This week and last weekend has been full on with work,
Saturday - stoichiometric lab class for a high school in the morning (although after went to the shopping mall and had pizza and got my new phone (iphone 4s - Yay!!)
Sunday - Had dinner with a Japanese prof and the dean, vice-deans of engineering plus head of Industrial engineering (IE from now on)
Monday - agreed to look after the Japanese prof in the morning and we went round the temple (see pics) and a local museum, We also had lunch together before heading back to engineering, I also attended a Chem Eng meeting that was in Thai, I got some of what was going on but not a lot. Was good though as next week I am moving closer to more work colleague in IE.
Tuesday - worked on lecture prepping, got bored of the maths / stats lecture so moved onto some real chemistry
Wednesday - was a bank holiday here called วันมาฆบูชา (Makha Bucha Day) so spent the day on the couch watching movies. :)
Thursday - back to lecture prepping and then played football in the evening again the standard was much better this time and our team was worse, the one at the back in 7-a-side didn’t work surprisingly.
Friday - finally got my contract signed! More lecture prepping plus wrote this. :) Also meet some people from thaioil and got given a cool USB drive, shaped like a credit card with 18gb storage.... nice way to end the week!!
There has been a science camp this week so we have had to be in for 8.20-9.00am and not leaving till 6pm. If it hadn’t been for the day off in the middle would have been shattered.
RANT
The turn of driving habits this maybe a long one! I found this on a thai motorbike forum and can’t disagree with any of the points and see almost all of these everyday....
Driving Habit's here.
* rarely use indicators
* rarely look anywhere else but in front
* often cross centre lines and cut corners
* often on H.w.y. or rural roads, a motorcycle will pull to the L.H.S.of the road, before crossing traffic lanes to turn right
* a L.H. blink can mean its safe to overtake (opposite to Australia)
* a R.H.blinker can mean it not safe to overtake
* around dusk and into the night, it is common some people on the roads are intoxicated
* don't expect a motorcycle to be moving faster than 60km
* will overtake another car into oncoming traffic if they feel there is room for three or more vehicles on the road ( you are expected to get out of the way)
* often overtake large slow moving vehicles like buses or trucks that they cant see around with zero view of oncoming traffic
* drive erratic and move around the lanes
* in rural areas often have poor driving skills, no license and poorly maintained vehicles which are overloaded and have regular accidents on their own
* will leave on the road large rocks used for wheel chocks on a incline.
* use there ears as much as their eyes to drive
* will drive short distances on the wrong side of the road (this is very very common!!!!)
*At peak hour traffic on a 4 lane road will often use a extra lane (3 lanes) for the direction most traffic is flowing(Chiang Mai)
* will overtake you, only to turn into a left street and cut you off.
Using Thai Traffic Lights
* BE AWARE! traffic light in Thailand are used on highways if you are unaware its hard to stop at speed, and easy to run into cars traveling through the crossroad or stopped vehicles in your lane
* traffic lights tend to be a indicator only, locals will often keep passing through lights a few seconds after they are faced with a red light
* if you are the first vehicle to stop for a red light, check rear vision and move to the side, as the vehicles behind you may have plans to run the red light and will go sheer over the top of you not expecting you to stop
* usually jump green lights by 2 seconds
* are allowed turn Left on a red light (keep the left lane open)
* at a traffic light crossroad it is normal when the light turns green for people turning right to take off first and slip a few cars past the oncoming traffic
A couple he missed were driving about half a meter behind you wanting to overtake even if you are overtaking a lorry etc (this is nearly always a isuzu pick up or merc). Talking of mercs, (and i’ll include BMW’s) the ones that are here are nearly always bottom of the range but still very expensive thats what 400% import tax does. As they have an expensive car they seem to think they own the road and drive extremely aggressively, as in, overtake in any lane and fly up behind you, they have no sense in closing speed or leave themselves an option to bail out. Other things has to do with scooters and bikes, i’d say more than 50% dont wear a helmet maybe closer to 80%, and its not uncommon to see 3 or even 4 people on a scooter plus a dog in the basket (i have seen this!!!) or is it not uncommon to see baby’s being carried on a bike or texting/eating, even if carrying the afore mentioned baby!
Last one is U-turns onto the highway, these can be dangerous but some cars and pick ups think that if you pull out slowly onto the edge of the fast lane this is fine even if cars are coming.
Generally the speeds traveled here by all is slower than back home and its a good job as there would be so many more accidents.
