Swelters

Thanks much, this helps. I need to find the nearest cattle market to Pak Thong Chai or maybe hire one of my neighbors to do this, then visit, then make a sign etc and visit on market day. Might be an enjoyable project!

swelters

Hi All

I wonder if someone help me with some info. My wife and I own 30 reasonably fed and healthy water buffalo in the hills south of Korat, near Pak Thong Chai.  This started out as a kind of hobby but now it is getting a little out of hand and we have some personal health problems keeping us mostly in Bangkok that make it increasingly difficult to properly care for them. I would like to sell and my wife goes through the motions of trying but her heart is not in it (I think) and I am trying to figure what to do. She says she asks around the village and got a couple of leads from a neighbor but phone calls were not returned etc etc.

I figure there has to be a market some place and that I could find someone to go there and help with a deal, full service with the buyer coming to pick up, etc.

Any ideas on this? I'd be grateful for suggestions and am open to paying a commission, there must be agents who do this sort of thing. 

Thanks much for suggestions.

Dick M.

Yes, Pneumonia is pretty dangerous especially if you are over age 60. Some studies are not as optimistic about the preventive power of vitamin C (or other vitamins). Weight gain and smoking are no-nos. Surprisingly, good oral hygiene is a key preventive factor. Also being too close to kids increases the risk. Advice specific to Thailand on pneumonia is presented in some detail at http://pneumoniaforoldmen.com.

Yes, Pneumonia is pretty dangerous especially if you are over age 60. Doc Blak's comments are good advice, though some studies are not as optimistic about the preventive power of vitamin C (or other vitamins). Weight gain and smoking are no-nos. Surprisingly, good oral hygiene is a key preventive factor. Also being too close to kids increases the risk. Advice specific to Thailand on pneumonia is presented in some detail at http://pneumoniaforoldmen.com.

I am writing a book on the currently hot topic of hazards and health problems for expats living in Asia and would be most appreciative of any help on accident statistics for foreigners living in Thailand.

My current set of 3 questions is this (I've inserted my own personal answers)

1. Approximately how many expats have you known fairly well (say by name, or knowledge of personal history) in Thailand over the past five years?

about 20

2. How many of these have had significant accidents (not health issues like heart attacks or stroke) requiring hospital stays?

4

3. Details?

1 domestic slip and fall with 500,000 THB shoulder surgery

1 domestic slip and fall with head injury and death

1 sidewalk trip and fall with 200,000 arm surgery

1 sidewalk fall (drunk) with emergency room visit

Stats like this, beyond comments from friendly docs at hospitals, are hard to find. I believe the UK Embassy tracks some things such as citizen deaths, but haven't found this yet. I'm hoping this kind of info will be helpful to expats thinking about matters like insurance. I suspect that accidents are more frequent and serious here than in various home countries, but no proof of this.

Thanks much for any help on this.

Swelters

I didn't find anything recent on this topic. We have 15 water buffalo in good health and size, would like to sell in the Korat area (Pak Thong Chai).

Any leads of markets or dealer/agents would be much appreciated. If not Korat, maybe Khon Kaen?

Swelters

30°C at 90% humidity is equal to an apparent temperature of 41°C.

The A/C in dehumidify mode will drop the temperature to about 28°C and the humidity to about 60%.

28°C at 60% humidity is equal to an apparent temperature of 29°C.

i admire your applied thermo-physics maths. would you be kind enough and calculate the apparent temperature @52ºC and 99% humidity?

How would one feel with that? Not a thing: dead.

i experienced temperatures >50ºC more than once in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province albeit accompanied by much lower humidity during daytime. but 2-3 hours hours after sundown with temperatures still in the 40s and humidity shooting up so high that it condensed on tree leaves and fell like a drizzle was worse.

I assume this interesting event was with clear skies after sundown, the leaves and the ground cooling faster than the air? This is unusual, the high humidity generally impedes outward radiant cooling so you don't get condensation, for example in Bangkok.

maybe it s better to build house with the Thai style. set bedrooms second floor and live under the house during the day. open all window during night, set fan and have breeze when sleeping.

a/c has no place in Thailand. in the long term, it affect your body badly and make you poor. a/c is simply unhealthy, just Google it.

living in caves is much better.! it s 100 percent natural

I have lived in Bangkok as you suggest for several years in the past (click pic), inspired in some degree by the enjoyable village style of socializing that comes with spending daytime under the house. But I don't recommend county style habitat for most city sites because it does not often fit with the impersonal, noisy, polluted urban scene. But city living does not necessarily demand significant aircon if you plan it right and are open to reasonable adaptation to tropical climate and culture.

In fact urban concrete highrise construction offers a benefit, among others, of cool thermal mass, which to return to the OP subject, can be leveraged with breezy fans.

The so-called preference for regular use of mechanically refrigerated air may be just a status symbol or a bad personal habit like watching too much TV or drinking beer all day. But I agree with many that nighttime use is desirable in the hot season, especially if one sleeps on western bedding which impedes natural body cooling.

Traditional Thai sleeping habits were based on low BMI and wood beds with bamboo mats and small fans, air con

was not really needed.

Swelters

One answer to this can be found in the Chao Phraya River, which varies in temperature over the year from 28 to 31 deg C.

As goes the Chao Phraya, so goes the ground temperature (in Bangkok), same range by season. You won't get any lower than this no matter how deep you dig.

By analogy, temperatures of "deep" thermal masses like the floors in my condo are close to this, maybe 28-30 deg C in the hot season (because my neighbors use a lot of aircon which passes free coolth through the walls; also, opening my patio doors at night and closing in the afternoon helps a little bit. Also, my unit does not pick up direct heat from the sun, which is a key factor.)

So.... what can I tolerate? Since I am not from the UK and don't overdress I am happy with 29 deg C with a nice breeze.

If my walls and floor and ceiling are about 29 deg, the air will be the same.

So I use a table fan blowing directly a couple of meters away, that's 1 to 2 meters per second velocity. This is better albeit less romantic than a ceiling fan. As you can see from the graphic here above or larger scale below, this is perfectly comfortable.

So I don't need air conditioning, which I consider a technology that promotes unhealthy fragility.

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tropical-cool

Swelters

trouble is that the degree of knowledge associated to these degrees is very minimal, in reality they are no better than a western high school leaver and that doesnt mean finisher, it means someone that left as soon as they were able. When these people are still unable to add up manually, spell correctly or even understand an equation there is a big reason they are not able to get work. To pass a degree these days is a joke, they used to mean something 20 years ago when you needed to have a brain and think to be able to p[ass but no longer. Even iv]n schools they teach absolute garbage to the students, they treat them like idiots with their pass no matter what you answer tests and when only one class(out of several at the same level)actually teaches the harder subjects due to the fact most students cannot even fathom what the classes are about it becomes obvious.

Maybe some old fashioned learning and actually having to pass exams to advance or get a degree might help but I doubt it.

I recall, a friend, English teacher showed me one of his tests.....I couldn't believe it:

"Washington is the capitol of:"

a) Elvis Presley

Bangkok

c) USA

Beside that the question is very easy, even if you don't understand anything and make random marks you get 33% of the points. So with just guessing right on a few questions you pass.

I couldn't believe it......

(Some private University)

Actually Washington is the capital of the US, not the capitol, so your english teaching friend needs a bit of homework himself.

Unlikely to happen and should not happen. We fahlang tend to think that the property restriction laws are cruelly aimed at us, but in fact if you think about it the Thai have had a millenium of experience with other Asians who would like to own Thai land-- Indians, Vietnamese, Chinese, and now Middle Easterners. They have wisely said "no" and that refusal is a core character of the country. Who would want it otherwise?

Swelters

Most of the western ideas for passive design simply do not work in Thailand. Evaporative cooling, underground heat sinks, night sky radiation are all ineffective here because of the humidity and limited seasonal range of temperature. Underground temperatures are 29-30 deg which won't cool anything. Absolute shade (eg from trees which grow fast here) but most especially by building aspect and shading decks, thermal mass (masonry/concrete, which I recommend over insulation), and no day ventilation will prevent interior temperatures from going more than a degree or two above the daily average (for Bangkok say 31 deg in the present month of May). You can live with this by dressing lightly or not at all and using local fans. You will probably use limited aircon during hot nights (fan setting=lo, temp at 25 or lower, do not use economy setting) . These approaches work for both houses and condos. Your hot season electric bill will be maybe 30% higher than in the cool season, but not the 300% you'd face by ignoring these rules, especally the sun aspect.

East or west facing sun exposed rooms with no overhangs or decks and lots of windows are a dreadful mistake.

My major interest is in keeping cool outdoors & in marketplaces in Thailand. Feel like I'm gonna stroke out at times. Any ideas? Does the book deal w/ this?

Not directly beyond assuring that in times like the present (April May) the outdoor conditions may be beyond sustained endurance and are best avoided from 10 am to 7 pm. If it's Jatujak market you're talking about, I would say this is well into the danger zone for most foreigners especially those not acclimated.

I focus in the book on how to make the indoor conditions acceptable including times like the present with minimum use of air conditioning. Example: this rental property of my wife's is pretty pleasant even when it is hot.

Jack

Thanks for this comment, the photo is ancient and illustrates the changes in Thai tropical clothing styles but even so the immediate negative reaction may be the best guide. My alternative cover follows.

Thanks,

Jack Swelters

Hi this is Jack Swelters, I have posted on this site in re traditional home construction, air conditioning and thermal comfort issues. I am just now finishing a book on thermal comfort for the Bangkok city dweller, existing or prospective, who may be concerned about life in "the world's most uncomfortable city", the cost of aircon, and related problems. I have found Thaivisa very helpful in sorting out various ideas on the topic.

I would like to recruit several people who share an interest in this topic to help with either pre-publishing or technical review or editing of the ms, and will will provide a copy of the current draft to you if you are interested. If you would enjoy an effort to help I will supplement my offering with beers or a contribution to your electric bill as we might agree.

If this interests you, please PM me.

Thanks much,

Jack Swelters

For those who like detail, here is a chart of my bp versus daily mean temp over the cool snap at the end of 2013.

Has anyone in Thailand notiiced a significant and possibly dangerous rise in systolic blood pressure starting mid December? Something going on here, not sure what it is.

Some good, informative, and moderate replies here. Thai women are considered a family asset and mostly consider themselves so. This has good sides, children's dutiful care for parents is exemplary and the Thai are as horrified at what they take to be western indifference to family as foreigners are toward what they take to be predatory family demands. When i married I stubbornly refused to put up a big showy bundle of cash in accordance with the local custom but I had financed some Bangkok property for her (which my wife leveraged with bank loans) so she was able to put together a portfolio of assets gifted from me to exhibit at the wedding. This may seem ridiculous but looking back on it years later it all begins to make sense--especially in view of the tremendous return she has been able to achieve with the property--much better than what I could have done.

Often, by the way, parents will give sin sod money to the daughter to say, buy a house.

Very discreet negotiation is the Thai way, regretably delaying the engagement because of "tax problems" or some other fanciful foreign excuse is a good way to go. And probing for the ultimate sin sod expectation is important too. All of this of course assumes that the family are hard working and respectable folk and not not gamblers, alcoholics, etc.

Good luck Jack Swelters

deleted by OP. Mistakenly thought the whole site was spam.

Thanks for these replies. I found that my first chart predicted costs were much too high and have revised it as now shown on the original post and below. I also have shown a couple of actual usages for this year, the lower light blue for my own 100 sm shaded condo with miserly use of aircon, an upper purple, for not a condo, but a rather large and leaky Bangkok house. If you would like to send your monthly "unit" use from your bill and a brief description of your place I will add your data to this chart.

What I hope to do here is develop a guide so that you can see where you stand on your monthly electric expense and share some ideas on how to cut costs. Thanks much.

Good question, OP. I've been here a long time (50 years!) and am always on the lookout for this kind of thing.

The traditional shophouse is just what you want, they abound here. I like these neighborhoods very much.

Next, what neighborhood?

My bet for the upcoming new place is out in the area of the Banjak BTS. I did a video on this, you can see at

I don't think there is an international community here (yet) but it is a comer.

The other area we like and have been developing is around Sukhumvit Soi 65, a little closer in and near the BTS too. You can see more about these neighborhoods, with cost info etc if you go to villageinthecity.

We have been trying to work within the neighborhood framework and style and the type of thing we've done may be a little more expensive than you have in mind (rents THB 15k and up) but you could always do your own project or just rent and unimproved place. The trick is to hang arund the neighborhood and get to know some local people.

Hope this helps.

Swelters

Hi:

I am inexperienced with cameras, would be grateful for some help.

I have an 8 year old Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30, this was an $800 camera, little used by me. I am doing a lot of close-in videos of artists drawing on a small canvass, say 12 in by 12 in or less. Or on an ipad. I've been doing this with a cheap Canon in macro mode, I'd like to improve the quality of the videos and use higher resolution, say 1200 px instead of the 640 max on the Canon. But the panasonic does not do movies.

Question: can I use the Panasonic DMC-FZ30 lens and buy an up-to-date body that will shoot video? Or am I as well off just buying a whole new camera? Maybe I don't need an expensive one, given my narrow interest in its use. maybe I should get a video cam? Will they produce sharp video close in? All my videos are short clips which I transfer to my Mac for processing in iMovie. A decent microphone is desirable since I use narration and maybe also would like to connect another external mic as an option.

Thanks much for any recommendations.

Swelters

Whether alcoholism is a disease or not may be unanswerable but the degree that excess alcohol use is socially disdained is certainly a part of its meaning though rarely included in the definition. Fairly long experience convinces me that the compulsion to drink is very similar subjectively to the feeling of being in love. In fact conservative Buddhists consider both to be detrimental. Arguably, ungoverned romantic love leads in most cases to poor choices and consequences as well though this is ignored or denied especially in western thinking. So are all those songs really about a disease? A plausible conclusion if you listen to them with a clear mind.

It would be hard to imagine a string of responses so full of impotent whining as this one. I suppose that this kind of talk went on during the battle of Britain half century ago but history has kindly erased it. Get off your asses gentlemen and start thinking creatively, and recognize that your particular stakes in Thailand may not and probably should not matter.

Swelters