connda

Even the tourists will get bored within a week. This will be a wash-out, but those tourist who do book a extended trip with the intent of coming to Northern Thailand for a 3 week Songkran? After sucking "killer air" for three weeks and enjoying the wonders of a brown-hazed sky where there are usually mountains - they'll never come back this time of year, and they'll tell all their friends as well. Be careful what you wish for.

Good - it will clear some of the "killer air" out of the region.

Thailand is the most LGBTQ+++ friendly country in the world. The problem is that in this day and age, those who believe they are "discriminated against" want 100% acceptance from everybody. It will never happen nor is that attitude realistic. How many LGBTQ+++ discriminate (and dislike) people who are not LGBTQ+++? The answer - Some. And there will always be "some." And how many non-LGBTQ+++ discriminate (and dislike) LGBTQ+++? The answer - Some. And there will always be "some." Just like I'd like 100% acceptance that I'm non-Thai and I want 100% of the Thai people to not discriminate against me. Unrealistic. There always will be some. The fact that a same-sex marriage law is passed at all is the equivalent to Womens' suffage (when women obtained the equal rights to men to vote). It's not a perfect world, but instead of bemoaning the fact that not all of the people will accept anything new all of the time - try celebrating the accomplishment of equality when it happens. It's a milestone. Be happy. Now - in that vain, perhaps its also time to grant foreign men married to Thai women the same rights as as foreign women married to Thai men. Now there is discrimination in all of its discriminatory ugliness which is still accepted by Thais. Foreign women married to Thai men: A valued core of a Thai nuclear family. Foreign men married to Thai women: Just visiting for a year and not valued by Thailand at all. So LGBTQ+++ in Thailand Get married legally. Enjoy you new rights and equality. Be happy.

Which is why the wife and I go to Cha-Am.

Thai "highway patrol" are for escorting VIPs, not for pulling drivers over and citing them for moving violation which is unheard of here. And if anything? The cops drive just as bad.

Saw it on FB. It shows a number of typical Thai driving antics that lead to accidents. Slow truck in the right (fast) lane which won't move left. Hyper-aggressive drivers. Road rage. Complete inability to read the road ahead of your own vehicle... And - BAM. It could have been worse.

You mean someone who owns a Status-Symbol-On-Wheels. Waste of money.

Just curious, but using your logic (considering you're in Utah), how can you accept sharing American women with migrants and foreigners? See, in the US that immediately gets you labelled as a racist, and rightly so. So, are you promoting racism in Thailand? You can't understand why Thai guys aren't more racist? Amazing Americans.

Easy - there are more women than men in Thailand. Go to your average village and you'll see a whole load of ageing spinsters looking for a husband. So the answer is: Thai guys don't want them.

If the "global youth" could afford million dollar beach-front properties on the ocean like the Obamas, the Bidens, and the Gores, then they probably would be jet-setting (like the Obamas, the Bidens, and the Gores) and enjoying a nice beach-front BBQ with their billionaire buddies (and don't think for a moment that the little curmudgeon Greta isn't part of The Club). Instead? Most of these kids have no future, they aren't going to own a house unless they inherit one from mummy and daddy, and for that matter most probably can't afford an EV without going so far into debt as to be unable to pay the student loan debts no less eat broccoli and kale at $10/pound. So? Why not sit on the road blocking traffic and clamoring about how the Obamas, the Bidens, and the Gores beachfront properties will be underwater by 2030 (expect those properties will be high and dry as none of them could obtain property or title insurance if "the melting of the polar ice caps flooding the world apocalypse" was really going to happen - but don't tell the kiddies that - ignorance is bliss).

If your name was Jane Average - Commoner, then "Yes." The UK legal system would hammer you. When your name is Greta Thunberg - Darling of Corporate Climate Activism, then "No." Her corporate and NGO sponsors will lawyer her up and paid whatever is needed to get her to her next scheduled event.

@george NortherRyland has a point. If you live out in rural Northern Thailand (Lamphun, Lampang, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, etc) provinces and have any interaction with the locals, then you know the really ugly truth about the wide and pervasive burning of forest lands in the mountains surrounding Thai villages out here. There are at least two major reasons Thai villagers burn - one is to clear forest undergrowth and stimulate the mycelium in the forest floors in order to gather Hep Thop mushroom (which can fetch prices upwards of 600 THB/kilogram or more) as well as other mushroom species. Drive down Highway 11 heading south between Lamphun and Lampang and you'll see bunches of roadside stands selling mushrooms. That trade is built on the back of forest burning. The other reason is to gather red ant eggs for Kai Mot Dang salad. The people gather red ant eggs kill two birds with one stone and just let their fire burn for reason number 1. This is all economic. Oh yeah - everyone in the village knows the forests are being burn, but nobody knows who is doing the burning. "Shhhhh, be very very quite - shhhhhh!" The Big Ag issue is also a real issue. It depends where you live. Yeah, in the rural villages everyone knows that they can't burn their fields at this time - get caught and get fined (sound of a hand being slapped with wet bamii noodles). This comes down from the village heads and above. But in places like Mae Hong Son where Big Ag hands out seeds and supplies so that local can plant corn on completely deforested mountains? Perhaps a different story. "Car drive by. Throw out cigarette. Whole mountain of corn stubble burn. Not my fault." Then you have to ask yourself why the Thai government allows entire mountainsides to be deforested for growing corn in the first place. And we don't have sugarcane here yet, but given the talk between Thai ministers and Big Ag, they are rubbing their hands together in glee thinking of all the profits and revenues from growing more sugarcane to burn in cars. And with more sugarcane will come more crop burning at the Alter of Big Ag: Privatize the profits; socialize the costs of health damage from killer PM 2.5 air pollution. As others are pointing out though, right now? Most of this is forest arson. The government pays lip service year after year and on rare occasions arrests some patsy to show what a great job they are doing. But at the end of the day, there simply isn't any enforcement. And there is no "teeth" in the law if someone is caught. They are talking about throwing people in prison again for smoking ganja, but get caught burning forests and get a hand slap and perhaps publicly shamed. No "teeth" in burning laws - well unless you are burning a joint if Srettha and friends have their way at the end of this year. Burn a joint in 2025 and go to prison for a couple of years; burn down a forest? <shrug> So it never ends.

A single account is only insured for 1M THB.

No. First the ban would not be enforced any more than the anti-arson is enforced. There is wayyyy too much money to be made in the mushroom trade.

Burning plastic and "Zero Carbon" seem to be in polar opposite directions.

You missed April 1st by 5 days. Try next year.

So they are going to ditch frigates and submarines for lunar launch vehicles. <laughs>

A few weeks back I made a comment about this coming Songkran that people probably wouldn't be able to see Doi Suthep from the west side of the moat. Today driving in from Lamphun, wife and I crossed the fly-over bridge by Airport Central and - no Doi Suthep, no mountains, just brown haze. Not even an indistinct outline of a mountain. Nada. Hai bpai. "Welcome to Chiang Mai tourists!" Cough cough cough. "Play water, have fun!" cough cough hack wheeze. Back in Lamphun now where the AQI is significantly better, but still horrible. At least I can see the mountains down here. Wife said CM is back at the top of the World's Worst Air. Congratulations Chiang Mai. It's good to be Number One!

And the whole paradigm will collapse in a heap when the first X-Class Coronal Mass Ejection takes out the grid in Northern latitudes, like Sweden, and the cashless segment of the population can't make business transactions. Not "If" but "When." Hopefully it isn't a Carrington Class event then everyone's grid goes south and making business transactions electronically may be the last of anyone's worries. And humanity's survivors will be the most agrarian societies still without electricity and running water. Personally, I'd like to see a major-but-localized CME-induced grid event just to wake the collective fools up.

Haven't been to a buffet since the Covid madness when everyone was forced to wear a mask to dish up food. Do they still require mask-wearing to go through buffet lines?

Oh look! EVs that nobody but the upper 1% can afford (or the highly indebted Somchai and Sumalee average who attempt to keep up with the Sretthas and Thaksins) In the meanwhile, as the same 1% create laws to force the real common-folk to ditch ICE vehicles and to purchase EVs (the only reasonably affordable being from China), the already highly indebted Thai public as well as banks with over-extended balance sheet make another 1997 highly probably.

All I'm finding is Natrol and that is priced into stratospheric silliness (in excess of 1000 to 2000+ per bottle). Melatonin was affordable if not downright inexpensive as a sleep-aide. Not anymore unfortunately. Oh, and get your shipments before May when the Thai government hits consumers of imported products, like iHerb, with a 7% VAT.

Way cool. Thanks!

Do you have a link?