Bikkel

The exponential growth of the herds of cows is amazing,although i do wonder who is going to eat all the beef. Locals here never touch it.

Yeah, five years ago you would only see 2 buffalo's at most. Now whole herds in my village.

I guess a lot of cattle here are on credit from Mister Taksin. Gigantic as Bangkok is, the majority of the Thai dwell in the rural countryside. To stop the migration to the cities, Taksin artificially raised the price of rice (income for farmers) and gave farmers a low interest loan to invest in lifestock.

In doing so he achieved two things: He finished his first term and second he got re-elected. Both feats nobody achieved before in fifty years since world war II.

I wouldn't stare too blind on the 10k a head. The inlaws were pushing me too to buy lifestock, but I wouldn't touch it. Buy at 3k, sell at 10k leaves you a turnover of 7k, but two years is a long time. A cautious guesstimate suggests that you will spend 3,5k a head on medications and supplemental food. Leaves you with 3,5k a head clean. If you can sell 20 cows a year leaves you with the same montly average income as with unskilled labour (=175 bath/day - 5k bath/month). If you have to hire somebody to take care of the cows your profit erodes away. Don't forget, raising lifestock is off limits for falangs by law!

Leaves you with the option to mobilize the INLAWS. Not so difficult since they regard a falang as an ATM machine with virtual limitless credit. So they were queueing up to get a loan from me, which of course in good Isaan tradition they don't pay back. You can not break some inlaws' bones as a real loan shark would do, can you? So I said I don't charge interest (5% a MONTH at the maffia bank), but you can take care of my rice, ducks, buffalo's, cows, fish, rubber trees,......(fill in the blank) for free, until you either drop dead or pay off the loan. And believe me, the first option is much more likely than the latter.

Another strategy would be to buy (expensive) mother cows and borrow a horny bull from the neighbours. Then you can cash in early and sell off the young calfs as soon as they are big enough. Leaves you with 3k a head.

I finished Jade Empire for the XBOX recently. Very good storyline, something like knights of the old republic (Star Wars). Nice graphics too. Same as KOTOR offers Jade Empire a free roaming universe and you can play the good and dark side of the force storyline.

On the XBOX it is Need for Speed underground 2 and on the PC only Battlefield 2.

Found another free website with maps: Maporama

Maybe your wife can get a cheap loan from Mr. Taksinawat to buy cows or buffalo's. How to get it I don't know, you have to ask the local piyun baan.

Nowadays you see those cows and buffalo's everywere.

I asked a local farmer about the white indian cows: a little calf costs about 3000 bath, a grown out mamma cow is worth about 15k (his words). Beware, you need a plot of land to keep them and you have to bring the food to them (grass, hay, rice bran) if they are to put on weight quick. You see a lot of cows grazing at the road side, but then they get to much excersize. Now you see people cutting the grass next to the roadside everywere more and more. Not to mention it takes 2 years to grow out and you have to pay for medicins against parasites and the vet.

Great post!

I will probably step on a lot of toes, now. I apologize in advance if you feel offended. Roughly speaking I saw the following types: Boozers, billionairs and brokes.

Boozers: You can find them a lot in the bars of Pattaya and they start already loading up in the Eva air Evergreen deluxe flights were the drinks are free and they hassle all the other passengers. Complain about everything to cover up their own defects. People, grow up and have a life.

Billionairs: They made it big abroad and go on a spending spree in LOS since compared to their homeland the prices are cheap. Usually complain a lot about the Thai way of life, sabai sabai, and that they are being used as ATM by the Thai. Can't really blaim the Thai since the Thai think they have discovered a gold mine. Billionaires had a big burnout or a costly divorce in the past and come to LOS to start again. Some find it very difficult to resist all the nice thai ladies who love their bank account long time and have a second spring in their pants.

Brokes: They did some screwy investment in LOS and forgot that a return in LOS can take a lifetime, if it ever materialises. Dead giveaway is that they want to loan big money from you, say 500k, for one of their other investments in the twilight zone. If you do you will have two loosers.

You mean something like this?

From South park "Cartman gets an anal probe".

To much hassle to walk with that in Isaan.

What ever you do do: DON'T OPEN AN ACCOUNT AT THE THAI FARMER BANK (Kasikorn)

You will be screwed big time!

Opening an account on my name wasn't so difficult, passport with non-o and refundabe 500 bath deposit. I opened the bankaccount on Sukhumvit soi 3 in Bangkok and moved then up country: BIG MISTAKE.

When you want to do business via another Kasikorn branch different from were you opened the bank account you are out of luck. They charge you for a withdrawal 500 bath in a different branch. In the same branch were your bank account resides only 100 bath. Transfer money to an account from another non-Kasikorn bank? Forget it, you have to withdraw the amount and walk with a pile of banknotes to the other bank over the street. Transfer money to another Kasikorn bank, yep, but with a limit of 500k Bath/day if you are not make the transfer from your branch were your account resides. So I had to go back from Plichit to Bangkok just to make a money transfer!

A fellow expat has a Bangkok Bank account which has been opened in Saraburi. He has no transfer limit or hefty withdrawal fees as he does business at the Plichit branch.

So I ended up emptying the Kasikorn bank account and open a Bangkok Bank account.

yuyi,

You seem to have Hutch. I get mixed opinions about Hutch, being only available in Central Bangkok area. Is the reception good in Isaan (Buriram) and/or Kamphaeng Pet?

GSM reception seems to be different in each rice field in Isaan.

Yep, the visa only states "enter before" and a maximum date 1 year from the date it has been issued. Between the maximum date and now you can enter and leave as many times as you want with a maximum duration of 90 days. On entry you get a additional stamp with an "admitted until" date. You have to leave before the "until" date.

Getting the non-o was the real hassle because you have produce a copy of the passport or ID card of your supporting Thai family member, spouse or (girl)friend and you need an address in Thailand. Best is to bring the Thai relative / friend to the Thai embassy in person when possible. An example of an application can be found here

Once you have the visa, entering LOS is no problem. The visa does not contain the address you provided and there is no need to keep the thai address with you on entering or inside Thailand.

There is another link on this forum concerning GPS in Thailand here.

For laptops there is a freeware solution to show your location on a mapquest map downloaded from the internet here. No routing though.

Do you really need a mini pc for GPS in your car? I think your better off with a PocketPC. I found a Garmin pocketpc for 33 kBath with thai maps and a Mitac 168 with integrated GPS receiver and Thai maps for 15 kBath on the second level (counting parterre - 1 - 2) of Pantip plaza in a shop in the extreme right hand corner of the building as you enter from the main road. The shop listed a internet address dgadget. All solutions offer detailed maps of Bangkok only. The resolution of rural thailand is very rough.

If you participate in file sharing it is essential that you run Peerguardian 2! (Google it)

It screens out all packets to the cybercops and fake file senders.

Never use Kazaa. All sharerers who got nicked used Kazaa. To much fakes and virus infested files around.

Emule is a good edonkey network client and get your elinks from a verified elink provider. There is a list on slyck.com although many are down since the MPAA crackdown.

For bittorrents, Exeem is a nice alternative since it doesn't need a torrent tracker. The exeem network was up and down irregulary in the past.

No routes from A to B, but a website with roadmaps:

Multimap

Or:

Mapquest

Both show only the major roads.

If you are really looking for a hole in the wall anywere on the world, last chance is worldwind from Nasa.

Ok,

You didn't use something like boundall or laticrete.

Battlefield 2!

If youre into first person shooters that is. If you are a Railroad Tycoon type forget it.

The sologame is a kind of joke.

The real killer app is the intenet play, endless fragfests, knee deep in the dead.

Need to have ADSL though.

VOIP is not bound to a region. Just convince the shop keeper of any internet cafe that you really need to install Skype and your in business. You need to have a mike and a pair of speakers or a headset. From PC to PC is free, both PC's need to have a ADSL connection. Don't forget that the one youre calling needs to have a Skype nickname to reach him/her. But that is free.

Skype rom PC to public service telefphone net is expensive. skyping to Thai mobiele is 10 eurocents, PSTN phones 5 eurocents. Oddly enough calling back with Skype to a phone in falang countries is twice as expensive (!).

I use it to call my GF's mobiele in LOS and works like a charm.

I used to buy telephone discount cards, but service numbers are more cheaper. I don't know if they are available in your home country. In Holland my GF uses telediscount.nl for about 7 eurocents / min to Thailand to phone the inlaws. No idea on calling from LOS to overseas.

DVD shrink is the way to go. It compresses a dvd 9 to a 4,5 gig dvd+/-R and lets you select the main movie only. Yes dvd2one can do that too, but dvd shrink is free. You need nero to burn the result.

Noobie guides to dvdshrink: here

How good are you in wheeling & dealing?

I looked around in Fortune city and Pantip plaza. The prices for laptops were equal or even higher than in Europe. Luxoury goods, high import tax I guess.

I suppose you have to barter with the shopkeeper to get some discount. And don't forget those nitwits of the customs are waiting for you if you bring along the laptop back to the UK.

I am beter off by buying a laptop in a local shop and bring it to LOS.

I have the same problem: My GF is complaining about that too. Basically, my GF had her own job, she could keep all her money. I paid almost everything, mortgage, health insurance, the works.

I tought that if she made her own money, she would have self esteem, it would be good for her.

After 5 years she is still "man mee tang moet" (=broke). As it turned out her family used her as an ATM machine. I found out that she send a lot of money to her family and borrowed a lot to sisters, in-laws.

So I said to her if you borrow money from or to your family it is "jappajan" she would get the boot.

In my experience, for a thai it is family first, than Boedha, then money, than the country, Tai food, than the dog and maybe on the end comes the falang.

Think about yourself first, you should never be in a position of depence so that on one bad day you have to "vacate the premisses".

If she keeps complaining I would dump her while it is not to late.

Check this out:

http://www.woodpecker.thai.li/start.htm

No experience with them though

Hello rioet,

Did you use concrete sealant of any kind and if so what did you use for waterproofing?

I have a non-O multiple entry and my GF has to guarantee for me

It helped as I brought my GF to the embassy. The guy before me in the queue didn't get a multiple entry. But I guess it is different when you can show a marriage certificate.

You do have to leave for a visa run every 3 months though.

Maybe is the project developer just skimping. If they can squeeze a buck...

I saw many houses with just one or two meter to spare from the perimeter fence. No room to put a big carport.

Maybe it has been answered before on this forum, but bear with me:

I am about to buy a car. I read on the expat motors site that you need a notarized residency verification from your embassy to get the car on your name. It is supposed to confirm your address in Thailand.

That is the catch; I have a multiple entry "O" visum and I live with my girlfriend in Thailand as she lives with me in Europe.

Will the embassy people give me the document without hassle? I don't mind to pay for the fee, but the embassy staff are real screwballs . You don't want to know how much hassle I went through to get a residential visum for my GF.

Here is an example of all the hardware you will need for a solar power installation. Its the solar power project for the SETI people down under:

Seti solar power

Solarhart waterheaters can be found here

>hire a lifetime supply of fan bearers of suitable age?

I was thinking of a large array of hometrainers with a dynamo

Jeez, now they want to sell you a mortgage...getting a multiple entry visa and a bankaccount with a ATM card is hassle enough.

Why is Bombay booming nowadays? Because of foreign investment! Maybe Mr. Taksin will wake up someday and smell the $.