MESmith

Talon are a decent brand.  I've got Talon electric hedge trimmers.  Never had a problem.

Try the row of shops east side of Chotana intersection on the superhighway frontage road, south side.  I've seen manual push mowers, Talon brand.   

I have been driving this route for over 4 years from Chiang Mai to Surin about 3 times a year. i have taken different routs just to see the country. The best over all for going from Chiang Mai to Nong Khai IMO for time, safety and convenience is Highway 11 south to Highway 12 east to Highway 2 north to Nong Khai. about 760 Kilometers 12 hours. There is some construction down around  Den Chai but it should not hold you up. I have seen major improvements on the highways that I have recommended. Allot of it is 4 lane and some is just 2 way and mountain but good road. I always make sure I have a full tank of fuel when I leave Phitsanulok Its about 300 Kilometer from there to Khon Kaen and there are a few spots of 30 Kilometers that are dry. Oh and the scenery Is out of this world going over the mountains and threw the National forest. Take your time and enjoy.

Thanks, appreciate the input. 

What time does the border close?  I'd rather spend the night in Vientiane than Nong Khai.

Driving time is about 9-10 hours depending on the speed and traffic. Roads are good - Normally Take Rd 11 to Uttaradit and then the 1246 and 1143 to Chatrakan and Nakhonthai and then take the 2013/203 to Dan Sai and to Phu Rua and from there to Loei, Udon Thani and Nong Khai.

Nice rout for sight seeing but out of the way. Direct and faster... Highway 11 south to Highway 12 east to Highway 2 north.

Have you driven this route?  Just wondering whether it's quicker to drive down to Tak, then cut across to Phitsanulok on hwy 12?  I need to drive to Friendship bridge next month, so open to suggestions.   How is hwy 11 now?  It's an extra 100km via Tak, but "superhighway".

 TheEmpire. Is it blocked? I am using True in Bangkok.

No

Maybe the owner thought the location opposite Tesco was great for attracting Foreign customers?  Unfortunately, you only see the signs as you leave Tesco, heading away from Tony's.......

Tuskers a good business?

Is that the place where the cheap tv members hangout?

Chas and Rachel are great people, as are their staff, (Gai in particular)

and offer a breadth of fun and entertainment not available anywhere else in CM!

Where is your justification for accusing their clientle of being cheap TV members?

Have you never 'sufffered' at the hands of their very generous hospitality?

David

I've never been to tuskers, never met the owners, got nothing against or for them, but do know the location.  I do wonder whether it's one of those businesses that has been well built up successfully by the owners,  but that success wont necessarily transfer to the new owner.  Just my thoughts.

I gave up on TheEmpire as I found it impossible to maintain the ratio,

even when downloading popular "rubbish" soaps.

I am enjoying the BBC Proms from TheBox.

sports are "neutral" for the 1st 7 days.  No need to worry about ratio 

What about here, not heart shaped but manmade looking with manmade island; 17.3777, 99.7847?

There's something similar at 17.21955, 100.1242

Even better at 17.07127, 99.896

This last one might be the "heart shaped lake".

I find google maps very useful for planning long trips.  Key in your starting point & destination.  Then you can play around with the route it gives you to get your preferred route.  btw I think this topic is in the wrong forum.....

Theempire.bz, sister site to thebox are still accepting registrations, I believe.  Highlight for me is they have torrents for Tri Nations rugby.  The rest is tv from the Commonwealth, mainly Australia, NZ & Canada.

The neem pictured above by the good doctor is available at Kamtieng.  If you head out the back entrance from Tesco, turn right at 1st junction.  At the first crossroads, cross on the leftside, shop selling garden equipment, chemicals etc stocks it.

Neem oil is available at Kad Tien (sp?) behind Tesco Lotus north of CM.   I believe this to be a natural pesticide, please correct me if I'm wrong.  Neem is known locally as sadao. 

A search here for neem or sadao should get you more info.

Maybe in addition to meeting at the arboretum, you could post co-ordinates for the parking for start of hike.  This would be of benefit of out of towners who perhaps live halfway to your starting points , but don't really want to head all the way into town, only to do a 180 & head out past their house......

Any hikes in the lake district east of San Kamphaeng planned?

Yep it will be moved soon!.

Agreed, trying to down load footy - England v Bulgaria, pants, between 55-90 kb/s:angry:

Are you downloading from thebox?  I often wonder if it's more a case of people throttling their uploads on these neutral torrents.  

Fortunately poor torrent speeds don't affect my visa 

No problems for me, near Chiang Mai, TOT

Perhaps "the scam artist" was pouring EM into your loos, & thus into your septic tank system.  EM, or Effective Micro-organisms help with the breakdown of organic matter, & help eliminate the need to pump out the tank.

Read more here

This outage does seem a little different.  There are no transition periods of "low signal", "no signal", " searching for signal".  Just straight to "searching for signal", then back to normal picture.  Also no message across the bottom of the screen, repeated ad nauseam,  warning of solar activities.

Wonder what the real reasons are for getting out of SE Asia?  

There was an item on BBCWorld a couple of days ago - looks like they want to concentrate on China.

I hope Tesco don't take them over.  Got enough already.  Need more competition. 

Been having this problem at least once a day for the last week. Not too concerned, as I'm giving them up at the end of this month. Can get better quality programming, at better resolution through the internet. And watch at the time I want to.

This is different from rain fade, happens when bright & sunny.

Let's try to get exact location of Christian Clinic with Google Maps Satellite View. Googlemaps' search request "Christian Clinic Chiang Mai" gives us two very similar results 18.77767,99.008075 or 18.777236,99.008161

Which one is correct?

Those latitudes are about 50m apart, the longitudes about 10m apart. If you can get that close & not see the clinic, maybe it's an optician you need

Looking at Googlemap, what I believe to be the clinic is 18.777190, 99.008161 or thereabouts.

When we were establishing our garden, we bought 2 varieties of lemon grass, one for eating, the other for mosquito repellent.  Can't say it had much of an effect, maybe you need to cut the leaves to release the aroma, as with the citronella?

Lemongrass and Citronella are similar but lemongrass does not have the deterrent qualities you need.

Yes, you need to cut the citronella leaves often. No problem there because they grow so quickly, just like lemongrass.

It's most likely that what I understood to be a second variety of lemongrass was in fact citronella.  It certainly gave off a strong aroma similar to the citronella mossie repellent  I use when I ran over some cut leaves with the mower.   My wife had referred to it as a variety of "lemongrass not for eating, but keeping mossies away".

When we were establishing our garden, we bought 2 varieties of lemon grass, one for eating, the other for mosquito repellent.  Can't say it had much of an effect, maybe you need to cut the leaves to release the aroma, as with the citronella?