Once you leave the city the highway system is a real highway with black asphalt, very smooth. Can do over 120 kph and not feel a single bump. The ride outside the city is nice with a mixture of farm fields, rice paddies, open air shopping malls, neighborhoods, high tech business, and occasional single home. Looks like there's a waiting area every ? some meters for public transportation or maybe transportation provided by a local company for their workers--not sure. Very enjoyable.

Getting into the smaller, more rural areas you can begin to see a change in living conditions. You will always see small homes.. some in traditional Thai style which impresses me nicely (and I'm a Japanese buff) others are more .. lacking.. to put it nicely. Out in the country the roads become two lane, often shared with the local traffic which do not acknowledge traffic rules--i.e. they might just pull out infront of you without looking. Ppl in the country tend to use motorbikes.. kinda small cc engine.. scooter-like, almost like a dirt-bike, but smaller. And various tractors.. especially tractor choppers... modified mini-tractors that pull a wagon. The controls of the tractor have been extended so that the driver can sit in the wagon part. Not very fast and they tend to be the most popular.

In most places the paved road ends and you are on dirt road. Thailand gets a lot of rain. You want 4WD. If you come from the country in the US, do not expect the same overall environment in terms of living conditions. You will be roughing it.

Btw, a traditional Thai house looks pretty good.

Up in the mountains I had a great time. Lots of waterfalls in Thailand. But you want to protect yourself. Get some mosquito repellant, and anti-malarial pills. The pills you need to get them at least 3 days before the trip b/c you're supposed to take them 2 days before you depart, everyday, then like 7 days after you return, and with food. You do not want to get malaria.. i had it, it's not fun. If you start getting sick like 48 hours later, then it stops and returns every other day.. you probably got it. There are several forms of it. Deal with it asap. One form is very deadly. All the forms have a point where the parasite goes into a hibernation and can emerge from that years later, more embedded into your system than ever before. So declare war on it before you even leave for Thailand. Also, there are many other parasites.

Snakes and things are out there in country and a lot of them. Lots of ants. Flying things with stingers, long stingers. Giant centipedes, and millipedes... check your shoes before getting into them. They like shoes. The bite is painful, poisonous. Big red ants.. they move quickly. Big black ants too, also move quickly. Lots of little red and black ants like we have in the US. Large gecko's. Large spiders. Check your shoes before getting into them. Hornets and wasps too, in large nests. Careful when walking through the bush. Also, often times treat it like walking through a rainforest. You don't have to be hacking/slashing your way through. Natural trails everywhere. Snakes like the trees, and there are a number of them, green pit viper types. A few can climb walls, even better than a lizard. There are cobras in the the Thailand area too. They like holes, and there are a lot of holes in the ground.

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