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WarpedNaba posted:I was gonna say, if that snake species is common enough that it fucks around a major city, chances are it's either not venomous (Otherwise extermination calls) or they've got a fuckton of antivenin around sommat. I mean it is Southeast Asia and there are loads of semi-to-actually-dangerous animals roaming around unchecked. Given how much of Bangkok is river, swamp, undeveloped, or abandoned and reclaimed by nature, that there could be highly venomous snakes hanging out wouldn't surprise me in the least.
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Jan 10, 2018 11:12
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Atlas Hugged posted:But it's loving Bangkok in a rainstorm. Every road is bad. Contrarily, nothing but clear blue skies down south...I paid my rain dues a few months ago
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Jan 10, 2018 11:14
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Most snakes are fine but I mean yeah the bad ones do make it into Bangkok sometimes and Atlas doesn’t live in quite the center of the city I guess Taiwan has a bunch of poisonous ones in the hills too but I’ve never (knock on wood) stepped on one
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Jan 10, 2018 11:15
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I have a friend on Samui and he got into a stupid Facebook argument with a guy who was demanding to know why the authorities hadn't exterminated all of the venomous snakes on the island.
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Jan 10, 2018 11:19
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Australia has more venomous snake species than non‐venomous.
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Jan 10, 2018 11:20
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Atlas Hugged posted:I have a friend on Samui and he got into a stupid Facebook argument with a guy who was demanding to know why the authorities hadn't exterminated all of the venomous snakes on the island. clearly to attract australian tourists, give them a taste of home
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Jan 10, 2018 11:20
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Maybe we can introduce some car snakes as population control http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-10/snake-hitches-ride-on-south-coast-ute/9318542
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Jan 10, 2018 11:41
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Platystemon posted:Australia has more venomous snake species than non‐venomous. But that says nothing about the relative quantities or where the most venomous ones live.
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Jan 10, 2018 12:13
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GotLag posted:But that says nothing about the relative quantities or where the most venomous ones live. Somehow, I don't think Australian wildlife is cutting anyone some slack with this one potential loophole.
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Jan 10, 2018 12:16
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I grew up in the heavily-wooded urban fringe of an Australian city and in 20 years only ever saw snakes at zoos or wildlife parks. And once I saw a dead one on a country road. How are Americans not all dead yet from the non-stop attacks by grizzly bears, black widows, mountain lions and rattlesnakes? Is this why everyone has at least one gun on their person at all times?
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Jan 10, 2018 12:36
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Black widows are ridiculously overrated. Grizzly bears are found only in Alaska, Yellowstone, and California’s flag. Rattlesnakes are the most courteous of venomous snakes, what with their warnings and their dry bites and their hæmotoxin that takes a relatively long time to kill a person. Mountain lions are the pussy cousins of jaguars and tigers, but that’s still bad enough. I would carry a gun to use against them but it wouldn’t help. But at the end of the day, I’ll take puma country over boar country.
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Jan 10, 2018 12:54
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Platystemon posted:Black widows are ridiculously overrated. funnel web, inland taipan (fierce snake), yothu yindi
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Jan 10, 2018 12:56
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My college campus had mountain lions. They followed the deer, who followed the dumpsters. Just don't go jogging alone in the woods at sunset. Some friends were smoking pot under a bridge and saw a mountain lion take out s deer on the far end of the tunnel. They stayed closer to the dorms after that. :bananaslug:
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Jan 10, 2018 12:59
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Yothu Yindi bites are easily treated yeah
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Jan 10, 2018 12:59
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I mean there's very few places on Earth where the deadliest thing you encounter regularly is anything other than a car. E: I guess mosquitoes are a solid contender too. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Jan 10, 2018 |
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Jan 10, 2018 13:01
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peanut posted:My college campus had mountain lions. They followed the deer, who followed the dumpsters. Just don't go jogging alone in the woods at sunset. Mountain lion attacks boy, 6, on trail near Cupertino Mountain lions love to snack on kids. University students are too old.
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Jan 10, 2018 13:07
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The weather wasn't that bad in BKK this morning, but LOL on these lovely streets and sidewalks where no matter what you do you get soaked up to the balls from passing cars and hidden water under tiles, etc. Puddles so ridiculous that you need a ferry boat to get across. When it rained in Shenzhen I would still take my walks because it just meant no one to share the sidewalk with and it was pleasant. When it rains here it means that shoes will be on the balcony trying to dry and all my clothes will have mud on them, no matter how high I pull up my shorts. I am glad I won't be here in the rainy season, even though I do love watching those storms. I was commenting to Chaoshan Girl how the basic dust on the roads in India was so easy to clean off my shoes, and I would wipe them down twice a week and keep my shoes looking brand new. A few days after arriving in Bangkok and there's this black slime gutter oil all over them that has been near impossible to clean off, and it's getting thicker as each week passes. It's completely unavoidable. I will probably have to toss out a decent pair of shoes once I leave this place just because of how oily and disgusting the sidewalks are here.
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Jan 10, 2018 13:11
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I do encounter moose a few times a year, wolfpacks sometimes roam here and that gets into the news every time it happens, bears are around but nobody seems to care that much, they are rare though, deer, hares, lynxes and foxes abound, but they aren't dangerous. Once we crossed a beers fresch tracks when out walking, it had crossed the road and gotten wet as it headed towards the lake, or from it, so the trail was still wet. That was the closest we have been to a wild bear, that we knew of.
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Jan 10, 2018 13:14
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Bajaj posted:When it rains here it means that shoes will be on the balcony trying to dry after the fourth or so time I just embraced the crocs..no shame..
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Jan 10, 2018 13:15
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Platystemon posted:Black widows are ridiculously overrated.  Kharnifex posted:Yothu Yindi bites are easily treated yeah Treated now!
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Jan 10, 2018 13:28
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Bajaj posted:The weather wasn't that bad in BKK this morning, but LOL on these lovely streets and sidewalks where no matter what you do you get soaked up to the balls from passing cars and hidden water under tiles, etc. Puddles so ridiculous that you need a ferry boat to get across. When it rained in Shenzhen I would still take my walks because it just meant no one to share the sidewalk with and it was pleasant. When it rains here it means that shoes will be on the balcony trying to dry and all my clothes will have mud on them, no matter how high I pull up my shorts. I am glad I won't be here in the rainy season, even though I do love watching those storms. For me it's not the rain, it's the drainage. It was shin deep water or worse where I was, with giant potholes in the sidewalk that I knew were there but couldn't see and was afraid I'd end up in waist deep water if I wasn't careful. I ended up climbing along retaining walls just to get to the taxi stand, so I was already in a pretty foul mood when I got the illegal driver who refused to take me.
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Jan 10, 2018 13:32
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Platystemon posted:Australia has more venomous snake species than non‐venomous. they really arent that bad
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Jan 10, 2018 13:43
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Atlas Hugged posted:Do your loving job or get off the road. He finally went when I threatened to take a picture of his taxi license, which of course pictured a different guy than him. Just laughing my rear end off at the idea of this angry goon expat going to the Thai police and demanding that some poor taxi driver, who probably made 50 cents on the fare, be punished for not moving when he saw a scary snake.
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Jan 10, 2018 13:47
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Finnish bears are ridiculously shy, makes camping very easy compared to Wyoming.
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Jan 10, 2018 13:57
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Even the bears got autism!
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Jan 10, 2018 13:59
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Lupin posted:Just laughing my rear end off at the idea of this angry goon expat going to the Thai police and demanding that some poor taxi driver, who probably made 50 cents on the fare, be punished for not moving when he saw a scary snake. Reading comprehension buddy. I saw the snake after I got out of the cab. It had nothing to do with the driver. I wouldn't have gone to the police because that'd be pointless. I'd just report the cab to the company. Illegal drivers and cabs refusing fares is a huge problem in Bangkok. He made the full fare because he was driving illegally. Like you can try to make this some angry goon expat story when it's really not. 90% of the time if a cab refuses a fare I just let it go, but the fucker made me walk through shin deep water just to get to his cab and there was nothing else coming so gently caress him. If he doesn't want to drive on the main road in Bangkok then he shouldn't be driving a cab illegally.
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Jan 10, 2018 14:30
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GotLag posted:I grew up in the heavily-wooded urban fringe of an Australian city and in 20 years only ever saw snakes at zoos or wildlife parks. And once I saw a dead one on a country road. Okay, Steve Irwin, relaxify your butt. No need to get defensive and poo poo on Americans.
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Jan 10, 2018 14:34
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Atlas Hugged posted:Reading comprehension buddy. Why are they refusing fares?
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Jan 10, 2018 14:45
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Platystemon posted:University students are too old. Stop quoting Mao.
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Jan 10, 2018 14:47
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Outrail posted:Why are they refusing fares? they say something like $10 for a ride that should cost $3, or the place you want to go is inconvenient/too close/too far. taxis in bkk are less like a taxi service industry and more like just guys with cars. half of them don't know where poo poo is, no gps, and they'll drive to the general area and be like "well, this is as far as I know, can you call someone for directions the rest of the way?" taxi drivers in korea are scum, but taxi drivers in bkk are a whole different kind of hosed up
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Jan 10, 2018 14:51
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His Divine Shadow posted:Even the bears got autism!
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Jan 10, 2018 14:59
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ladron posted:they say something like $10 for a ride that should cost $3, or the place you want to go is inconvenient/too close/too far. How can you not know where poo poo is when everyone had a rectangle with every map on earth and a wayfinder in their hands?
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Jan 10, 2018 15:05
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Outrail posted:Why are they refusing fares? Depends on the driver. Sometimes they think they'll get stuck in traffic. Sometimes they're worried about finding a fare back to the area of the city they want to be in. Sometimes they don't know where it is you want them to go. Sometimes they just don't like taking foreigners. Usually their concerns are exaggerated. I think my current record is 8 taxis in a row in the middle of the day refusing to take me somewhere when I knew exactly how to get there in Thai, it was another busy area of the city where fares were easy to find, and traffic wouldn't have been remarkable. Took me 15 minutes or less to get to where I needed to be when a guy finally agreed, but that was after 30 minutes of stopping taxis. Some drivers try to operate in a very small area, but that's not what taxis are for. That's what the motorcycle taxis are for, and those guys know every drat back alley and business in a 5km radius from their stand (and are dirt cheap). Sometimes they don't think they'll make enough money for the day if they're stuck in traffic for an hour, but the meter continues to go up when the car is either not moving or moving slowly (so it goes up in addition to the distance fare) and they're not making any money when they refuse multiple fares in a row and keep prowling looking for the perfect one, getting stuck in traffic without a fare at all for their troubles. I've seriously watched whole lines of people go up to taxis before only to see every one of them refused and for the taxi to then pull away and go nowhere because traffic was at a crawl. The government has repeatedly refused to increase the minimum fare as a punitive measure to get drivers to actually take passengers regardless of where the passenger wants to go. And some drivers comply and I'm super thankful for them. Or if a driver knows a route is going to be poo poo at that particular time, they'll agree to take you to an alternative location that's nearby, which is fine too (like if I want to go to a particular BTS stop and the driver suggests going to a stop a bit further down the line, sure it'll all work out for me in the end). There's actually a new cab company out here that operates 100% by the rules and even uses GPS and a translator to help you get to where you need to if you can't explain it in Thai. However, this is only one of several companies in Bangkok and way more just let anyone drive for them if they're willing to pay the daily meter fee. As for this particular guy, I have no idea. The roads in all directions were bad from the rain and it was rush hour (6am). There was literally no where he could have gone that wouldn't have put him on flooded streets or into traffic. At that point, call it a day. But you stopped for me and waited for me to trudge through the gutter water to get into your cab and now you're going to take me 7 km up the road.
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Jan 10, 2018 15:07
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Outrail posted:Why are they refusing fares? Refusing fares happens even in HK. It is very common at certain times of the day, because they want to go to an area that's going to become fare heavy or on their way home. Now they could go off duty and do this legally, but instead they want a fare but only in that direction. This is in breach of their public taxi licence. One Christmas eve I had to threaten to call the police on a taxi driver so he'd actually take us home. He bitched about it in Cantonese all the way home because we wanted to drop some people off along our way on the same road we live on. He said "I could start a new charge after dropping people off" passive aggressively, aimed at nobody. I replied in English that he could do so if he wanted but I was close enough to walk home and he'd be stuck out in the sticks, so if he wanted the extra few bucks he could keep going. Then they have the gall to complain about Uber. Taxi drivers in Asia seem to resent people asking them to drive anywhere unless it's exactly where the driver wanted to go anyway. simplefish fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Jan 10, 2018 |
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Jan 10, 2018 15:16
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simplefish posted:Then they have the gall to complain about Uber. for real, uber beats the poo poo out of grab or hailing a taxi on the street
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Jan 10, 2018 15:19
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Outrail posted:How can you not know where poo poo is when everyone had a rectangle with every map on earth and a wayfinder in their hands? Here's an example from two weeks ago. My sister was in town and for some brilliant reason didn't get a local sim card (she has an American phone and I know some older American phones don't work with sims from outside of the states and she didn't feel like researching it so she didn't bother, so she's at least partially guilty here). As a result, she had no way to call me and no data. She wanted to get a tattoo and found a highly regarded parlor online. I found it on a map and it was in a super popular area. I hailed a taxi, explained in Thai the street name, the common name for that area, and the nearby MRT station. He agreed, took my sister, and got lost within 10 minutes. He then shouted at her for the remainder of the trip to call me despite her showing him that her phone literally was incapable of it. He didn't offer to let her use his phone (those are his minutes after all) and he wasn't about to look at Google Maps because then he'd have to 1) interpret the map and address she actually had open on her phone from when she had wifi previously 2) figure out where he was to put in directions from that location 3) follow the GPS instructions without getting more lost. Now, you might say that he could solve any of those problems quite easily, like by turning on the location function on his phone to instantly know where he was. But he didn't and he wasn't willing to. Instead he just drove in circles and stopped every 10 minutes or so to shout at a street vendor to see if they knew how to get to where my sister wanted to go (this is the most common way for a lost driver to figure out where they're supposed to go). What should have been a 15 minutes ride turned into an hour and a half. And while this was a miserable experience for my sister, at no point did the driver ask her to get out regardless of how frustrated he got and he didn't cheat her on the fare, so we considered it a net win and an overall positive experience in a Bangkok taxi. But the thing that gets missed out on this is that even if my sister had had data and could have shown him a map, even in Thai, there's really no guarantee that it would have meant anything to the driver. A lot of them aren't from Bangkok and don't know the city in any meaningful way. They only come to the city because they hear it's easy to become a driver (especially if you can just make a friend who'll let you borrow his car when he doesn't feel like driving and you don't have to go through that whole licensing process). You can tell them major landmarks in Bangkok and they'll have no idea where those things are. It can be very exasperating. Again, this isn't every driver. I've had loads of excellent drivers who even spoke very good English and loved taking foreigners because it was a chance for them to show off their language skills. I even had a driver once tell me he'd happily drive me to a nearby city (3 hours away) for free if I gave him an English lesson along the way. I'd rather put a bullet in my head, but it was a nice gesture. I had a very nice driver once who didn't speak any English, but he knew I did. So he kindly asked me to call the foreigner who had previously used his taxi and requested that I confirm the time and location that that guy had wanted to arrange for the following day. That was an initially confusing conversation, but the guy on the other end of the line was amused and grateful that he'd managed to arrange a thoughtful driver even if it only worked out because that driver happened to pick up another English speaker willing to call a stranger. (To clarify this anecdote, random foreigner takes a taxi, likes the driver so much he asks him to take him somewhere the following day, the driver agrees though he doesn't at all understand the directions, but he does get the foreigner's number, I get into the taxi later that day and he hands me the number of this guy and asks me to clarify the pickup details, which I do, and then explain to the driver in Thai what he wanted, and the driver understands and thanks me.) Bangkok, man.
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Jan 10, 2018 15:28
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Outrail posted:How can you not know where poo poo is when everyone had a rectangle with every map on earth and a wayfinder in their hands? They're idiots. Every time I get in a cab in Chengdu it's like it's the dude's first day, he doesn't speak any language I can recognize, and he's never seen a map in his life. That said they do always figure out how to get at least in the neighborhood of my... neighborhood so it's annoying more than a serious problem. I've never tried a taxi in Japan because I'm not literally made of money. The one I used in Bangkok tried to cheat me but I just walked away after laughing at him trying to bump the fare by 5x so whatever, free ride. In my part of Korea they were always quite good, though from what I hear the Seoul ones are assholes. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jan 10, 2018 |
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Jan 10, 2018 15:36
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ladron posted:after the fourth or so time I just embraced the crocs..no shame.. I don’t think Bajaj wants gutter oil on his feet.
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Jan 10, 2018 15:52
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Outrail posted:How can you not know where poo poo is when everyone had a rectangle with every map on earth and a wayfinder in their hands? Bangkok's messy and often hosed-up road layout doesn't lend itself perfectly to GPS systems, and taxi driving is one of the jobs that people get when they've come to the capital from the provinces because sometimes all it takes is a driver's license and some cash. Even the drivers who know where they're going often navigate based more on landmarks than street addresses. I would get blank stares telling people where my apartment was, but telling them the name of the bigger building one block over got me home every time.
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Jan 10, 2018 16:00
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Grand Fromage posted:The one I used in Bangkok tried to cheat me but I just walked away after laughing at him trying to bump the fare by 5x so whatever, free ride. This is always baffling to me because it's the dumbest thing they can do because most people are just going to walk away altogether and they're going to lose out on the legitimate fare they earned. They're basically just banking on their reputation of being dangerous but so long as there are people around they're not going to get out of their cab and hack you in the head with a machete like blogs would have you believe. I did have a friend get beaten up by a driver once. He fell asleep in a cab on the way back from a bar. He got to his place of residency safe enough, but noticed his backpack was missing. He looked around the backseat and then the driver flashed a smile and said, "1000 baht." My friend, as he tells it, got out of the car, opened the driver's door, dragged the driver out of the car, and was then beaten from behind by a bunch of guys waiting nearby. He never got his bag back. So he went and bought a bicycle so he'd never have to take a taxi again. Stone sober, he was hit by a car and hospitalized the following week. He still can't move his thumb properly.
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Jan 10, 2018 16:02
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