…and lungs, and blood. Rather than show a picture of smoke, I thought I’d share this diversion.

I’m back after five days on the road, driving five to six hours per day on a Honda 500cc motorcycle. We went to visit her mother who lives about 300 miles away. Thai roads are far better than the roads of their neighbors, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, but you can’t just expect to travel an average speed of sixty miles per hour. I’m surprised at my age I could still pull a thing like this off. What a grind for a geezer!

It was smokey and not terribly scenic, as the hills were hidden in smog. It hasn’t rained for months, and everything looks burned up, because a lot of it is. The way farmers clear land here is by burning the old crop residue. No amount of official threats or sanctions are ever going to change that. As I sit at home writing this, I have two air purifiers at work in my bedroom.

Thailand has lots of problems that don’t get talked about much because discourse is discouraged by libel laws. Even if you’re proved correct in your statement about someone’s behavior, you can be sued for damages to reputation. Face means a lot here,

The minister of tourism doesn’t like to talk about air pollution, or piles of trash dumped along the sides of roads, and so if you want to bring it up, be warned, there may be consequences. The largest corporation in Thailand is also the parent company of the 7-11 chain, the largest telecommunications company, and the largest agribusiness. They probably have the leverage to do something profound about the seasonal burning, but lack the incentive to do so. Being Thailand’s largest corporation, they’re probably well connected inside government.

That’s as much as I’ll venture to say, but it was quite a drag to see the most of northern part of the country draped in smoke. Or maybe I should say, “not see.” The haze makes me dizzy, mildly nauseous, and short of breath. In a couple of weeks we’ll head to the seashore for a respite, but that will cost money that I’d rather not spend if I had the choice. I don’t feel I have that choice.