Chumphon and Kao Lak - early 2019

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	We had a getaway to Khao Lak recently and I never got the pictures up, so I'm combining those with our scouting trip to Chumphon. In Chumphon, where I was offered a computer science teaching position, we came upon a series of fishing villages which seemed pre-historic in their simplicity. We saw one guy re-building the hull of his boat along the water. There were some folks out in the bay with nets. One shot is showing how motorbikes make their own U-turn options. The turnarounds become so worn they have to create various trails thru the median area. The spectacular sunset is in Khao Lak as we arrived for an overnight excursion. HOVER ON THE IMAGE FOR AN EXPANDED VIEW
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	The trip up to Chumpon showed us one of the significant differences between Thailand and US roads. We left in the evening about 5 so we had a little over an hour of travel in the light. Thailand year round has a 12 hour day and 12 hour night. In the US we get more daylight in the summer. Thailand does not. They have steady temperatures and steady daylight hours. So most of our trip was in the dark. They don't have much in the way of lights on their roads. When there's construction they have long flourescent lights that seem to beam into my eyes as opposed to helping see the road. Trucks are not lit up nor do they have reflective strips. Trucks do not have lights by and large. What bulbs they do have are dim and erratic. I can be zooming down the road and a big semi can appear out of nowhere ahead of you or behind you. Roads don't have clear lane markers. I don't know what we would have done without GPS. After 4 hours of driving in the car we came to a point where we leave the highway. The side road was dark and desolate with trees hanging over. It was not even clear the road was public or if it led anywhere. There were steep dropoffs on either side occasionally. It was hazardous. It was scary. HOVER ON THE IMAGE FOR AN EXPANDED VIEW
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