LetsGoJoe

.....or back to where he came from... The Great Woke North 😁

Perhaps a case of a Chicken trying to get to the other side of the road on a cross-walk.....not always an easy task on Beach Road.

Not only are there Chinese police, but Chinese police STATIONS in Canada!....not to mention the military as well. The world is their oyster....it would seem.

Have you been to Tak?....a few years back I did a motorcycle trip; CM-Mae Sot -Sukohthai-CM, took a nice back road off the 105 that ran east, parallel to Hyw 12 from Mae Sot. Beautiful green and lush mountains all around for many kms, then suddenly, what appears like a lunar landscape, yet mountainous, opens up in front of us. As far as the eye can see are denuded hills - it was jaw dropping,we had to stop to take it in. The sheer Hercules hand & foot machete labor involved in the forest destruction of whole mountain-sides was impressive to imagine. As we continued to ride through this area we only saw a hand-full of hills that had active crops on them, the vast majority appeared to be abandoned or rendered infertile after likely only a few crop rotations, which assumed to be mostly corn. We saw people working the harvest, sacking and rolling bundles of corn down the hillside to a fleet of waiting trucks. So who's responsible for this age old slash and burn farming practice? None other than the Hmong, who are well know to be the most systematically environmentally destructive Tribe in the hills. They are not all poor and squalored. Many are very well organized and financed by big corps. such as CP to grow the crops on scale that they want... the environment be damned. The area we rode through that day is only a fraction of the environmental destruction in Tak province, and it continues as they are forced to move to the next mountain as the top soil is quickly exhausted of its nutrients. So the clearing and the burning follow suit. The Hmong are not solely to blame, they are only availing opportunity handed to them from Big Corp. and made possible from the blind-eyes of the gov. and local forest management - Corruption 101. This just reflects one of many issues that contribute to the overall poor air quality. With agriculture taking up 49% of land-use in Thailand the AQI problem is not likely to be resolved anytime soon....or later.

Chiang Mai has become infamous over the years for obvious reasons, but to be fair look at a fire map or have a peak at the AQI of other provinces, it becomes obvious that not only is the entire upper-half of the country a smouldering fire-pit but the neighboring countries as well. If the CM Gov. were able to completely stop man-made burning within the province, CM-city, being in a basin, would likely still fill-up with smoke. There are numerous places like Pai or Mae Hong Song for example that are by far consistently worst than Chiang Mai, they are not on the international radar as is BKK & CM. In short, the burning IS far worst in Thailand than indicated from the PM2.5 in CM.

As an avid motorcyclist for decades here I have come to refer the Toyota Commuter vans as 'Death on Wheels'. A relatively new scourge on the hwys are the hopped-up Iszuz pickup trucks that transport farm produce - very aggressive drivers.

Geeze!...I left my ???? in 2021....guess I'll be stay'n home again this new years. ???????? ......????

From what I understand, "cashless" is not 'cash-free' entirely.....the Gov. mentioned to keep smaller notes in circulation to maintain the cash-driven grass-root markets that are a vital source of survival for many in this lop-sided economic realm. Pure digital-currency is a profoundly bad idea.....except for those who control it.

mmm....who would of thought there is a direct 'vested-interest' in the industry by top Gov. employees! ????

At tourist central in Chiang Mai is a Turkish joint, run for years by 'little-Mohamed', who's staff are all Pakistan or Bangladeshi Muslims. He is very aggressive with his business and told us that his staff are all on "special" permits. ????

I'm assuming the logic in use is..."for Chinese, by Chinese"....where's the problem...???????

The lone rice farmer I seen on his tractor in the middle of his paddy, and still wearing a mask.....must of missed the memo. ????