything works on my notebook except the fingerprint reader. Linux is not hard anymore. It barely takes anymore patience than Winblows. 5+ months in and I'm never going back unless work absolutely demands it.

Hopefully OP will do well with this car. Some friends have this car and have been waiting 6 months already for a controller that died. Car sitting in driveway. I do agree that someone here will eventually figure out repairs. For anyone else following, if considering a 2nd hand EV, definitely check out MG EP. I just traded mine after 4 years 107k km. Flawless vehicle. Serviced once for 6400 baht at 100k (changed reduction gearbox oil, bled brakes, etc etc.) Traded at MG dealer for 255,000 baht, can find them around 300-350k baht on One2Car. Battery literally same as brand new. Mostly kept it between 40-80%, fast charged maybe 20 times total. I'd have sold to a friend/co-worker in a 2nd for trade-in price, but no one wanted/could afford it. Ah well, some tent dealer is gonna make easily 80k baht off the deal. SAIC (MG) is the largest and oldest state-owned vehicle manufacturer in China. Spare parts won't be an issue.

Just got a weird email from Krungsri saying someone attempted to open a Krungsri Biz Online account in my name in February of 2020. I have had and actively used a personal account with them since ~2013, and only use web browser on PC. (No, I'm not that old or tech unsavy (I run Linux only), I am security conscious and use another bank for my 'risky' phone app banking, with little money in the account, use Krungsri with no app for everything else) Anyways, emailed back, then got a text message only in Thai with a temp password. Wasn't sure what it was. 20 mins later Krungsri called, very nice, well-spoken English and explained the situation, all personal accounts moved to Biz Online, supposedly no monthly charges. Just logged in, changed password as prompted, and everything is there. Favorite transfers and all. The kind girl informed me this MUST be done in the next 7 days or you will lose all access and only be able to use mobile app. So us security conscious/elderly/stuck-in-the-muds can rejoice and keep banking through the web with Krungsri. :)

Of course a stretch, but not impossible. Police officers getting cars through seizure and auctioning: See Joe Ferrari. Inspection and report falsification? See SAO building collapse. They'd have made off with hundreds of millions of baht between them if the quake didn't happen.

For sure, and likely auctioned as they do with vehicles confiscated for other crimes. But one could imagine it would be very easy for someone to follow the car through the system and make sure it goes for the 'right price' when the time comes. Breathalyzer readings in the other direction make it through courts all the time, at least in the USA. Usually for poor calibration certification or some such detail that a well-paid lawyer can sniff out. I imagine a breathalyzer calibration technician making 500 baht a day would happily make the machine look to show more than it should for a 1000 baht note. Crazier things have certainly happened for inspection/calibration of equipment in this country :)

For westerners or 'unconnected' Thais with nice vehicles, this would be really scary. Crooked cop at a checkpoint likes your car. Makes paperwork that says you were drunk, takes your car. What are you going to do about it? Get a lawyer? Better have a lot of time and deep pockets.

It's 10 Billion Baht. Teflon Tony is worth more than 65 Billion Baht.