mobs00

I bet almost no one will get to hear of this on street level, let alone take any notice without local action of the kind cmsally and her neighbours have taken.

If the impact of the new regulation is low, perhaps concerned TV members should photograph as many violations as possible in one week (or on one day) and submit them all to the Chiang Mai Mail so they could run a whole page of Firestarters instead of the horoscopes they seem to use as filler these days.

I hereby volunteer to co-ordinate this effort.

I am nominating you for "idea of the year" (even though it has just started)

Who knows, with a bit of bad publicity early on maybe some change will happen. I do agree however that without educating the general population and offering them an alternative to removing waste that doesn't cost them anything, it will be very difficult to change an agricultural practice that has been engrained in this culture for hundreds of years. (minus the burnng of plastic)

Chiang Mai Governor issues public order prohibiting burning Rubbish incineration and deforestation also prohibited

Staff reporters

As a result of increasing public concern about pollution in the city, its surrounding areas, and the province itself, the Governor of Chiang Mai, Viboon Sanguanphongs, has issued a public order prohibiting burning of all kinds in open areas. Rubbish incineration and the cutting down of trees are also prohibited. The order is highly specific, and is being sent out to all local administration organisations, and also to government agencies in the province.

Prohibited activities include waste incineration, the burning of twigs, leaves, agricultural residue and the burning of areas of forest. Officers are being sent out to instruct the public in alternative ways of eradicating or recycling waste, as recommended by the governor. The province has also designated certain areas as forest fire protection zones. It is hoped that officers will be able to persuade local people to abandon their traditional burning practices and replace them with new methods of waste management in order to produce fertilizer. Any breaches of the new public order will be severely dealt with under the law.

Pollution is caused by incomplete combustion processes forming carbon particles, combined with dust from roads and fields. During the dry and hot seasons, prevailing weather conditions favour the formation of early morning smog and air pollution, as an “inversion layer” of colder air traps warm air below it, preventing it from rising and dissipating polluting particles.

Recently, the Meteorology Department reported that the lessening of a depression over Thailand had caused increases in daytime temperatures in the upper regions of the country, but that the weather was still cold, with cloudy conditions, exactly the conditions which encourage the formation of an inversion layer and the resultant pollution. Airborne pollution is able to travel great distances at altitude as a result of prevailing winds; an example of this being the huge decrease in already unsatisfactory air quality caused by the massive forest fire on the Burmese border during last year’s hot season.

Chiang Mai Mail, January 15, 2008

So I have heard there is now a government order prohibiting the burning of anything, be it rubbish, yard waste, crops. There are now hefty fines in place and the government is taking this seriously. "Any breaches of the new public order will be severely dealt with under the law."

Around 7pm tonight I was driving by the Chang Puak bus station and right across from it they have one of those manned police boxes. It is used quite frequently to stop passers by to check for proper licences, insurance and so on. Well tonight I guess they were cold or bored or both because they decided to burn all the rubbish and leaves around the station.

I was just wondering if the ban only affects the rural poor or are some people just exempt? What kind of example are the authorities setting when they disregard a notice from the governor? Why would anyone else stop burning their refuse when the police are still doing it themselves? We all suffer as a result of the poor air quality and if the authorities want to take this matter seriously, maybe they should start looking at the top and work their way down from there....

This week's Chiangmai Mail ( Tuesday, 15th January ) shoud be carrying a story or possibly a letter entitled "A Story That Has To Be Told".

Check it out - if you wan't a slant on this City and its inhabitants. The contents "wowed" me and I'm sure you will also find it an eye-opener.

This is, by the way, NOT an attempt to increase the circulation of that news-paper ( no smart references in that regard, please).

Cheers.

If anything, your baiting tactics have probably turned more people into seeing the paper in a negative light. My mother always told me to think before you speak, maybe next time you should think before you post. A more appropriate avenue would have been to wait until the article was out then comment on what it had to say.

Gee, I'm convinced now. I was wrong. Sorry. My fault. If only I was an experienced driver I could have driven faster, thus, by shear luck, I could have beat him to the intersection and avoided an accident.

Ta22, where do I start? Your post is fundamentally wrong in so many ways. First you think the falang is wrong for being a falang "so the police is not wrong when he say farang drink beer" and thais don't drink lao kao??? Second you are bragging about driving dangerously. "on a high way i travel as fast a 150 km / hour . i got a ticket before for drive at 137km . 200 baht standard" Congratulations. Third, I should just admit it was my fault for being there? "you go over all the trouble for the smallest of thing . if you had called your insurance guys since is first class you would had save TONS of your times" And last but surely not least "in my country. you lose your licence for just drinking 1-2 beer" So why do so many Thai drivers drive without a license like this guy?

Ta22 it is people like YOU that make it dangerous for the rest of us to be on the road. Driving laws are there to protect ALL drivers and there should not be acceptions for race or blatant stupidity. So next time you are driving down the highway at 150 km/hr think of why there is a speed limit, and maybe, just maybe you won't have to tell the family of some poor soul why you could not stop in time.

Photos below.

I visited a friend today for lunch with my girlfriend in tow. He lives out in Sanpatong at the end of the canal road to the right up towards the mountains. We had lunch at around 1pm and I had 2 beers. He is building a small house on his property so I helped him around the site for a bit until about 2:45pm when I decided to take off. This is when it got interesting….

On this trip to his house I was also planning on looking for some new running trails for the Chiang Mai Hash House Harriers to run on. So I headed out of his driveway and to the right out towards the hills, passed the local temple to a T junction in the road. I headed towards the right for about a kilometer and the road dead ended so I turned and headed back. As you probably know the roads in Chiang Mai have a habit of getting smaller and smaller the further from the city you drive. And here was a perfect example; only one car could fit on this country road at a time. No problem as I have driven like this before and the key is to drive slow.

So I am driving along and all of a sudden the girlfriend yells ahhhh!! HOY!!! Which in itself is a funny reaction but she does that every time something really surprises her. So BANG!! BOOM!!! KRSHH!! That is what a motorbike sounds like hitting the front of your bumper at low speed. I though ohh SH_T! Here we go! About 15 minutes earlier my friend and I were just talking about how tough it is to drive in areas like this with all the idiots having their afternoon shots of lao kao then pulling out from god knows where on the motorbikes.

So I get out and sure enough the guy is down. I had no idea if I ran him over or what happened. He flew out of a small soi to the left so fast all I saw was him hitting the truck and then going down. So here comes his drinking buddy running over quicker than the rush to Big C when they put the cooking oil on sale. First thing he does is check his friend, then starts to subtly kick out the motorbike tracks to hide the direction he came in; yeah, like that will work. The guy seems to be ok and is up and walking after a few minutes. I quickly get on the phone to my friend to have him come down with his wife. During this time the rest of the village of 50 shows up and out of the corner of my eye I see his drinking buddy pick up a small plastic bag that fell off the bike and toss it in the bushes. First thing that comes to mind is “whiskey”. And sure enough it was lao kao. So while the village idiots are scrambling to see if the guy has any serious injuries I go to grab the bag and put it near the truck, after taking a picture of its location first. We confront him about this and he says “he is not drunk because it is the afternoon; he only drinks in the evening!”

So here comes the Thai soap opera drama corp. Thank god my girlfriend was with me. They start blaming me for everything of course. My girlfriend starts to point out everything he was at fault for; trying to drive on the wrong side of the road for one, being drunk with whiskey on board, no license, no rego, the list went on. They blame me for driving to fast and for being a falang and they blame my girlfriend for siding with me. While she is keeping them busy I am taking loads of pictures of everything.

My friend arrives about 10 minutes after the accident. Not much he could do but it was comforting not being alone in this. Well, with everything going against this guy he decides he wants to call the cops. So I said “let’s dance”. Come to find out he is an ex-cop. Oops. The local police arrive and were very friendly, they checked out the scene and I guess because he was an ex-cop they decided to bring on a traffic cop to settle this. He must have been a friend of the “big policeman”. After waiting for 2 hours the guy shows up looks at m and says “falang gin beer”. Do you believe that! Shows up and says I am the one that is drunk, while the slur talking, squinty eyed, professional lao kao drinker throws his 10 baht bag of whiskey in the bushes!

Here we go: falang+accident=$$$

So it’s all my fault. He says I am drunk I say test me. He says it is my fault so we point out the guy was pulling out onto the wrong side of the road. Still my fault. The “big policeman” talks to his friend a bit more and they decide to hose me. I have first class insurance so they tell me to admit I was at fault and call my insurance company OR they will take me to the “bigger policeman” and I can deal with him. At this point my girlfriend wants me to just admit it, but “why would I do that? It’s not my fault”. I tell him “good, then take me”. I start to take a bunch more photos of everything; the truck, tires, tire tracks. The bike, driver, people around, everything! The “big policeman” starts to ask my girlfriend all kinds of questions about me and about her. Why am I here, what do I do, where do I come from. They ask her where is she from, why she is in Chiang Mai when her ID say Mae Sariang, where she goes to school; basically trying to intimidate her because it wasn’t working with me. I stand my ground and don’t budge.

The cops that first showed up go over to the motorbike driver to talk to him. I guess they tell him “when falangs think they are right they don’t change their mind. Falangs have money and you will lose”. I wasn’t going to change my mind and he was going to lose and the cops will lose face for trying to extort money from me with all the evidence on my side. The “big policeman” gets fed up and almost throws our ID’s at us and tells us to go. 6pm now and we jump in the truck and take off.

So in the end it turned out to be a pissing match and I guess after being so “drunk”, I ended up peeing more than him.

I wouldn’t recommended this in every situation but more often than not if you have an accident and it is clearly not your fault, you may be able to stand your ground and get off without having to pay. So much for the village that won the lottery!!! And I guess for you runners out there, I won’t be setting a run in that part of Chiang Mai anytime soon….

Hi from dummy here; who are they playing?

New York Giants

The Pats' are going for a bunch of records in there last regular season game this weekend. Does anyone know if it will be shown anywhere? Kickoff is as 08:15 on Sunday morning.

Hi Uly...... do you think this would work in Chiang Mai?

Only in America.........

If he wants to, Mike can put out some darn good food. I would guess that Miguel's has the best Mexican food in Southeast Asia and that was one of his inventions.

Personally, I hope he comes back here and opens a pizza and hero sandwich shop as he was planning before he changed his mind and went to Phuket.

I would have to disagree. Salsa Kitchen on Hippy alley has the Best mexican food around.

The Chiang Mai Hash House Harriers is having a male pub crawl tomorrow. We will start at 6:30pm at the Duke's by the river for some food and then on to a few pubs for an INfamous crawl. Tomorrow is a MALE ONLY hash but every Saturday there is always a mixed hash. PM me for more info. The Men run every other Monday and every other Tuesday. This week it is on Monday. The meet up after the MALE runs is at Foxy Lady, pick up at the hash pub. Saturday mixed hashes (there are 2) meet at the hash pub and also meet at the Fish n' Chip shop across from the UN Irish Pub.

I have been getting all kinds of conflicting reports on this. Some say you can't open tomorrow other say you only have to close on Saturday, others you can open after the election ends on Sunday and so on. Last week we got the notice to close for the entire weekend on Thursday night! Does anyone know for sure or should I just wait to see who shows up with the notice tonight?

Palaad Tawanron up on Doi Suthep served alcohol last night, as did many other restaurants on Suthep road.

I went out to eat last night at around 8pm and was served alcohol as were many other people at the restaurant. I also saw many people as I was driving around Chiang Mai who had bottles of beer on their tables. What does this tell you? As long as you are eating its ok to serve? Maybe they think to many people would go drinking on empty stomachs this weekend...........

At Foxy lady here in Chiang Mai we will be open this weekend with copious ammounts of liquid refreshment.

We are closed on the 23rd though and no word yet from our people about closing this weekend.....

Sorry, I take it back. We are closed this weekend, just got the official word.

At Foxy lady here in Chiang Mai we will be open this weekend with copious ammounts of liquid refreshment.

We are closed on the 23rd though and no word yet from our people about closing this weekend.....

Are There any news sources to confirm this?

i buy the big ones on a regular basis....i would be more worried if i could only get small!

i do like singha light, but never seen a big bottle! if you really like the stuff why would you wanna buy a smaller bottle?

I need a smaller version to sell at a bar.

I have checked at Makro and a few other places, I have also checked at the big beer and liquor distributors. No one seems to have it in the small bottles. Any idea where I could find cases of it?

Well, sort of.. I was the pirate with my trusty sidekick Nok.

mobs,

so did you get the customers you expected at foxy last night? and was mama san pleased with you?

It was a good night and everyone was having fun. Although, the police started to shut down the bars on Loi Kroh and the surrounding areas so Foxy closed early. They went to Star Six and drugged tested everyone in there, so I heard....

Well, sort of.. I was the pirate with my trusty sidekick Nok.

.... And I'll be at Foxy Lady. The girls will be dressed as devils, the waitresses as angels, and the Mama San will be dressed up as a WITCH!!!! See you there.

Well, it sound like there is a lot of people that will be dressed up around town.

Now, does anyone know where I can get a costume made?