Almost Over

By next month the rains should have stopped which will make a break and maybe give us a chance to get rid of the weeds in our garden. Hopefully by then our political problems will also be over. The BBC and CNN have been giving too simple a view of what is happening in politics here, forgetting the history of some of the people involved. For most of us in Bangkok it hardly has any affect.

Outside of Thailand it's good to see the price of oil dropping and we see it at the pumps here. 500 Baht filled about a quarter of my tank on Friday, although it's only a couple of years ago that it would have filled half.

Diesel price goes down

Good news for anyone who drives a truck like me. The price of diesel dropped again and is back to where it was a month ago I think. It's still far too high but if the cost of oil has done nothing else good, it has taken vehicles off the road. Diesel is still far higher than the price of petrol, (gas in the US and benzene here in Thailand).

When I first bought the truck, a Nissan Frontier, diesel was still subsidized here and cost about 2 baht a litre less than petrol. Now it's about 10 Baht more;-( I use the B5 diesel from PTT which has a 5% ethanol composition which takes a Baht off the cost. What I can't do with this engine is easily convert to LPG. The two gas fuels here, LPG and CNG are the cheapest way to drive. One answer to this is trade the diesel engine for a used Japanese V6 block and then do the gas conversion. Maybe next year.

More Rain but Less Cars

I was out driving on Sunday and ended up spending twice what I expected on diesel. Others have mentioned to me that it seems like there are fewer cars on the road and I guess this is the reason. The rains are still here so we can still have some traffic jams anyway.

More Rain and Websites

Now everything is done on the website except the template or skin. It is for wholesale Bali silver jewelry but at the moment is using TotallyBali's skin. I will put a link in the right-hand column.

The monsoon rains really arrived yesterday afternoon and with yesterday being a holiday here it didn't cause too many traffic problems. Today is pretty bad out on Srinakarin Road though going in both directions.

The rains are here

Bangkok had a couple of days of rain earlier in the month, but yesterday evening I drove into a heavy downpour just outside of Pattaya. The monsoons are here. Here it is very localized rain storms. Squalls move through an area dropping inches of rain while 500 meters away it's stays dry. Luckily I had new wiper blades and I suspect I could see more than most of the other drivers. I must be getting better. Usually I fit new wipers after the rain ends.

End of the Holiday

Traffic still wasn't up to usual levels but far more than Tuesday. I suspect about two thirds of Bangkok's workers are back today with the others showing up tomorrow and the really lucky ones on Monday.

Yesterday was cloudy, it almost looked like an early start to the monsoon rains, but the threat failed to materialize. It's so hot and sticky that it's hard to do anything outside the air-conditioned environment.

Songkran - The Thai New Year

Well the Thai New Year holiday is almost over. Most people outside Thailand know it as the water festival and here it's called Songkran. On Thursday almost everyone will be back at work although some companies save up other holidays to make it a week off.

Traditionally it is a time to pay respect to your parents and elders. It was also a time when prayers for rain were made. It doesn't get much hotter here than it is now and the rains should arrive soon to cool it down and more importantly to fill the rice paddy fields.

So many people leave Bangkok to go back to their original towns and villages that it's one of two times in the year that it seems empty here. The other time is Western New Year holiday. Driving to the office today you could imagine you were in a small town in the US or a British country town as the traffic was so light. I have always lived in big cities so I can imagine how pleasant it is to drive to work in a small town unlike the stressful drive we usually have here. Below is a picture Srinakarin Road at 08:30 this morning. You will have to wait to the 31st. December to see morning traffic like this again.

Green Diesel

The state owned oil company PTT now sells a bio-diesel which I've bought on my last two visits to the pump. It sells at about 1.5% less than the regular diesel. The truck seems to be running the same as always so hopefully there is no mechanical downside.

There have been bio-petrols (US gas) here for a while but giving us the bio-diesel is new. I do not know what percentage of the fuel is made from agricultural produce. I do know that it is meant to burn cleaner with less harmful outputs from the exhaust.

The bad news is we are hearing that maybe making bio-fuels will lead to an increase in food prices and more lack of food in the third world. Here one of the supermarket chains is talking of panic-buying of rice as rumours of shortages are spread.

I guess as with everything a middle path has to be found.

Too Hot

In the middle of this month we have the Songkram holiday. Many manufacturers will be closed for a week and some longer. This is the festival where everyone throws water over everyone else. There's a good reason for this, it's also the hottest time of year.

The last couple of weekends have seen busy roads as Bangkok inhabitants try and escape to somewhere cooler. I went west across the river on Sunday but even an early start didn't save me from the traffic.

It's with interest then that I see in the local paper that Laos has just completed the work on its Route 3 which is the last section of road needed to make it possible for us to drive from Bangkok to Kunming in China's Yunnan province. OK it's not a weekend's drive, but with two weeks off covering the Songkram holiday you could do it and get the benefit of the cooler Yunnan temperatures.

Traffic Gridlock - What was the problem?

So this morning I'm in a tailback on a Bangkok road I'm not expecting a problem on. So what is causing it? I guess the large high-school further up the road has something on today like enrollment. (It's the school summer holidays here in Thailand.) I get as far the school and the traffic starts to move freely again. There's nothing going on at the school.

How many times does this happen? You try and guess what caused the problem. You blame whatever your driving pet hates are. Maybe an old lady driving in the outside lane; maybe an obnoxious taxi driver, but in the end you never know. It stays a mystery.