RamdomChances

Lao Khao does indeed translate to "White Whiskey/spirit" but it is made from rice. Lao deng "red whiskey" is actually rum and made from sugar caine.

Try mixing the Lao Khao with Suea sip et dtua (11 tigers) or Gowlian (SP) and you get "Yaa dong" it turns purple, and gives it a bit of taste alledgedly also keeps you healthy strong and virile

Lao Khao is usually drunk straight with a glass of cold water to go with it.

Beer Chang with Lao Khoa chasers will give you the worst hangover it is possible to get .

Lao Khao is not "Very cheap" is just cheap, not that much cheaper than some of the brands of Lao Deng like "mungorn tong" (golden dragon). Some really cheap Lao Khoa is avalible localy distilled but you buy it in plastic bags.

They also do make a rice wine which is pretty strong, not had it ofter and cant remember what its called though

As for the guy deported I dont really care

RC

I'll try and answer some of the bits I know something about (These are "up country" weddings with a pretty wide scope of ages, financial/educational backroung)

3. What's the traditional ceremony like? ( is it a 3-day ceremony, with blessings at the bride's house then at the matrimonial home etc)

Early morning around 6 o'clock the religious ceremany at the house after this food and some drink for everyone, while thay wait for the night bit. Evening big party, more akin to a western reception, usually at the house or some nearby open land, usualy big, average here around 60-70 tables so 500 plus people, 7 course meal, Thai "whiskey" and soft drinks included alond with live singing and danceing, usually starts around 6 until 12.

Name some of the most bizarre customs that are practised (like in Singapore they have kids roll all over the bed of the newlywed so that they'll have babies quickly)

There's loads of these and they do variy over the country. The groom will usually have a procesion to the brides house in the morning along with a band and his friends/family.

They will have with them "offerings" of "kanom" (sweets, cakes ect) food ect someone somewhere will have a bannana tree and a piece of sugar caine, these should be planted after and if they grow it a good sign of fertility, also someone will have a big wooden Cock, not really sure about this probably a fertility thing again.

When they reach the house they will have to get passed the brides relitives, usually involving the issuing of envolopes with cash in, eventually after much haggling and banter (all just joking) and waving around of the big wooden cock the bride will come out to recive the groom and invite him into the house. When he takes his shoes off to enter one of her family will steal them. If you have a best man part of his job is making sure no one steals your shoe's Otherwise its back to haggling and the envolopes with money (about 100 bhat) to get them back.

The Sin Sot ( paid or just for show) is counted publicly and placed on a dish with some seed's and stuff (more fertility stuff I think) Some times seeds are placed over the couples bed and they get an old couple to roll around on it a bit. ( I've forgoten what this is for ).

Who pays for the wedding (bride's family or groom's)?

It should be the brides, but a lot will depend on wether "SinSot" is given and who will get the money recived as gifts at the wedding as well as the relitive incomes ect

What is the traditional gown like and is there a historical/cultural significance.

Usually traditional Thai in the day and "falang" style in the night.

Oh I pretty much go along with all that BK90210 has said about UNi's some accept married women some not.

RC

RC

Tats/piercings are fine if you have them for the right reason and less is better than more. I find lot of people who go this route tend not to think before they do it, and they regret from doing so after and then its well too late. (least for tat part)

Anyways don't like the word "whore" it may be the case, but the connotation is rather ugly.

RC - I'm not sure of that, I think fun city just gets a bad rap, and people tend to give it one more for its reputation rather then earning it. Take Samui for instance - lawlessness there sort of pales in comparison to Pattaya. BKK I've seen more fights then I have in Patters, perhaps mere coincidence, maybe not?

I think you may just be comparing like with like (I'm assuming your talking about the tourist parts of BKK) I you compare Pattaya with say where I live or any other rural part of thailand you'd see a big differance. I dont know much about Samui only been ther once and that was enough, sort of like Ibiza in Thailand

According to the "prisons" web site http://www.correct.go.th/statis.htm

66% of the prison population ar in for drug offences and about 81% of the total prison population has been sentanced to less than 10 years with only 0.2% sentanced to death.

Forigeners caught with drugs tent to be high profile cases and I feel tend to attract higher sentances, saying that everyone should know the possible consequences. The guy was a fool and I going to have a very long time to contemplate his mistake.

RC

I would have responded sooner, but I spent almost 3 straight hours working on my previous post

I know know more about criminals, prisons and prisoners than I really wanted to know.

The link you supplied above was a little out of date (May 2002) so I found the more current link. Unfortunately, the most telling chart (Breakdown by Offense) shows the graph and the years, but not the numbers. All you can see is that Drug Offenses are by far the largest percentage.

Department of Corrections, Thailand

It does appear that they supposedly have around 97,000 fewer prisoners now than in 2002 (when you compare the info in the 2 links). Can't tell if that's the result of not including certain categories now that were included in '02 (such as prisoners awaiting investigation).

Other numbers in those 2 links don't match up either, not too important though.

As for the high-profile cases (foreigners). I personally don't read the Thai language papers or watch the Thai news. I don't know if anyone else here does either (or do they ?).

As a result, most of the local news I get is in English and tends to concentrate on events that involve foreigners. I suspect that there is a lot going on (regarding the drug trade, smuggling, trafficking, ect) that we don't hear about.

Once in awhile you see a story about some minor bust of a Thai in Pattaya (carrying a couple of pills), but even then, you rarely hear about the final outcome of their trials. I doubt the ones charged with trafficking in Class 1 drugs get off easier than foreigners.

I'll ask some of my Thai friends what they see/hear from their media.

Your right that was a bit out of date, thats why I put the link in, really I did'nt do much searching. I just think that a Thai found with a simular amount would get no where near that sentance. but as thats just more or less my personel opinion (mainly based on just idle chat and gossip with thai's) I was looking for something to back it up.

The thing is that these stiff sentances are on the books and can be applied at any time, Is it fair ? probably not. Is it a deterent ? Well I feel again probably not. I think the people who get into this are either to stupid, desperate or greedy to care and everyone thinks getting caught "will never happen to them"

A few bits from your other post

You have your laws, they have theirs. You break their laws, you face their punishment. You may not like it, but if you choose to break the law, where ever you are, you have to be prepared to face the consequences, what ever they are.

I have no problem with this statment and agree with it, but it does'nt mean I have to think its right or fair.

The sentences may suck, but ask yourself, if the sentences were more lenient, would you consider smuggling/trafficking some drugs in Thailand ?

no I would'nt and I dont really think most of the members here yourself included would, how much less would they have to be 80%, 50% 20%

On the other hand "yaa baa" is classed as a class 1 drug (I think) and judging from the posts he admited to be going to sell it, making him a "dealer" and I just notices that "Mr Hurford is then said to have confessed to police to buying the drugs in Cambodia to sell on to tourists." so there was "trafficing" as well. So I dont really have much sympathy for him, just seems an incredebly stupid thing to do IMO

RC

I think Thailand still feels it need's to be seen to be tough on drugs in the eyes of the international comunity (esp USA). This is one of the reasons for the excessivly long sentances given to forigeners in Thailand. It would be unlikly that a Thai person would get anything like that amount of time for the amount of drugs in question, let alone the death sentance.

According to the "prisons" web site http://www.correct.go.th/statis.htm

66% of the prison population ar in for drug offences and about 81% of the total prison population has been sentanced to less than 10 years with only 0.2% sentanced to death.

Forigeners caught with drugs tent to be high profile cases and I feel tend to attract higher sentances, saying that everyone should know the possible consequences. The guy was a fool and I going to have a very long time to contemplate his mistake.

RC

My point is simple there are no more bad people in Pattaya than anywhere in Thailand including BKK. The only difference is it gets reported more

I think as a percentage your probably wrong there and there are more "Bad" people in Pattaya. If you compared it to the tourist areas of BKK I'm not sure. Pattaya evolved as a "fun" city read alchol and sex, I think that will always attract a larger % of shady characters than say a rural farming enviroment or a city suburb. The same goes for most other "toruist" areas

Saying that the % is still small. I've been to Pattaya loads of time's and never really encountered any (although I'm just a tourist there) and I think you average tourist with more than a few brain cells will be unlikly to have much fo a problem.

There does seem to be a bit of snobery against Pattaya , I used to live in Phuket and would say that Patong at least is just as bad as Pattaya. Both Phuket and Pattaya have areas outside of the main tourist placed where you could live and enjoy a "normal" life (whatever "normal" is )

RC

A new tractor would be nice

i am a thai female born in thailand. my boyfriend is a farang. each month we give my mother a lot of money. she does not try to save any money. she just spends all. then she wants me to give her more money. she also gives money to her cousins and family until she has none. when i do not want to give her more money she says that i am bad. in thai culture, you can not talk bad about mom.

You GIVE your mum money, so once you give it it's not yours but her's so what does it matter on what she spends it on. You should only give gifts if you want to give them. If your unhappy giving it just dont, but it's no use winging about how your mum spends her money.

Anyone driving overlaoded knows where the fixed weigh bridges are so just avoides them. If you are on a fixed route, just slip an envelope to each police box on the route, with 100 bhat in it and your reg number and you'll be very unlikly to get stopped.

Sometimes you see loads of lorrys parked on the side of the road, this is often because the transport police(not the regular ones) have set up a road block, so every one just parks up about 400 meters from it locks the lorry and sits around waiting for them to go home (you have to get out of the lorry so they cant put an owner/driver to it). There's very rarly any stops at night so thats an other fav time.

RC

I know beef is not widely eaten by Thai's but the country imports a vast amount.

The beef industry here is in a mess. Cattle,mostly Brahman type are kept as a status symbol and for manure. Heifer calves are prized and bulls are sold at 6 months for the local market at 150kg,not hung and tastes pretty bland.

Khon Kaen University have an experimental cattle farm. Does anyone know about it please?

Growing grass here is not popular except around rice fields on the banks.but intensive grass is grown for dairy cows. The flat Issan counrtyside is not suited due to the rainfall and flooding of fields but undulating or sloping land could produce good crops if irrigation is available.

Beef Bull semen to improve conformation and growth needs importing unless someone knows of a beef farm?

Any info on the subject would be welcome or will the response just be a load of bull?

There are quite a few large beef farms in Thailand and there has been a lot of work done in crossing Brahman with Charolais. There's loads of post here about beef cattle here, I sugest you do a search.

A six month calf sold on the market would usually be sold to an other farm for "fattening up" until its about 14-16 months old. The scrawny looking Brahman"s you see on the sides of the roads are from farms basicaly raising calfs to sell, to the "feed lot" type farms who then fatten them up for selling. I dont know anyone who keeps them for status although some of the long eared , brown Brahman's go for stupid money.

Growing forage is getting increasingly popular (there's loads of stuff on the net about it if you search) although it's still mainly dairy farms that need it. There's loads of impoorted semen in Thailand already your local vet should have some, its a couple of thousand bhat a shot.

RC

oK heres one of me, the wife and my folks

I'm with Bill on this, I rarley drink while eating my meal, I'm not that much of a wine lover and if I drink 3 bottles of beer I'm usually sick (not drunk just sick). Then I'll sit down with a bottle of whiskey after if I fancy. For serious drinking we always get plenty of "gap gaem" (stuff to just pick at while your eating) that way a good session can go on all day and most of the night, just get more food in when its finnished

Rc

Around here its about 5 bhat a unit, one unit is 1 cubic meter of 1000 liters, If the house it out in the sticks the water will probably come from a "local" system, here each (well most) villagess (moo bann's) have their own bore hole supplying the village I belive they can set their own price (within reason) some palces will have a lake instead of the bore hole.

It just depends on how much water you use weather drilling a bore is worthwhile or not, most normal domestic use its not really worth it and people tent to drill them more for the reliable avalibility of water than for cost savings. Keping rainwater has got to be worth it as it's free (well you have to buy the tanks) most people around here mainly use the rain water for drinking and the mains for washing/showering ect.

There a thread strarted by me here http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=52199&hl=

looking at the costs for the other angle i.e how much it costs in electricity for pumping it may be of intrest, in a nut shell I recon its about 46 satang a unit about 10% of the cost of bought water.

My bore hole (60 meters) pump and tanks cost around 80,000 bhat but we use a LOT of water, just the farm, house and shop use around 5-6 units a day (mostly on the farm) thats without irrigation or topping up my fish pond which can raise it to about 50 units a day. Initially the main reason for putting it in was the need for a reliable supply as we were overtaxing the local supply and were prone to having days where there was just no water (big prob on the farm, thirsty cows dont give very good milk ) Well's are a lot cheaper than bore holes if its sutible in your area.

RC

AKA "going away to cooking school"

Should'nt that be Kooking school

(for those that dont know thai for jail is Kook)

Sorryabout your accident, but as has been said leagaly I dont think you have a chance, if you had hit the woman then you might of. She probably could'nt even be done for "leving the scene of an accident" as she did'nt have one

Your best bet is probably going to have a word with her and seeing if she is prepared to put up some of the bill. If she wont then you probably stuck, if you get a lawyer you'll just end up paying him as well.

RC

Ok for me :-

Beaches- Phuket, hands down

Prices- Pattaya, hands down. Phuket has to be jsut about the most expensive place in Thailand

Resteraunts- Well tough one this, but I'd go with Pattaya as it has a wider choice and probably better "Falang" resteraunts, but Phuket is better for sea food IMO

Bars/nightlife- Well I'll go against the crowd and say Phuket by a whisker:D I just find the bars there more fun(might just be because I know more people down there). Ok Pattaya has a lot more of them but most are just clones of each other.

Shopping-Pattaya more avalibility of just about everything and cheaper

Accesability- well for me Pattaya but for most people coming on holiday there's nothing really in it as you just fly down to Phuket 1 hr instead of the 2hr drive to Pattaya. For me I'd have to drive 2 hrs to get the flight anyway or about 12hr drive to Phuket as oppased to about 3.5 hrs to Pattaya

Hotel's - Well just depends on what you want Phuket has some very good top end resorts, but you pay the price where Pattaya has more choice and a very good range of "medium" hotels at affordable prices.

Just a few other points there are not the really annoying tailors in Pattaya but you do seem to get more hawkers around the bars, taxi's (tuk tuk's song treows, bhat busses motercycle taxi's) are much better in Pattaya even if you pay the "falang" price

At the end of the day it's each to their own, but both have their good and bad points

RC

Live Karon/Kata

Holiday Patong

RC

I was in town the other day and noticed (well my wife read the sign) that Ford was doing deals on the pick-up probably as the new one is due out soon, either 0% finance or nothing down. They are'nt the best IMHO but they'll do the job, might depriciate a bit initially when the new modle comes out but it you intend tokeep it a while then no probs. I've had cars and pick-ups here and IMO cars are more suited to "town" while pick-ups are the "country kings".

RC

Basicaly you can barging for just about anything.The tourist areas are just a rip-off sometimes starting at 10X the ammount that somethings actually worth as they know a lot of people will come back starting at half that fig so thay are on a winner straight away. Speaking thai helps in the tourist areas and will usually result in their starting price being much lower. I've often been buying DVD's and a "falang" next to me asks how much in english to be told 150-200 bhat and I ask in thai to be told 80-120 but to wait until after the tourist has paid

My mother-in-law bargins for everything, her usuall responce when asking how much something is , is "tam mai peng jang loei" (why so expensive) and then "Lod die toe rai" (how much can you come down). I sometimes think its so much a habit with her that if someone said it was free she would still try to knock them down

As for not bothering with the "odd 40 bhat here and there" fine if you've got it and are'nt botherd go ahead, but as has been said the ave wage is about 150 bhat a day so you are in effect giving about 25% of a daily wage.

I buy and sell cows a lot so bargining is something that you just have to do if you want a decent price. I remember a long time ago when I was quite new to all of this and we were at a farm looking at two cows, we'd got to a price which I was happy, somthing like 60,000 and my misses says no 59,000, now it was hot and sticky and I was'nt as aclimatised as I am now but this went on for about an hour with me getting more and more irratible with the wife as I was happy with 60,000. In the end they sold for 59,000 and as my wife said thats 1000 bhat profit for an hour, not bad when you look at it that way. These day's on a big deal I'll spend half a day sometimes haggling and if I really want to get the price down I'll call on the big guns (a bottle of Sang Som) and settle down to some serious bargining

I've got cow traders that I deal with regularely and they know how much something is worth, I know how much something is worth but we still try it on with one an other buying form smaller farms is sometimes harder as they dont really know what value to put on as they dont buy and sell a lot and sometimes come up with silly money but even if they under value I'll still try and knock them down as any one of them would do to me. At the end of the day if I'm not happy with the price I'll walk away.....there's always tomorrow.

RC

If you have a non immigrant visa than you can transfer the older Licence into the Thai Licence at the Testing Ground and this isn't really easy to find . But it is near Toyota and Honda Nakhon Sawan (this is outside of Town on Phitsanulok road - if you go outside town it is on the right side)

Well I never knew you could do your licence there , Your right if you dont know where it is then it's not easy to find its also where you change the regestration papers if you buy sell a car and do the anual check up.

Where in Nakorn are you? I usually do mine in Takli as its closer and our Auntie used to run it which made things a little easier I thought you had to have proof of address but it been a long time since I've done mine.

If any of you are ever around the Tak Far/Takli area feel free to pop in for a beer or ten

RC

Thanks, I was just trying to establish prices are a bit above normal, though barfining isn't the thing to do, but still, there are dancing girls there.

Also, you'll see TV mods drinking for free and/or being regular customers.

Nothing to do with anything which might be posted here by Dave.

Right?

First of well done mate, here's too the next 5 years.

Yea ok Dave's prices are a bit more than some places, but not by much and if your back home you dont expect to pay the same for a pint in the local working mens club as you would pay in a night club do you? I've been there a few times usually taking friends and I've enjoyed it every time and so have the people out visiting me.

If you want to get p#ssed and pick up some women then it not really the best choice, but Pattaya is full of places that you can do that, but ifyou want an hour or so listening to some decent music in and getting no hastle (what your name , where you come from, you buy me drink) then its a good place to go.

RC

I'd really advise agains useing it in house construction. Its not as strong as other woods and also very prone to insect attack. Its also very heavy when first cut, we've used it for roofing joists a lot as we had loads of trees around and it you have concrete posts it seems to work quite well, but I've also seen it crumble to dust within a year or so if it gets wet or is attacked by ants, its useless for fencing and I would of thought decking would be beond its limits. Mango makes lovely decking if you can get it.

It's actually cheaper now to build a house from concrete/steel than the traditional wood as the price of decent timber here has risen so much

RC

Hey RC, would you mind if I asked what kind of farm and what size it is you are running ?

As for muddy water, I kind of remember years ago someone telling me to add something to the water which will attach to the mud particles and they sink, basically clearing the water. Gypsum pops into my head, but not sure.

Dairy about 70 head, plus 40 odd rai general farm, and a fish pond theres some pics of it in my blog if you interested.

RC

In my opinion coconut is about the lowest quality timber you can get out here, dont uses it anywhere thats likley to get wet as it wont last. I've used quite a bit of it on barns, feeding troughs and outbuildings on the farm, as roofing joists, but even then only when we use zinc sheeting as the tiles would probably be too heavy for it. I would'nt of thought it was sutible for decking even if painted.

RC

As has been said that, the green/murky colour is quite natural. In fact the murkier the water the better the fish seem to like it, I hab a lot of algie blooms when I first dug mine, but all you need to do is gey fish that eat the algei (taptin, nin, lat). Mine gets all the run-off fron the farm so its very rich in cow manure, the fish thrive on it. In fact we sell baggs of cow manurt to fish farms so they can add to their water