Johpa

Don't go to the hill tribe villages where there are Thais sitting out front collecting money like at a freak show. We went to one near Mae Rim to show a guest who was in town visiting. They wanted 300 Baht! per person to get in. When we asked how much of the money went to the poor people in the village, they couldn't give us an answer so we left.

I don't know how much of the fee goes to the "villagers", but I do know that it employs many people from the surrounding minority villages who would otherwise have no employment. Some of the people you see are seniors who can no longer work as day laborers. One of the young men who collects tickets is also a teacher and a minority member himself, who teaches classes to the younger ones who reside there after the place closes for the day.

Or you could rent a vehicle and travel yourself to some surrounding villages where, unless there happens to be a local festival such as the Lisu New Year, you will see a lot of empty houses as everyone will be working in the fields. Trust me, a highland village in the daytime is pretty dull.

So for many tourists with limited time these tourist villages offer a quick peek at traditional housing and traditional garb. They may not be for everyone, but rest assured the people employed in these "villages" are very happy for the work. And if you visit the one up the Mae Sa Valley near the elephant camp, tell the old ladies in the first house by the entrance that Johpa sends his regards.

Knowledgeable Thais do not purchase investment gold in Thailand but travel to Hong Kong for such purposes.

And the reason that those of you who detest the smells of certain favored Thai foods still reside within the Kingdom is what exactly?

A.) servants

B.) wives half your age (actually a subset of A)

C.) affordable pay-for-sex opportunities (actually A and B are a subset of C)

D.) never did fit in at home country

E.) all of the above

While we have no business or really any hope of changing the more unpleasant aspects of Thai values, that again does not mean we have to share them.

It is not an "unpleasant" value to not want to have methamphetamine sold openly to pre-teens. The police were not able to control the yaa baa epidemic at the local level and something had to be done. If the scourge had been pervasive in the muubaanjatsan housing developments or the condos favored by the expat communities, if those communities were the objects of daily thefts and violence, if the 12 year olds in the private international schools were openly offered drugs on a daily basis, then your self-righteous tune might change. There is nothing unpleasant about wanting to live in a safe community and not have drugs pervasively sold to your 12 year old at school. Of course we can always nitpick and find values of others we find offensive, but the average rural Thai's response to the war on the drug dealers, and most of the victims were indeed drug dealers, is understandable if you lived within the affected communities as I did.

That is no moped, looks like a D-Tracker which will take you just about anywhere in the dry season, on or off road. Not exactly an adventure to get to the top of Doi Inthanon on that machine, but a great day's ride.

Go to the gt-rider.com website and ask your questions. There are countless dirt roads up north around Pai in all directions. I think Mr. GT-Rider has got a new edition of his Mae Hong Song Loop map out there for sale as a starting point. And if you enjoy being off the pavement then forget about getting to Pai through Mae Tang on the tedious Hwy 1095 and head up to Wat Chan through Samoeng and then down into Pai.

When was the last time you drove in Thailand and how much mileage have you done here? Think you are the first person I hear to claim thais are darn good, decent drivers. Compared to monkeys? Words fail me now.

I have been driving in Thailand far longer than the vast majority of the posters here. I just spent a month driving throughout the north. My point was that compared to decades ago, Thai drivers are much improved. You noobies and you racist neo-sahibs who are so quick to generalize any negative comments about the Thais have no clue just how more common near-death experiences on the roads were 20 years ago as compared to today. And not only are the drivers better, the highways are also much improved from the old two-lane undivided roads that once served as major cross-country roads.

Or maybe it is that with the advent in Farang lands of the endemic use of the cell phone whilst driving that drivers in those countries are now little different than Thai drivers, or at least I fail to see much difference.

I reckon that my language Thai skills began their decline when I began to understand the Thai soaps that my wife watches on the telly. For some reason my motivation to continue to improve ceased for some deep seated psychological reasons that I have not yet fathomed. The only retribution I have found for having to endure Thai TV shows is to watch Star Trek (or as my wife calls it "the mushroom" in the sky) reruns on TV in me wife's presence.

And a Happy New Year to you all!

Like all Thai drivers he was , well, a poor driver. This post will probably be removed for criticizing Thai drivers, but it is time to call a spade a spade, especially when Thailand is trying to cut in half the number of road deaths.

Sorry to disagree, but I think the average ability of Thai drivers found on the roads today is actually pretty darn good, especially compared to say 20 years ago. There are still significant problems with the endemic use of stimulants amongst truck drivers and long haul bus drivers where the profits from the drugs are spread around so that nothing is done ( the Thai police as an institution have not improve over the decades). But most Thais in cars are decent drivers these days, not great, but vastly improved from the skills of their parents, who are my age peers.

First, understand that the practice of medicine combines both science and application of the medical arts. Second, after nearly 30 years of interactions with Thai medical personnel, I find them equal to any here stateside or in Europe. Those who expect 100% perfection should simply kill themselves and let their God sort out their myriad afflictions. As for me, I am happy to continue to seek medical advice from Thai medical practitioners although always being aware of the need to follow the dictum of caveat emptor.

In case others may search, the ride to Phrae was great. Taking 1023 through Long into Phrae was great, with a combination of typical rural padi scenery and some great mountain roads as well. Although the city of Phrae is a generic modern, bustling, Thai provincial capitol town, once off the busy main streets I thought I had been transported some 30 years back into Chiang Mai. I stayed at the Thepvong Place, a traditional Thai style hotel run by a very friendly Brit-Thai couple, and all the other Thais I met in Phrae were equally as friendly. The rooms were clean and affordable and it makes for a comfortable stay as I explored the surrounding region. This is a province worthy of further exploration.

If you are under 40 and can speak Thai then by all means stay near Neeman. My kids and nieces and nephews, all young adults now, love the area. It is not "gay" but it is, in the vernacular, "metrosexual" so if you have issues with gay people then it will not be for you. But most young adults love the area.

If you do not speak Thai then stay around Thapae. It has become a bit sleepy, but there are plenty of places catering to a wide variety of tourists and ex-pats and it is within walking distance of the night market and most of the historical sites. But I think the Thapae area represents Chaing Mai's past and that Neeman area represents Chiang Mai's future.

I would not reccomend POP in any way shape or form

I recently rented a D-Tracker for a month from the Pops location on Ratchamanka, just down from the "Big Bike" shop and not only had zero problems, but found the manager, King, and his staff to be very pleasant indeed.

When things go wrong with a bike rental they can go very wrong, and it is critical, as in any vehicle rental situation, to inspect the vehicle before you rent. But Pops has been around a very long time and over the decades I have never heard of any persistent problems although many people prefer renting from the smaller shops, especially the locals who can more easily develop a relationship with those owners. But considering that Pops is the largest rental agency, I am not surprised that one will hear a complaint more often than the other shops.

The word refers to the elected house of parliament.

Saphaa council or organization

phuu thaen ratsadon represented officials of the public

Chinese leaders take a more serious view if incidents such as these.

Too bad the Thai ruling elite is not willing to grow up. The PRC officials in China are acting with extreme prejudice against corrupt officials whose greed leads to the death of others. They are slowly working to eliminate such corruption, the only thing that slows the anti-corruption campaign in China is that, like in Thailand, the corruption is endemic and so they can not remove everyone all at once.

I was going to ask something really dumb like "how the <deleted> did someone end up in the drink there?"

Perhaps we have members who originate from Amsterdam who can explain how cars end up in the water.

Pardon me, but if she is some distance ahead and you call out loudly, regardless of pronoun or title, you have already made a social gaff.

Yeah Ian you're right, it is pretty well known for pottery / ceramics. The most people stop in Lampang is the elephant training/conservation centre about 25km out of town.

I thought it was a well known distant suburb of Chiang Mai noted for its "forest products" market, Kaat Kwian. With the divided highway now finished, it is a breeze to visit the city, which indeed has little to offer, but the surrounding area is quite pleasant. But for an extra hours drive, I would rather tour the area around Phrae.

I used to love Dan Hicks and His Hot Lips!

Yea, I am with you there, the greatest hippy band that ever existed. I have been trying to find a ring tone featuring Sid Page's solo on "Scare Myself" for years.

I agree with both you guys, Dan Hicks was (and still is) great. Certainly a unique sound, there's nobody else like him. It's kinda hard for me to classify him as a hippie...

Just how would you classify this cast of characters if not as hippies?

I used to love Dan Hicks and His Hot Lips!

Yea, I am with you there, the greatest hippy band that ever existed. I have been trying to find a ring tone featuring Sid Page's solo on "Scare Myself" for years.

Personally, I think a 20 baht coin is the step in the right direction.

Some of the 20 baht notes I handle these days are very old indeed, faded, smelly and probably riddled with bacteria and disease.

I daresay the world is a dangerous place. But may I suggest that Thailand is perhaps not for you. Do not, I repeat, do not step outside the tourist/neo-sahib bubble as the countryside tends to be older, more faded, more smelly, and infected with far more bacteria than you could possible tolerate.

Me, but being drug free I tend to have a lot more sympathy for right-wing reactionaries these days.

I think we all get a litttle more conservative as we get older

I for one now prefer Sang Som + Soda to opium or pot, long gone are the days I managed the Ye Old Karen Coffee Shop guesthouse, but my politics have moved perhaps a tad more to the left than before.

If you don't mind adding a few kilometers, from the Samoeng RD you can take the right turn into the soi leading up towards Tod Mork waterfalls (follow signs to Sukantara Resort) and then take a right at the school/temple soi in the village of Pang Haew (about 4km up the road) and take the dirt paths over to Mae Aen and Prem.

We are still fascinated by finding out, in casual conversation with a Thai friend at the health club, that Thailand is a net importer of soy beans (he's in the business of bringing them in from Brazil). Our friend also said soy bean is not a profitable crop here since the soil doesn't have the right whatever to get high-yield. We'd like to know the extent to which soy is grown around northern Thailand.

I saw quite a bit of soy being planted in the Mae Rim and Samoeng districts. Around my in-law's neighborhood soy continues to be a popular second crop after the rice. I doubt it is very profitable as the in laws just scrape along decade after decade. I have tried to get them to find something more profitable, but it is what they are familiar with. But there are not many other crops that can be easily planted in the padi and irrigated with the existing gravity fed systems.

There is a new irrigation reservoir that will be serving areas of north Samoeng near the village of Mae Pa, on the road to the Pong Kwao hot springs. It will be interesting to observe over the years how this reservoir will affect the local agriculture.

Possibly the most expensive mushrooms in the world

Forest products and the threat of fire in Northern Thailand

The pictures, with healthy forest seen above and degraded forest seen right, illustrate the devastating consequences of annual fires, used for the collection of forest products, in Thai forests. Species-rich ecosystems become degraded and the development of the forest stunted and void of life.

I am sure that different localities might vary. Our home is within the Doi Suthep-Doi Pui National Forest area, one of many villages "grandfathered" into the national forest as pre-existing to the establishment of the forest boundaries. I have not encountered the burning of the forest for the sole purpose of extracting forest products. I have only seen the burning for the purpose of using the land to plant crops. The most intensive clearing occurs within the neighborhoods of Mong villages where forest is permanently replaced with agricultural crops. This clearing of the forest can be seen around villages both to north and south of the Mae Rim-Samoeng highway such as Nong Hoi and Mae Sa Mai. It can also be seen along the way up to Doi Inthanon. This intensive switch to agriculture has proceeded with the help of the various Royal Projects which act as test beds for new crops, originally sought as substitutions for opium. That is not to say that some may burn to collect forest products, it is simply been my experience that those who collect forest products need not burn to find their products.

With the improvement of all weather roads into what were once remote mountain valleys, one sees continued expansion of agriculture at the expense of the long degraded forest eco-systems. Travel up any of the paved roads north of Samoeng and you might be surprised at the variety of crops now grown. With more guaranteed transportation, farmers can now grow vegetable crops that need to get to market quickly after harvest as opposed to being limited to planting crops such as rice which can be stored.