Fun in Thailand

Double and triple parking is common

I remember visiting Paris in the mid 80ties i saw parking in "2 layers, and on corners into a intersection, for sure gave me a wild west feeling.
 
Part of the problem of this 'gray area' vehicle, is you don't have any insurance beyond minor medical care for somebody you hit. Wer're talking $500 or so. Any accident will result in some negotiation, and a foreigner at the controls ramps up prices a bit. That is why I run a dash cam, and want to put a rear cam in, eventually. (Still having nightmares about when I installed the hardwire kit a month ago.)

Overall, most cars try to avoid the trike because it looks large, but you still have the jerks who are very bad drivers, like the ones who pass on narrow urban streets, dive in front of you to fit into a space that isn't there to avoid the oncoming traffic they should have seen, or force you off of the road. Thai drivers are some of the worst in the world.
 
Well the public healthcare here in Denmark cover any form of stupid, but of course it do not cover any damage you do to others with say your car, so there you need insurance.
But if you jump on a dirtbike tear ass around town with the cops in hot pursuit, and then crash, well the hospital and the tax payers will still mend you and pay your hospital bill.
But if you cause a accident say force another vehicle to crash during your escapade, well that is on you.

But if you decide to be a chain saw juggler, and are not good at it, well your missing things will be attempted to be reinstalled on taxpayer money,,,,,, something that have always made me wonder cuz really that's poor management of tax payer money,,,,,,,and the the people we elect in charge always say we have to be careful with how we spend our tax money.

So a few things here make me wonder, so driving a car you must wear a seat belt, assumingly to save on the costs to society if you crash, as i read the law its not really for your safety, though that is of course a factor.
But riding a motorcycle you just have to wear a helmet, so you can wear a helmet and shorts and T shirt and tear ass down the motorway at 130 km/h,,,, BUT ! every one agree on if you wear proper motorcycle driving attire you are much better off if you crash, but its still not the law to wear the right attire driving a motorcycle.
Something making me more and more sure the people we vote for and us Danes in general are idiots.

And up until this year you could get a written permit from your doctor so you dident have to wear a helmet or seat belt, but thankfully that have changed now, so if you cant do either of that you just have to take the bus.
A classmate of mine dident have to wear a helmet when we was moped kids, due to him having psoriasis on his scalp,and we other stupid kids envied him being able to legally drive his moped without wearing a helmet
 
Typical thai motorbike driver. No helmet, probably no license, and I doubt the taillight works.

IMG_20191013_185018.jpg


Spotted at a street food area in Sakon Nakhon province.
 
You better drive right, or you will be on the next plane to N Korea.
 
Was he the delivery driver, or being delivered?


Must have been a regular, nobody else was paying attention to him.
 
happy not to be on the menu :p

The ride is not over, yet.

Most seem to be dumped at temples.
The monks try to feed them, sometimes they get pretty crude medical care, but generally are sore and scar covered.

A friend lived near a popular temple in the country. New discarded dogs would show up every weekend, still wearing the stupid sweater or t-shirt the thoughtful owner had bought for their temporary 'best friend forever'/selfie prop.

More shocking than the dog on the motorbike, I actually saw a clean, healthy looking cat yesterday morning.
(Mooching food under a restaurant table)

cat.jpg


Ooops, may be something going on with one eye, but it least it looked clean and mostly healthy
 
Someone just threw out 3 kittens here, another person found them on the bottom of the cleanest trash can in the country.
50410d01-f957-4665-9155-9ad63267c82f.jpg
 
it turns out the trash can was one of those smaller ones, and this was at a camping place so i bet it is always lined with a plastic bag and the most dirty it see are the paper wrappers from Popsicles., and stupid Danes went off the handle and went to the camping place and went apesh.. on the people there, which had nothing to do with anything but rescuing the kittens.

I do love a nice lynch mob, but really you must lynch the right one, otherwise its just a stupid mob at best.
Maybe the rescue guy should not have posted on facetwitt, thats probably where the lynch mob came from.
 
It was a major holiday in Thailand last weekend, I rented a car to drive some friends home to a small village in the next province. Food was good, strangely no drinking,

This was pretty bland farm country. The only interesting thing is there is salt production in the area, and you see roadside stands selling huge bags of salt, cheap.
You can see some salt evaporation ponds in the area, I'm assuming it's not mined, but pumped out from saltwater deposits underground? (Far from sea)
Will try to extract some video.

I know better than to try to go to popular tourist attractions in the US on major holidays.
I'm not sure how I got talked into driving 4 ladies and a kid to one in thailand, on a holiday?

I lasted about 20 minutes in the gridlock, then did a u-turn, and headed back. We were still 3 km from whatever we were headed to, (still not sure) and I had doubts there would be parking if we ever made it.

The camera is a blueskysea b1w, in a rental car. (Tacoma 4 door pickup)

 
Sure wish the cops would do something about the motorbikes running around with no lights at night.


 
The passing in the city streets is obscene. A lot of the vehicles pretty much plow into oncoming traffic and hope they get out of the way.

 
I have been in many dangerous situations, before. Yesterday....i thought it was over.

An acquaintance of mine is a middle aged, female, real estate investor. Sorry for the stereotypes, but ASIAN female is important to this tale of pure terror.

She owns a large, upscale 4WD pickup truck. I won't say she 'drives' it, it's more like the truck is possessed by her, as in possessed by an evil demon.

I made the mistake of spending the day with her checking out some new construction on a little apartment complex in an adjoining province she is building. This meant about an hour and a half drive, each way. (I know a good restaurant along the way)

At first I was impressed because she has a difficult driveway/carport setup at her house, which she negotiated at high speed in her manual transmission truck. (again, a manual, somewhat impressed)

Once we hit the highway, nobody was safe. Probably not even in planes at 33,000 Feet altitude. Not even coal miners far away, underground, in West Virginia.


I have never been in a vehicle driven so badly.

No matter what, she could not stay in one lane.

She had to pass everyone, and was one of those people who, as soon as the vehicle is out of their peripheral vision, assume it is safe to whip in front of them. Big trucks, buses, motorbikes, no discrimination.

I don't think any mirror on the pickup had been used for any purpose other than to check makeup. They sure as hell weren't adjusted to be of any use driving, and I never saw her look over at the lane she was whipping into.

I have no ideal why she is still alive, or the pickup has no damage, not even a scratch.

Seriously, she would drift into the next lane, and honk at the vehicle that was already occupying it for 'being in her way'.

At one point we approached an intersection with a red light, at high speed. I looked for any reaction from her....none. She plowed through it.
I asked her about the red light.
'I see, nobody come. You silly!'

Otherwise, she is still very cute at an advanced age, and fun to be with, (If not on wheels)

She had to go back over there today and invited me to join her. I told her I'd ride the trike over to meet her for lunch. 'That road too dangerous!'

'Just tell me when you are parked, and don't move, I will be OK". She laughed.
 
My dear deceased Mom once drove her church Pastor to lunch and back. Afterwards he told her "Mrs. XXXXX, I've been preaching for over ten years but I think you've scared the Hell out of more people with your driving than I've ever preached out of them!" :eek: True story, I swear.Her Preacher retold the tale many times including admitting it was true to me directly. Nobody rode with my Mom twice :rolleyes:

Once us kids grew up we wouldn't ride with my Mom anywhere- if we had to go somewhere together then WE drove, not her. Only once did she have an at-fault crash but I'm sure she caused a few she wasn't involved with. Some people seem to be blessed with immunity to their driving :whistle: It was quite a relief to us when she stopped driving at 80 years old :love:

Phil
 
@SawMaster

My Mother was a decent driver until she died, even in her late 70's, and she liked to drive FAST, and she liked cars.
(Dad couldn't give a damn, as long as it got him where he was going)

Before we the finished the interstate system in SC, the normal way to Charleston from the north was what they had finished of I-95, and then to cut off at Florence through the tobacco country, Lake City, etc.

Since our roots were up north, we still had to attend family crap up there, which meant late night trips to/from there on holidays, usually with my Mother driving too damn fast in some behemoth station wagon.

She would do 100 mph on those dark back roads at 0300, usually with most of us sleeping. If one of the kids was awakened and noticed the speedometer, you'd get elbowed awake and prompted to look at the speedometer.
One time I woke up just a cop was pulling my mother over somewhere in the boondocks in the middle of the night.
'Lady, do you know how fast you were going?'

(Stupid question, of course she did.)

My mother hadn't even fished out her license and other paperwork, when a hot rod with loud muffler drove by at high speed in the other direction.

The cop couldn't resist. 'Wait here, Lady, I'll be right back".

He jumped in his car and started after the speeding car.

Mom watched in the rear view mirror until he was out of sight.

'Wait, like hell!'

She was gone, and about 5 mph faster than she was going when the cop stopped her.

(THe road was basically empty, except for us, that cop, and that loud, fast car sent by heaven)
 
I ran up to the NE Corner of Udon Thani province yesterday to visit a friend for lunch. I am not that familiar with the area, and tried to use my phone GPS for help.
Not smart, with the phone in a shirt pocket. It seemed to change destinations on me twice,and the one hour trip took two hours.


This is one of the many lakes in area where you can rent a party barge/raft, load it up with food, drinks and people, and they tow you out into the lake, anchor you, and leave you for as many hours you paid for. Was told about ten bucks an hour. This lake was closed due to being a religious holiday, otherwise the rafts would be gone, and the empty stalls you see loaded with food vendors selling you stuff to eat on the boat. Not a bad deal, just show up.


 
But what if you have to go #2 ?
 
Back
Top