Haze Spreading In Chiang Mai

[Ajarn]

From my house off Hang Dong road near Tesco, I cannot even make out the mountains a short distance away today. I have gone from being very concerned to just being downright angry.

What should be a beautiful place to visit and live has been turned into one of the most polluted and unhealthy areas in the world. Even the fact that this is Thaksin's home town and officials have known about this serious problem a long time, nothing has been done about it. This is both insane and criminal.

Do some research on the internet and you will see just how much damage this filthy air is doing to your lungs and other vital organs. Remember, unlike other polluted cities in the world, all this crap in the air gets trapped and recirculated making it extremely dangerous. No one breathing it in is going to be immune to the health problems it can cause. It's just when and how the damage shows up and how life threatening it might be when it does.

And yes, like some others I am now making plans to move. I can buy another house, another car and a number of other things. The one and most important thing I can't buy is my health. Lose your health and you lose everything. Time to move on.

Wish you would stop talking about it and just move...

[trigger]

Could any of the long term residents give an opinion as to the air quality in the area apart from March and April? Does it vary much beyond the city area etc..? Even back in the early 90's I never stayed in the North in April because of the heat and the ten day Songkran ###### water-throwing in the country-side. How long would it be necessary to head for the beaches to give you a reasonable and healthy life for the rest of the year?

Thanks very much

[trigger]

Sorry, I didn't realise a mild four-letter word beginning with ' D ' wasn't allowed. I assume an American does the censoring because in UK words with a religious root are often used in any company.

[chanchao]

LOL, it's an automatic function that checks for certain err, more colorful words and then blanks them out. It's not so much because we're all Atlantically challenged reli-pussies, it's got more to do with things like Google rankings, which alledgedly punish sites that have words on them you wouldn't find in 1950's hollywood musicals.

No need to say sorry, nobody thinks lesser of posts that include words like Damnnn or that hot place starting with H and ending in ell. (or ending in 'ang Dong', as it may be)

Back to your very good point:

> Could any of the long term residents give an opinion as to the air quality in the

> area apart from March and April? Does it vary much beyond the city area etc..?

The thing is, it's COMPLETELY seasonal. That's why Ajarn got a bit miffed at a previous poster who made it seem like Chiang Mai is now suddenly going to the dogs. Also it does NOT vary much beyond the city area.. You can drive deep into the countryside and still look at gray haze. You can see this clearly when you fly out of Chiang Mai.

It's really remarkable: Come the first rain shower of the season and that whole blanket of dust and smoke clears up instantly. The very next day you can see Doi Inthanon again standing on Doi Chiang Dao. (Two big mountains that are very far apart)

It's not just an issue of industrialization or pollution from cars, there's a lot of factors, some of them I guess natural weather factors that contribute to the current mess.

We have this discussion every year bang on time, along with the one on whether Songkran is fun or not.

[tyznd]

"The thing is, it's COMPLETELY seasonal. That's why Ajarn got a bit miffed at a previous poster who made it seem like Chiang Mai is now suddenly going to the dogs. Also it does NOT vary much beyond the city area.. You can drive deep into the countryside and still look at gray haze. You can see this clearly when you fly out of Chiang Mai."

Completely seasonal with nearly 800,000 reported cases of respiratory disease annually and one of the highest cases of lung cancer in the world. I also don't understand the part about "suddenly going to the dogs." This has been an ongoing an increasing problem for years. I guess for some of you, people would need to be dropping dead in the street before any of this would sink in.

Like others that have lost interest, posting on this topic is becoming a waste of time because a lot of you just don't get it. Fortunately people like Ajarn are staying put so at least I know I won't end up with you for a neighbor. That might be worse than the air pollution itself. Over and out.

[SamSipEt]

Either you like it here and intend to stay in or around the lovely city of Chiang Mai with all of its charm and, yes, pollution some of the year or you decide to move on and live somewhere else. I think that it is really quite simple and does not need further comment other than “up to you”.

[Ajarn]

Either you like it here and intend to stay in or around the lovely city of Chiang Mai with all of its charm and, yes, pollution some of the year or you decide to move on and live somewhere else. I think that it is really quite simple and does not need further comment other than “up to you”.

Exactly. No sour grapes required.

[chanchao]

LOL.

Some people don't handle it very well when not everyone sees things exactly the same way. Oh well. He was right on the over & out bit, excellent suggestion.