Fun in Thailand

Did rent a small 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in decent, quiet area, small yard with wall and gate, $160 USD. Move in friday, also pick up my new 3 wheeled pickup truck then, and get rid of the rental car. There was a small coconut palm in the neighbors yard leaning over the wall, and i joked that I could almost reach the coconuts. Came back the next day and the coconut palm was cut down, and the coconuts deposited on my front step.

Heavy rain the last few days, but these dogs found a dry spot.


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Some great video. I was there in 1969, beautiful there and flowers every where.......
 
What does a retired trucker do, to avoid prolonged shopping in a large asian hypermart with a steel roof, and no A/C?

SIt in the parking lot in the car with a/c running and watch them unload trucks.


 
One shortcut we take, borders on what I think is a large middle school. There are street food vendors on a few sides of the walled compound, like these near a locked gate. The kids come to the gate, order through the locked gate, and the vendors run back and forth with money and food. This is yesterday morning, not very busy, but at lunchtime it's much busier. Go to the end of the wall on the right and an open entrance gate is a 1-2 meters down to the right, with more food vendors.

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New 'pickup' arrived yesterday.. Will try to get a dashcam installed today.

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These guy are lucky they weren't on this street 15 minutes earlier when I couldn't keep the damn thing going straight!


I threw a contour roam up in the windshield and headed out to top off the tank. I have a lot of miles on motorcycles. This is not a motorcycle!

I have to force myself not to put an weight on the bars, or put a foot down when you lurch a bit. Very strange. Will be practicing in the neighborhood this weekend, but don't look forward to hitting real traffic.
 
More seat time, and still alive. :) Still using contour roam.
Got it up to an indicated 80 KPH on the highway, too buzzy and rattly, but will do it. 60-70 KPH is much more comfortable.
Headed into town to the area I will do most of my shopping, before the traffic gets bad.


Dashcam install may have to wait unless I see some obvious way to do the Viofo hardwire kit. Need to go back to dealer for some minor repairs...... one speaker of stereo not working, fuel gauge not working. Not even sure where the battery and fuse box is? They just kind of dropped this off at the house and left. Don't want to do any creative installs until I get the warranty stuff done.
 
Damn rain. I have finally learned which two streets in/out of my neighborhood, (Out of 15) don't flood, or flood as much. The street in front of my house only gets about 4 inches of water.


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There's a medium sized black dog, riding on the back of this motorbike. Hard to see against the black clothing of the rider until it turns the corner.


 
A whole different world there. I remember the saying. "When I get back to the world" because it was a different world there. The guys would say this all the time. Thinking and saying this while humping the bush in Vietnam. Going to Thailand was like going to Disney land compared to Vietnam. I enjoy your videos
 
I'm in Udon Thani, which had US military bases during Viet Nam, and still some use of the local air bases since then. (Although Chinese Air Force was here recently for training). There's supposed to be a bootmaker who started as a young kid, shining GI Boots, still in business somewhere in town.

Air America also operated from the Air base.

Here's some early 70's era video.

 
You know watching some of that video, those GIs had it good in Thailand. Never seeing any combat. I was just a kid when I was there in Vietnam and seems like a life time ago which it was, more then 50 years ago. I am still bitter about it all, we had no business being there but I was sent and I did my best. I was infantry and it rains there like no other place I have been. I lost lots of good people there, it is good to see it peaceful today
 
Yeah i assume living long enough and not having lost ones memory, one can only think of the waste of human life in Vietnam. ( both sides )
Even if US staied out of Asia back then and it had meant a handful more of commie regimes, i am pretty sure those too like the rest of them would have folded.
you can argue only China have come out on top, or at least not went bankrupt, but those guys have gone from one extreme to another extreme with their own spicy twist on things, cuz that place are as corrupt as many capitalist country ever been.
And i am pretth sure they belly up too one day, and take much of the rest of the world with it as our idiots elect are and do what they do,,,,,, which are pretty muuch not enough and allways too late.
 
Yeah i assume living long enough and not having lost ones memory, one can only think of the waste of human life in Vietnam. ( both sides )
Even if US staied out of Asia back then and it had meant a handful more of commie regimes, i am pretty sure those too like the rest of them would have folded.
you can argue only China have come out on top, or at least not went bankrupt, but those guys have gone from one extreme to another extreme with their own spicy twist on things, cuz that place are as corrupt as many capitalist country ever been.
And i am pretth sure they belly up too one day, and take much of the rest of the world with it as our idiots elect are and do what they do,,,,,, which are pretty muuch not enough and allways too late.


There's been slaughters of various types going on in SE Asia, anyway, no matter who is involved. Cambodia, under Pol Pot. Myanmar? China, and we will never know the full extent of what happened under Mao. I've been wanting to go to Vietnam, since it seems to have rebounded so well, and somewhat independently of most major power influences, until recently. FWIW, the area I live in now has the highest concentration of ethnic vietnamese in thailand, and ho chi minh lived in this province for a while.


Made a morning shopping run, to a store that is kind of like Sams, or Costco, and opens at 0600. (No traffic, and my dumbass wakes up at 0500 anyway)



In the war between bad drivers and infrastructure, infrastructure lost a battle. One streetlight gone, but good entertainment value for the locals.



I live on the far side of a large Border Police base, which I think has a training center or boot camp. I see very clean cut young guys walkig to from the bus stop with suitcases to go home for the weekend...not in uniform but in clean white shirts, gray slacks. Look more like Mormon missionaries than cops. I've also seen Helicopters landing and taking off, and APC's running around within view, and can hear a rifle range, somewhere.
Here is a monk crossing the highway in front of the main gate to the BP Base, and later you see the fuselage of an old airliner they use for training.


There are little border skirmishes in SE Asia we never hear about, and in the South of Thailand there are some Moslem insurgency problems near the Malaysian border. These guys aren't just chasing down 18 year old Burmese farm workers, they take some casualties.
 
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Check out the mattress sales/delivery truck driving on the left shoulder...



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Very cool video, and by the way I went into Cambodia. The US tried to keep that a secret but it came out. We went in and stayed around 3-4 weeks. I did understand at the time why we were going in, but I was scared ****less. I was only 19 years old, just a baby. I look at a 19 year old today and say what a young boy here in front of me, but not so young to go to war.
 
Still a trucker at heart. Hauled what is probably rubberwood chair home, $70;

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Lot of small shops and factories selling or making this stuff.
 
Very cool video, and by the way I went into Cambodia. The US tried to keep that a secret but it came out. We went in and stayed around 3-4 weeks. I did understand at the time why we were going in, but I was scared ****less. I was only 19 years old, just a baby. I look at a 19 yea r old today and say what a young boy here in front of me, but not so young to go to war.

Didn't the jungle all look the same? :rolleyes:
 
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