4 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

Not just the air, but the construction on the roads in and around the inner city is horrendous.  Big holes in the roadways you have to zig zag to single lanes to get past it creating a major traffic jam now.  Good luck.  Bangkok is actually the best to be from my experience as many leave the city.

I was wondering that too.  Whether or not the roads around the moat will still be ripped to shreds by Songkran.  My bet?  Probably so.

Welcome to Songkran Chiang Mai 2024!!!

It is just a matter of a few more days and once the fun begins they will be complaining about how bad the foreigners are behaving and how they need to crack down some more on these rascals  and we will hear how the police will be really serious this time patrolling party areas thoroughly in order to make sure everyone is safe, and meanwhile the drunk driving injuries and fatalities will rise as the groping of the young girls and boys mixes in with the party atmosphere and all other kinds of mean and nasty activities will unfold like fighting, leaps off balconies, gangs racing and doing battle . . . .  need I go on? You could write the news stories now and simply plug in the names and locations just before press time.

 

If you want to make big money from tourists, you gotta work for it - that' life.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, connda said:

Lanna culture in the 21st Century:  Deadly, choking PM 2.5 "dust" and uncontrolled forest arson and agricultural burning. 

I talked with my wife and she assures me it wasn't like this when she was younger.

Your wife is right. I have seen at least one winter (possibly two) in Chiang Mai with clear skies, you could see for miles, you could always see Doi Suthep very clearly. I actually don’t recall any major fires. Undoubtedly there must have been farmers burning their fields after harvesting, but not in any way as massive as has been happening over the last 20-25 years.
Here are two pictures from January 1989. I was living on Nimanheamin and this was the view from our bedroom window. It was almost always sunny and clear, like in the first picture.

I imagine Chiang Mai and Nimanhaemin must look very different now. Have no idea, haven’t been back there in a long time.

 

 

 

booked my ticket out of here ☺️

Songkran in Chiangmai before covid was quite a special occasion and it had serious potential...my concern is the 10 day duration, water throwing and blocked off streets surely not good for business. 3 days OK

Maybe that is 1,000 people in 1,000 hotels and that is only one million!

So, marked this place not to visit over Songkran.  

What are they thinking? Here is April last year for Chiang Mai

Why do Deputy Governor of Chiang Mai, Weerapong Rithrod, and the city’s Mayor, Assanee Buranupakorn, believe that thousands of tourists are going to put their lives at risk to visit the fourth most polluted city in the world ?

19 hours ago, JoePai said:

seeks to uphold the local Lanna culture  

 

By soaking everyone with water guns ?

Hey honey, Where do you want to go for the holiday? 

I know, lets go to Chiang Mai and spend our holiday breathing the worst air in the world and trying to make it better shooting water in the air. 

Good idea honey. We can return from holiday and not need to work. We can go directly to the hospital here and have out lungs flushed with oxygen. 

Won't the millions of tourists sucking in the air simply filter it through their respiratory systems and actually help reduce the dust/ smog particles?

 

A government ploy to use tourists to reduce the hazard?

One can only hope that the "extended" Songkran celebration isn't misinterpreted by drunken tourists to mean that they should be spraying water all over the place starting on 7 April.  

On 3/23/2024 at 11:51 AM, sqwakvfr said:

Millions of tourists in a 10 day span?  Logistically that seem like “mission impossible”.  Even if every international and domestic flight was packed along with buses, trains and cars “millions”?  Based upon my experience of living in CNX for over 7 yeas the people here are not as friendly as the image that is portrayed.  The main draw of CNX are 3 things:  1) It is cheap 2) It is cheap 3) It is cheap.  

Actually you can say that with quite a few places in Thailand now, I believe Thais are getting more fed up of foreigners invading there country, except when taking your cash of course.

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