MESmith

As for drinking water recycled from bathroom waste - it's got no hope for Thailand, despite proofs which show it's workable. The concept is just too yukky for Thais to contemplate.

They don't seem to mind when it's in a brown bottle with a singha label 

Carry on past Mae On to the coffee & tea growing areas around Mae Kampong & the like, where they don't seem to burn - they wouldn't want to destroy their coffee plantations, & the air is so much cleaner, the vegetation is so green. (maybe even as clear as the city centre )  Don't be put off by the charred landscape either side of hwy1317 around the hot springs, keep going past Huay Keaw where the "tree shops" are, just out of the main valley.   Lovely up there.  Unfortunately the views on the return trip as you drop down onto the CM plain are awful.  You really notice the filth in the air.  The rock outcrop nr the hot springs where folk climb looks like a volcano, so many smoke plumes on its sides.  

Had a bbq camel steak in Yemen 25yrs ago, out in the desert at a bedu wedding.   Very tender & very tasty  .  The other memory of the day was all the ak-47s being fired skyward, & me wondering where all that lead was headed 

The good ones are very hard to breathe through. Doesn't work well with exercise.

I don't know it might improve your fitness, I bet if you cycled with one of them on for 2 months then cycled without you'd see a marked improvement

Wouldn't be good for you if you passed out in front of a speeding bus, due to insufficient oxygen getting to your system 

Looks like a banded Kukri.   Not venomous, but can give a nasty bite.

Bronzeback, harmless, unless you're a frog.....

I like the title of this topic.  Maybe TAT could jump on board & have an "Official start of burning season festival".  They could organize a parade starting out in the countryside with a couple of trucks of rice straw & lamyai leaves, continue through the suburbs picking up some garbage, then head into town with some old tyres & other garbage, parade up Thapae Rd & finish off at the Gate, with a big bonfire.  High end big spending tourists could watch from the comfort of airconditioned penthouse suites in the bigger hotels.   Of course only the oldest, badly maintained sangteaws would be allowed to take part in the parade, so as to "add to the atmosphere" 

Global House, middle ring road, south of city stock them.    

Yet another dumb law that achieves nothing.   I go out twice a day, on the school run.  Both times, not possible to buy beer.   Yes, the local mom & pop stores will sell, but unless you drink Chang "classic" or similar, the only other beers they sell out in the sticks tend to be well by their sell by date  .   The solution is to visit Makro & buy a couple of cases of preferred beer.   And, what happens when you have a couple of cases at hand?   You keep putting another beer in the freezer, rather than drinking the couple of bottles you intended to drink. So a law that was intended to curb alcoholism, is encouraging it!!  It's quite simple, everyone carries an ID, so make people buying booze, show it.  Not exactly rocket science.....  Ok, I understand this thread concerns applying the law to bars, but it's the same law for shops.

"So, thank you, Chiang Mai, for another day in paradise, and for what seems like wonderfully clear and sweet air so far this month."

wish I could agree on this quote, but unfortunately I've got all windows closed this evening, sprinklers on to try & clean the air, thanks to local burning, happens most evenings. On top of that, the hills on the eastern edge of the valley are ablaze, was out past Mae On this morning, & everywhere was "scorched earth".  Unfortunately, we seem to live on different planets 

Peculiar how a thread on toyota safety has only 400 views, but a thread on "no more free tourist visas" has over 5700 views.   You cannot go 100m here without coming across a toyota that may or may not be out of control ( ok, that's normal over here).  In the uk & usa, I read today that legal people are advising drivers to stop driving their recalled cars, as they'll be liable for any accidents now they've been notified by toyota.  Rather serious state of affairs.

Seems to me that all vigo & fortuner accelerator pedals are normally permanently glued to the floor

They just suck, that's all. Buy a Mitsubishi.................

That's what I drive 

Seems to me that all vigo & fortuner accelerator pedals are normally permanently glued to the floor 

Just stick to Mom & Pop stores.  Never get overcharged, everything soooo fresh, & excellent variety 

The protracted-stay may be due to it being winter, so colonies of bees are less-active right now, otherwise a swarm like this should have located a new home and decamped to it within a few days. They may therefore be huddling-together, with the queen near the centre of the swarm, trying to stay warm.

Best action would be to contact a local beekeeper, to come and re-home them, you might get a later gift of some free honey, as a reward, a colony having some value !

It's only a small swarm of "min".  The wife's family are involved in beekeeping, & aren't interested.   They aren't causing any problems, keeping to themselves, about 10m up in tree.  (that's the bees, not the family!)   Will leave them "be" if you don't mind the pun.  Certainly wont be torching them.....

It's always best to keep an eye on the till display as items are scanned.  Sometimes the till price doesn't match the shelf price.  If you see the till price is higher than the shelf price, point it out & you get that item for free  .  I guess it happens when they haven't updated the shelf price after a promotion.

Without the bees, pollinating the crops, the fruit trees etc, we're doomed 

Nice one BWM 

Hmmm, honey.

You're welcome to come & collect  ;-)

Got the same in one of our trees, but smaller.  Been there for a couple of months & never see them flying.  Had same before in a mango tree, they eventually left.

relevance to CM?

Chiang Mai has a couple of universities with large agriculture faculties - CMU & Mae Jo.  Where do the graduates practise what they learn?   I live out in the sticks & the only people farming I see are the older folk, barely scraping by just above subsistence level, doing the same their ancestors did on land they don't own, except for the fact they now have the use of tractors for tilling the land etc.  Are there any commercial scale farms in the province, apart from the royal projects?  It seems to me that ALL land in the area is now considered prime development land & is priced as such, so what is the future for agriculture around Chiang Mai? 

 

just leave during the worst couple of months.

Wouldn't that be great, the whole population of CM valley heads south for march & april