josephbloggs

1 hour ago, geisha said:

I bought the BP due to Trink and Post Box , which was good in those days. Yes, Trink was one of a kind, entertaining and representative of the 80s for me. Bangkok was so different then, exciting, interesting. I looked forward to his stories and the house maid from Yasathon . Some of the comical ones I’d cut out and send to a friend back home , in the days we wrote letters. I still love Bangkok , I’d live there if it was breathable. 

The maid from Yasothon was Roger Crutchley, not Trink. Roger Crutchley was actually a proper writer and I used to enjoy his columns (he was also the sports editor of the BP). Trink had maybe 5% of his talent as a writer.

3 minutes ago, Ralf001 said:

 

What the specs then champ ?

I have absolutely no idea, I haven't seen any announcement. Chump.

3 minutes ago, Ralf001 said:

Prolly have a payload of 500kg and a battery range of 200km.

 

Neither would appeal to anyone but an EV fanboi.

You literally just made up something that is ridiculous. Why? Seriously, what's the point?

I could say the next Fortuner is probably going to be made out of chocolate, will have a one litre fuel tank and no sound proofing. Will be useless to anyone but a diesel fanboi.

8 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I haven't been on all the Phuket beaches, but the 4 I did go on were very average. Best beach on Samui ( Chaweng )was ruined by overbuilding and Lamai has horrible sand to walk on. Samet beaches suck IMO and I walked almost the entire island. The big beach on Chang is OK, but the other are not much.

Maybe you should change your name to "thaibeachkindoflikersabit". 

Kata beach in Phuket is great, as is Nai Harn. I was in Samui a few weeks ago and Chaweng was stunning, clear water, powdery sand, clean and lovely. Loads of other great beaches on Samui too. 

Samet (again was there recently) has Sai Kaew which is super powdery, clean and with lovely water. 

Agree with you on Koh Chang.

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Hua Hin IMO doesn't even qualify as a beach as it vanishes at high tide. The beach where the palace is is super ordinary and was quite dirty when I walked on it

Also agree with this. Also Hua Hin is generally a turd hole, nothing of interest there (to me).

21 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

I just got back from the Bangkok Motor Show.  Highlights:

The MG Cyberster looks fantastic in the flesh, and very nice on the inside too. @JBChiangRai you will be happy.

The Ioniq 5 is also great.
Xpeng G6 and G9 very interesting, the P7i was pretty wow.

I hadn't heard of this before but there is a Neta GT and it looks great inside and out. Could be a real Seal challenger.

GWM Tank is a beast and very cool.
Volvo XC30 feels superb inside but unfortunately a bit small for my needs as I am tall and there's hardly any room behind if you have your seat right back, but otherwise a fab car.
The Xeekr 007 and Xeekr X look interesting if a little quirky. The other Xeek'rs were a bit weird for my taste.
The Lumin actually feels like a really solid little city car. The interior feels well made with very good quality switch work, everything felt very solid for a car of that price.
BYD Sealion feels good too.

 

 

Forgot to mention Vinfast. I know they are investing a huge amount into Thailand and will have something of a marketing blitz, but their cars were very uninspiring. Not very pleasant to look at and felt a bit cheap inside - nowhere near to the quality of the Chinese brands. 
 

I think they’ll struggle against that competition unless they are going to be very very cheap. We’ll see. 

3 hours ago, Gweiloman said:

I’m extremely disappointed that you hardly took any pictures of the models. I see only 2 or 3. Pretties I mean lol.

Ha ha. Actually there weren't any, maybe just a couple here and there.I haven't been to the motor show for a few years so not sure if they stopped them (I remember talk about this) or if they don't bother with them on press day and maybe only wheel them out on the public days.

Any volunteers to go and check (ad take pictures)?

2 hours ago, jojothai said:

Not much logic in the comment. What marching orders from Beijing?
and FYI the new dates for completion of the first high speed line are now more realistic than most people think. 
It was not long ago that SRT were saying publicly that it would open in 2026, which was not possible.
The Thais are progressing it despite the problems caused by the Chinese lockdown that delayed design of the Rail system.
The Chinese could not progress much for nearly two years  because of their strict covid lockdown and travel rules.
That is something nobody could have planned for.
There are delays on the Thai side as well, so its not justified to blame any one party. 
Most of the reasons for delay after the MOU for about 4 years, were that the Chinese wanted to finance the Project and to build it all themselves.
And the Thais could not accept that.
It took a long time to get the agreement that the Project is Thai funded ( no potential debt trap),
and that Thailand would build the infrastructure themselves without having to give thousands of jobs in Thailand to Chinese or subordinates. 

Absolutely correct on all points. The anti-Chinese propaganda just gets swallowed up by all the right wingers / Trumpists.

Thailand has actually played this pretty well, although not without a share of blame for delays.

54 minutes ago, thecyclist said:

Was he really fired?

They terminated his night owl column, but he kept doing his book reviews for ages after that. 

True, but they got phased out after a couple of years.

So "downscaled" rather than "fired"...

1 hour ago, HugoFastor said:

 

Was there also a popular watering on PP2 that could only be reached by entering through the carpark above Foodland supermarket?

Bobby's Arms.

On 3/24/2024 at 10:23 AM, sambum said:

 

I read Enoch Powell's speech "Rivers of Blood" speech occasionally just to refresh my memory to remind me of how things were, and what they have become.

I grew up in an era when (in my city at least) there were no brown or black or  yellow faces. There was nobody to "offend" with Christmas nativity plays, and nobody hid their faces behind face veils or masks. I could go out and play alone in my street without fear of abduction or interference, and drugs were something you got from the doctor when you were ill. Knives were something you only had if you were in the Boy Scouts, and guns were things that soldiers used in wartime. There were no boatloads of illegal immigrants trying to get into my country in order to get clothed and fed and housed by my Government, and then try to change the religion of my country into the religion of the country they were desperately trying to escape from.

So, yes, I would like to go back to that era now, and as a certain pop song would put it "Those were the best days of our lives"!

Bring back the Empire too, coal mines, steam railways, racism and bigotry, and free gammon for all! Ra ra ra!

8 hours ago, dyertribe said:

This is the perfect way for China to quickly move tanks, equipment and troops through South East Asia once they fire the starting gun.

What a load of absolute nonsense. 

Yeah, I am sure they are planning to catch a train to invade Thailand, that'll be the thinking behind this. I imagine that would only give the Thais around 8-10 hours' notice, how on earth would they find a way to stop a train in that time?  Impossible right?  Do they construct the rails from special indestructible material? Bridges too? And the electricity supply will also be indestructible. 

Just swallow your western propaganda without questions, good boy.

Oh, and how many countries have been invaded by train before? Ever thought about why they normally begin wars from the air?

4 hours ago, moe666 said:

What is the interest rate on the loan China made. Did they also get the concessions along the rail line they ask for as well.

This project is not funded by China in any way. Thailand is just buying the technology and know how, they are not borrowing from China.

4 hours ago, herfiehandbag said:

Haven't travelled on it for some years. Does it still have that loud bang when it goes over the points at one of the stations - I think the one where the maintenance depot is?

 

I remember thinking something is not quite right with that!

Yes, but it is not the points. It happens between Ramkhamhaeng and Hua Mark but only on the Express trains. It comes from the toilets and is some sort of pneumatic release valve but never found out exactly what it is, but it's definitely toilet related.

3 hours ago, khunjeff said:

 

Really? I last rode the ARL less than two months ago, and the empty, unusable baggage car was still on the train that I was on - and I've never seen an ex-Express train without it. (All the former Express passenger cars were converted to the City-style beech seating years ago.) 

Yeah, the last few times I've been on it I've noticed the Express ones now have seating in all four carriages. Unless maybe they've only done one and I've just happened to get that one each time, not sure.

On 3/23/2024 at 10:36 AM, khunjeff said:

That being the case, CP should finally convert the unused baggage cars on the former express trains to accommodate passengers - it's ridiculous that those trains run with one empty car, even years after the express service was discontinued.

They did that quite a while back.

50 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

The OP asked about the Gulf. Last I saw, Phuket is on the Andaman. Yes, that is an amazing body of water, but many of us stay as far away from Phuket as we possibly can, for a dozen good reasons. 

Well the thread title was "any great beaches on the mainland". And anyway I was replying to a different poster who went off on a tangent saying the only decent beaches are on islands more than 40kms from the mainland, hence Phuket being an example in my reply.

30 minutes ago, it is what it is said:

 

i used to see him and his lady companion quite often at scala cinema, siam square, never spoke to him.

 

used to look at his column in the bangkok post, not sure how he got away with it, he simply regurgitated material from other sources, and seemed disproportionately interested in nigerian  scammers, his film reviews were pretty un-insightful. given the written output i saw i'm surprised he was regarded as a journalist/writer. stickman used to rave about him in his column, never understood that either.

My sentiments exactly, spot on.