Cars
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Having a truck is nice
Yes, I can fit all of these things in my normal cars. But I don’t need to dust them off or lay down plastic because it’s a TRUCK. Honestly, the Mitsubishi pickup truck fills a very specific role in Thailand – it has enough loyal fans that buy them new to enable secondhand value hunters like me to find customized gems that are good for another couple hundred thousand kilometers or whatever. These things lose value like crazy compared to the top-tier pickup brands like Toyota and Isuzu, yet are equal in most functions to other mid-tier brands like Nissan (best for towing) and Mazda (best interior). If you just…
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It’s time for a road trip
These are some photos from last year, taken on my expired Pixel 6. If in this lifetime self-driving cars become the norm, I will miss driving. I see the greatest things on the road, but usually when I’m driving myself. Otherwise, my phone is much more interesting. I’m going on a trip to Nakhon Pathom tomorrow, a bit past Bangkok from here. We’re taking students to an academic competition at the Rajabhat there, in a van.
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Crown update
After our house and the Kujira got flooded, I needed wheels and bought the Triton pickup. I halfheartedly tried to sell it a while back, but we ended up using to haul stuff for student activities and whatnot. Having a pickup and a sedan turns out to be a lot more convenient than having two sedans, badassedness aside. So the Crown has been sitting at my mechanic’s place waiting for daddy to kick up funds for bodywork, paint, and fixing the flooded aircon… So yeah, it’s been almost 3 years, even though she’s always on my mind. The registration has to be done before next March or it gets de-registered…
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I hit a rat with my Honda.
It dashed out into the street from under a parked car and bonked against the front fairing of my Wave 110i. I don’t think I ran it over and I didn’t look back.
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Bangkok Water Taxi
It’s nice to know that the inner city canal system is still in use, even after most of them were filled in from the 1960s. If you get the chance, it’s a little bit off the beaten path and it’s a cheap way to both get around and see some funkier areas of Bangkok: Khlong Saen Saep Boat Service
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Triton is no longer the Bang Saen Special
We wanted to transfer my lowrider to Nam’s name from her sister’s, in order to prepare it for possible sale. The prefectural inspection officer we ran into at the Land Transport Office either wanted a bribe and didn’t ask for it clearly enough, or was just having a bad day, and decided to insist that my truck was too low and had to be restored to standard height (which is technically not a law here). Either way, we were not in the mood to pay into corruption and thought it might be easier to sell the truck at standard height anyway, so we took it for modification to Nam’s old…
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Faithful Steed
My daily ride, a 2005 Honda Wave 100S. A friend sold it to me cheap when he moved away. The most reliable vehicle I’ve ever owned.
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Toyota 2000GT Sighting in BKK
Somebody drove their original Toyota 2000GT through Bangkok traffic to a classic car show last week. What a legend! This must be the same car I wrote about being kept in an underground garage a couple years ago: Toyota 2000GT in Thailand Credit goes to Kai Vorra-asd on Facebook: LINK
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SUZU Truck with Cargo Crane
A year ago, on one of my daily walking routes. I see all kinds of vehicles here that I used to see in Japan – cars, trucks, ferries, heavy equipment. They often still bear company names and logos (other than the manufacturer) that were applied decades ago… It’s strangely comforting.
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Alice in Borderland Kujira Crown Chase
I need to get my Crown fixed and out of the shop – it’s been sitting there since the great floods a couple years back. It feels like it’s almost time.
