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As was usually the case on this cruise, the mooring was well out of the city, at Laem Chabang, allegedly a two hour drive to Bangkok. 

Unusually, our boat reversed into the mooring - demonstrating the versatility and manoeuvrability of these large diesel-electric ships (that I've discussed elsewhere).

The two hour drive to the outskirts becomes three as soon as you hit the Bangkok traffic, that's more akin to a car park than a highway.  Significantly worse since we were here in 2014.

 

 

Our bus finally got to Central Markets, from where we were on our own. It was very close to the the Grande Centre Point Hotel, Ratchadamri that we stayed in during our 2012 visit. There is a Sky Train stop at Ratchadamri and cabs to anywhere. But first we had some shops to see.

 

 

 
As our time was limited, we decided to restrict ourselves to one key tourist attraction and took a cab to the Royal Palace. But as we approached the traffic became so heavy that we decided to walk the last kilometre.

It was very hot. 

 

 

If you are interested in more pictures, follow this link: Pictures from Thailand 2012, 2014 & 2024

To get back to our bus we caught a ferry from the Palace to Sathorn to catch the Sky Train (the green line on the map).

 
The only catch was that the station names didn't correspond to those on our map. Also it's a single track system so, trains run in both directions on the same track/platform. It was only the nearby river that warned us that the first train to arrive was going in the wrong direction. Anyway, we figured it out. All good.

On one previous visit to Bangkok there was unrest in the streets. Regrettably, this is not unusual here and I used it as the basis for a short story. You might like to read it?  The Greatest Dining Experience Ever in Bangkok

If you are considering a visit to Thailand, here is my travel diary from a dozen years ago, that's still pretty current. If I was updating it the statistics would change but the relativities are much the same.  Read more...     

One big change is the number of motor vehicles manufactured. Toyota has it's second largest plant here and Mitsubishi also has a huge factory, along with numerous other Japanese and Chinese manufacturers. There are many hectares of vehicles at the port awaiting export. Australian coal and gas provide much of the energy.

This is reflected in the volume of traffic in the city. So that it is often faster to walk - over one of the many sky-walks - or to take the sky-train than to use a cab.  The tuck-tucks are now totally absent in the city.

 

 

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Travel

Southern Africa

 

 

In April 2023 we took a package tour to South Africa with our friends Craig and Sonia. We flew via Singapore to Cape Town.

 



Cape Town is the country's legislative capital and location of the South African Parliament.
It's long been renowned for Table Mountain, that dominates the city.

Read more: Southern Africa

Fiction, Recollections & News

Lost Magic

 

 

I recently had another look at a short story I'd written a couple of years ago about a man who claimed to be a Time Lord.

I noticed a typo.  Before I knew it I had added a new section and a new character and given him an experience I actually had as a child. 

It happened one sports afternoon - primary school cricket on Thornleigh oval. 

Read more: Lost Magic

Opinions and Philosophy

Climate Emergency

 

 

 

emergency
/uh'merrjuhnsee, ee-/.
noun, plural emergencies.
1. an unforeseen occurrence; a sudden and urgent occasion for action.

 

 

Recent calls for action on climate change have taken to declaring that we are facing a 'Climate Emergency'.

This concerns me on a couple of levels.

The first seems obvious. There's nothing unforseen or sudden about our present predicament. 

My second concern is that 'emergency' implies something short lived.  It gives the impression that by 'fire fighting against carbon dioxide' or revolutionary action against governments, or commuters, activists can resolve the climate crisis and go back to 'normal' - whatever that is. Would it not be better to press for considered, incremental changes that might avoid the catastrophic collapse of civilisation and our collective 'human project' or at least give it a few more years sometime in the future?

Back in 1990, concluding my paper: Issues Arising from the Greenhouse Hypothesis I wrote:

We need to focus on the possible.

An appropriate response is to ensure that resource and transport efficiency is optimised and energy waste is reduced. Another is to explore less polluting energy sources. This needs to be explored more critically. Each so-called green power option should be carefully analysed for whole of life energy and greenhouse gas production, against the benchmark of present technology, before going beyond the demonstration or experimental stage.

Much more important are the cultural and technological changes needed to minimise World overpopulation. We desperately need to remove the socio-economic drivers to larger families, young motherhood and excessive personal consumption (from resource inefficiencies to long journeys to work).

Climate change may be inevitable. We should be working to climate “harden” the production of food, ensure that public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, hospitals, utilities and so) on are designed to accommodate change and that the places people live are not excessively vulnerable to drought, flood or storm. [I didn't mention fire]

Only by solving these problems will we have any hope of finding solutions to the other pressures human expansion is imposing on the planet. It is time to start looking for creative answers for NSW and Australia  now.

 

Read more: Climate Emergency

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