Teak

The Yanks can be problematic,.....but , generally if you marry in a  mainstream 'Christian Church...Anglican etc., it is a recognized marriage by most Western consulates and can bypass numerous obstacles. ....Ken

Love is 'love'......I have married 3 from 3 nationalities.  If you are 30, go for it....if at 60 a gun or a high balcony  is so much cheaper  :-).

10 hours ago, JaseTheBass said:

 

So poor people have the right to put tens of thousands of people into hospital each year?

What is the point of coming to a place like Thailand where the majority are farmers and not taking the opportunities to understand their lives and hardships ?

You do not have to agree....but understanding is a start. This is a rural and urban issue and a social class divide. Understanding does not necessary mean agreeing.

But it is a start......Ken

10 hours ago, JaseTheBass said:

 

So poor people have the right to put tens of thousands of people into hospital each year?

What is the point of coming to a place like Thailand where the majority are farmers and not taking the opportunities to understand their lives and hardships ?

You do not have to agree....but understanding is a start. This is a rural and urban issue and a social class divide. Understanding does not necessary mean agreeing.

But it is a start......Ken

10 hours ago, JaseTheBass said:

 

So poor people have the right to put tens of thousands of people into hospital each year?

What is the point of coming to a place like Thailand where the majority are farmers and not taking the opportunities to understand their lives and hardships ?

You do not have to agree....but understanding is a start. This is a rural and urban issue and a social class divide. Understanding does not necessary mean agreeing.

But it is a start......Ken

On 2016-09-10 at 2:04 AM, canuckamuck said:

You have invented a nice story to go with romanticised view. However, continually burning your field and replanting corn is bad agriculture. It would be much better if they left the organic material in place.  Constantly burning the stubble is a good way to convert all of that useful organic material into smoke. The ash that is left is of limited value, and does nothing to improve the health of the soil. Nothing like the benefits of allowing the organic material to compost and be distributed by worms. Basically it is lazy farming. It's bad for the environment, bad for the water table, and bad for runoff and erosion. The only plus is that it is cheap and easy. 

A romanticized view ? .....Not at all. However, a realistic view over 30 years. The mountain farmers are poor and alternate between numerous means to make an income to sustain themselves. Granted, the agro industry is not part of this topic for me. Most posters here have no concept of the labour involved in harvesting the dried corn waste, transporting it, chopping it, adding the required amount of moisture so it remains aerobic and not anaerobic and then manually turning that compost 3 or 4 times and then depositing it back onto the field without the aid of a tractor/machinery  has spent more time reading than actually doing. I have done both and would rather burn than compost unless funded by some NGO.. Excuse me....but to be so condescending as to call a subsistence farmer 'lazy' shows your lack of understanding. Ahh, to be so blessed to smoke cigarettes, receive pension checks and criticize those who actually work to survive well past their time to stop must be a pleasure, indeed. ...Ken

On 2016-09-08 at 8:00 PM, amexpat said:

Ah, Teak, you have so, so, much to learn.  Maybe start with PM<10. 

Hmmm....as a Teak Wallah who regularly inhales parts per million far greater than 10 microns in teak dust on a daily basis , but, has never smoked or lived longer then a few months in a car exhaust congested city, my health is generally quite exceptional.  But, you do have a point. I can generally 'blow out the larger micron sized pieces while smoke/exhaust inhalers have a greater tendency to absorb the finer particulates. It does still make me wonder why anyone who is concerned about fine particulates would chose to live in any urban area ? Not seeing the contaminant you breathe does not make it better, it just lets you pretend the air is clean. At least when there is smoke in the air you are aware.   ....Ken

13 hours ago, Johpa said:

 

Yes, sustainable under normal swidden practices where a patch of land allowed to go fallow for several years is brought back into production by burning.  But these days it is vast tracts of land that are burned annually to replant feed corn for the CP Group.  Drive north of Mae Chaem or east of Phrae (just two of many possible examples) and you won't even find the older "big trees" standing.

 Hi J.   You know my area....it has not changed in 30 years, well, except for the valuable timber which is now hand sawn and gone. Each year the mountains are lit ablaze and then refreshed come the rains. This is not in the purest sense  swidden agriculture, but, swidden style foraging practices. Fast burning forest fires seldom lasting more than 2 or 3 days....then out. This is a mountainous  micro climate and not part or even possibly a part of the modern agro business. Apparently, this is why I return to this singular location. Even when the smoke blows over the ridge from the next valley, I know the Lisu families who are burning off corn stubble to prepare for the next planting. Families I have known and watched their children grow into adults. The system is less labour intensive and sustainable over decades When comparing these people with some fat phuck wheezing on his condo patio sucking a cigarette in CM collecting his monthly pension dole..my compassion leans to the farmer. However, I take your point of intense agricultural profit driven practices.

If after all these years you are in the same location. I may motor up with a wee bottle sometime this winter, just enough to share and warm myself up on the way back.   best regards...Ken 

Aye, I have watched mountains burning all around me with exhilaration and expectation of new growth when comes the rains.

Snake and scorpion free areas to harvest the new shoots. The fires are fast and not hot. The big trees are not damaged. There is a reason they traditionally do this....and generally allowed to. Controlled burning has now been recognized as ecologically sustainable. Half the complainers are undoubtedly smokers. Forget the fags and simply inhale...saves money. Come for the new harvests  :-)   or go for the clean air in Bangkok.  It is wood and grass smoke ...not vehicle exhaust and related burnt petrochemicals .  Silly buggers ride bicycles and walk in car exhaust and then only complain about what they can see ...Ken

As a (capital F) Fallang  applicant that seems slightly problematic in CM as I am the house owner and not the land owner (s).  Thanks for the suggestion though. I do have an ex relative in the local Ampur, which I can use as a reference/recommendation to CM immigration.. There must be a number of us in similar situations ? 

Theoretical question....I stay up to 6 months, at times, (tourist visa) in the house I physically built and known to have built by the whole village. The land it sits on is held in common by the family of 5 individual households and originated legaly under the old Thai 'clear the land squatter rights'. No one in the families wants to pay to upgrade the legal status...as it is expensive and no one is going to sell or go anywhere for long. I do not have a landlord. Just welcome to live in the house I built. A Thai ex wife, divorced years ago, who does not live in Thailand, who also has no 'legal title, but pleased for me to maintain 'our' house. The original title holder is long dead and the inheritor is near 90 (the old Mom) and not mobile enough to be inconvenience. The 'title' of the land will probably go to all the family when the old Mom passes. I expect that if I ever bother with a retirement visa....this will be problematic.  Suggestions?

12 hours ago, DaddyWarbucks said:

If you're surrounded by members of your extended Thai family it's your neighborhood.

You learn how to deal with problems the Thai way.

Family means everything here.

Your position in the family defines who you are.

Without one you are nobody... farang tao-nahn eng.

 

Exactly right, I left the teak house I built , for many years and full of my stuff. Nothing touched. Extended family watched over it for me, even after the divorce. I do have a daughter, which 'belongs' to the village, although she has not been there for 10 years. It doesn't matter. It would be hard to live in Thailand without being 'connected' .....and earned the right of not being regarded as an 'adult child'. 

Can't help where to locate starting fluid, but, if a gas engine put gasoline in a squirt bottle and a quick squirt down the carb,  usually does the trick.

I understand that a quick Google search will find one on Koh Samui and one in Kreungthep both in the $60 -70 USD per hour range.

Back in the 80's , prior to becoming a Teak Walla, I built and sold many flotation tanks. An ideal usage of a flotation tank was to 'alter' your brain wave pattern to enhance your ability to 'think' more creatively,; not silly shit and unicorns....but, constructively, if that was your goal.  One tank I sold to a psychologist who , after the client was in a theta brain wave pattern would induce hypnosis through tranducer underwater speakers to take the patient deeper than could be normally taken for therapeutic reasons.

I considered a float centre in CM once and putting 'monks in the box'.  Better odds dealing with the Wa and the Kachin and knocking down a few trees.....

On 2016-08-24 at 6:55 PM, kenk24 said:

 

As someone who is older, I rarely wai first but have no issue at returning one when offered and there are more formal situations, like picking up my kid at school when I am constantly returning wais.. they come with sincere smiles... I understand that there are many different types and occasions of smiles just as there are different facial expressions. If you are here long enough and observant of the culture, you eventually learn that just as a language has different words, culture can have differences too... such as "types" of smiles. 

 

I am a white male. Though I go to CM once a month, I never see any particular hatred. I think Thai are much more perceptive than you might think and respond to what they see. They pick up quickly on angry people and tend not to respond well to such, mostly not liking or wanting to avoid them. I walk around with a smile and friendly demeanor, non-threatening and non-confrontational and this is what I receive back, especially so in the countryside, I see no hatred toward me or the few other farang in our area... 

 

As to the OP - - would an increase in farang lead to an increase in workload compounded by having to deal with angry customers? 

As older now I seldom wai first unless the Thai is older than myself, however, I often slightly nod my head in acknowledgement. After spending more than 10 years in a small village, I was riding in and saw a lone 20 odd year old male on the side of the road. I prepared to nod my head as I motored past but he abruptly turned his back to me.  I was pissed, arrived home and started ranting to the wife. She just laughed and explained he knows who you are (only white guy) but he had never met you and he was just embarrassed so he turned around and avoided the situation. The wife later introduced us and he was a pleasant, friendly young man.

There was a time when I wasn't too particular and living quite rural for too many years. It was the hot season and I developed something akin to dysentery. The mother in law treated me with with small balls of opium to constipate me and I kept buying large bottles of water with those strips of plastic proving they were  'sealed hygienically". I faithfully kept hydrated and took the small balls of opium.........and kept getting worse.

As mentioned, it was the dry season and the only water was in the wells and rats would sniff out the water, lean over and fall into the well. Yeah...bottled, dead rat water with a sanitation tape....wasn't helping. Finally cured myself by going to CM for 4 days and eating BiG Macs twice a day. Bunged me up so well....worked better than opium !  I don't eat Big Mac's or eat opium today....but, both a sure cure for chronic  diarrhea.   Quoting websites isn't quite the same as living life and learning how to keep living.  :-)      ....Ken

I have left that ignorant expat /ignorant wannabe Theravada 'exception' perspective long ago, but, if you are going to kill, do it efficiently. Like..if we are to be killed ourselves. Kill us like we would wished to be killed.       

Certainly not by warfarin, which bleeds old men and rats out the same. The traditional rat trap is my favourite. I have killed lots of rats in my spring style  rat traps. Aye...but, there was this one rat I set the trap for with peanut butter and he licked so daintily he survived 3 times. On the fourth time the trap sprung and I saw a slight blood trail, but no rat.  Maybe he died.....I like to think he bettered me 3 times and then thought better of it and looked for easier pickings. I liked that rat . There is a book called the "Inner Fish" . We are all the same ....we have eyeballs forward and &lt;deleted&gt; behind. Is this a coincidence ?  Nope....just cousins with the same DNA firing in a related , but different sequences.   Damned them Buddhist............didn't get it right.. but closer than others....well, except that ghost worship shit.  ;-)   But, that does make money ;-)   I do like that part ;-)    The rats are us....they don't want much more than we do, just to have families and maybe a grand rat or 12 .   Should we start trapping Italians and Somalians ?        regards....Ken

Never use / purchase end grain wood unless for cutting veggies. Think about it ...the wood is made up up capillary cells that run vertical up the tree bringing nutrients from the roots up during the spring and down again when going into dormancy. Teak or any deciduous tree, such as maple are examples. Coniferous tree do the same. Flat sawn wood pieces will give you a more sanitary chopping block when using meat or chopping garlic, as the bacteria will not be sucked down into the grain with capillary action..  Garlic...just essence , of course, has a habit of doing similar. Now, as a rather experienced Teak Wallah....I have a bias toward the wood. The oils and waxes of teak will inhibit that transference of bacterial into the cells. However, my personal teak cutting boards are not open grained, but tight quartersawn wood. I have had food poisoning too many times. Maybe, once was from alcohol ;-(  .  When I see a typical Thai cutting board which is a round cut off a piece of random log,  I won't eat meat cut off it....restaurants, funerals, ex inlaws  etc. nope! . If it was washed down with hydrogen peroxide each night and left to soak....okay, but chances are the only thing that came close was a few rats licking the remaining juices and evacuating on the surface. Which brings me to 'street food'...so tasty.....where are the dishes washed ?

Don't get me wrong, I have ate pythons, dogs, cougars and bears....but, damn, only a fool eats food not prepared right.    ;-)  ....Ken

Does anyone know of a general area in CM to start looking for a small shop that does custom fiberglass work and can spray on gelcoat ?

Thanks...Ken

There was a time in the  old Thai male / Farrang prison that Farrang were anchored by a steel ball and chain which they carried in their  T shirts for ease of mobility. This was apparently due to a long legged Dutch man who jumped up and scaled the Thai sized wall to escape. It was more cost effective to anchor the Farrang than spend money to increase the wall. Makes sense.

My old dead friend 'Mad Mike' of the Mae Rim Swim Pool used  alum to settle and weight down the 'stuff' that accumulated in the pool.

He would recirculate and filter/ dispose of the 'stuff' periodically. It was only when he had to drown the rabid dog that he had to totally clean and chlorinate the pool. Generations of Mae Rim children learned to swim in Mad Mikes swim pool.....Ken

Big airport....try the Camiilia

Hi, I have stayed several times in the  Camillia Hotel in Kunming and then with the #3 ex wife at her apartment in KMG. Camilia Hotel... a bar is only a few steps away with English speakers and a big hotel at the intersection is higher end and good deals, if connected. Last time I went through (less the wife)  I found a hotel on line next to the airport. Looked good and cheaper. Thought I could walk from the airport. Ahhh, nope. Kunming airport is big. An old beat up van picked me up at the airport, droves at least an hour into a sketchy place near midnight. Turned down a railroad track and drove along  the tracks to the hotel. No road. My knife was in hand and ready....been though scary things previously. These guys took me to a basic hotel, friendly, kids around. Nice as could be. Picked me up in the morning and took me to the airport on time to CNX. A wee basic, but, really nice people and reliable. Be prepared and don't jump to conclusions.

.

Years ago, I remember suggesting to one of my ex wives.... that when the kid has a peanut and jelly sandwich in one hand and the other is gripped on Mom's tit ....it might be time to consider weaning. Bottom line.....who either has the juice and who needs the relationship more, gets to decide.

I go to TVF mostly for the comments, not the news unless you mean local information, in which case it is indeed useful.

If you mean news like economy, politics, developments in Thailand.... well I browse also the international editions of newspapers in SE Asia and the world, since here in the country some news tend to be "kindly forgotten".

btw, Chiang not Chaing.

The old English spelling was always Chiengmai and local Thai's still pronounce it (close to) " Shiengmai " and Chiang Rai sounds more like Schienghai.

I wonder when the current spelling of Chiang Mai was accepted..... presumably during the Vietnam war era ?

Third wife (of 7 years) was Chinese, from Yunnan Province. I watched the prices go up in China far faster and at a greater increase than in Thailand; especially prices in Northern Thailand.

I used to hire Thais at 100 baht a day for labour and now I have to pay 200 baht a day. I figure it is okay. The ban sow used to charge 200 Baht twenty years ago (for a pretty Lass) and now charge 500 Baht. I figure it is okay. Don't get me wrong, I like to complain also, but...a bit of perspective is always good. ;-)